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“We got all the hand-me-down trucks from the larger outfits like PG&E and Edison… I guess they didn’t want to fool around with the upkeep of them, so they’d hock ‘em off to us little Mom-N-Pop contractors… some of them were real junk…”Behind an old 1950’s International Digger swung precariously a fresh chunk of cedar that was oozing creosote, eagerto be… eager to be setinto the rock y , So uther n Cal if or.Nia soil.The crew wait edPatient ly. Wa tching, the Mick-ey-Moused rig strug gle t o stay run. Ning. “Weenie” popped the hood and had made his...

With every trade comes it’s own side effects. If you pave for a living, you critique the asphalt of all the roads you travel; if you weld, you see the beads of every metal joint, and if you work on the line— you are always looking up, seeing the crooked poles and the rest of the shit the rest of the world isn’t and expert on until they’re sitting impatiently in the dark…He drove the same route to the yard every morning for 25 years to an industrial part of Saticoy, California. Though small, only 238 acres, the farm town...

After a long stint of being out of town, a worn out line crew stopped off at a local bar for one last celebration of a job well done.  It was a different time then, mid 1960's at the latest. During this glorious time of phone-less freedom, a company truck had been "made" in the parking lot and the boys were busted. A stay-at-home Linewife found out what the crew was up to and was miffed her husband had made a stop before returning home to her after his being gone for weeks.  During his absence she had been solely...

Inspiration is everywhere.  You just need to take the time to stop and find it.  Though mine had quietly been there all along, the realization of it was purely accidental. In June of 2016, I nervously took a chance and wrote to Linejunk.com's Facebook page, (an amazing community of Linemen & their families,) asking for advice on "hanging up" my Grandfather's climbing hooks-- equipment known in the trade as, "Whiskeygetters." I had no idea what would come of it, but knew asking the opinion of my 87 year old Grandfather's fellow Linemen would be the best advice out there. On...