After getting comfortable with DOT jobs, George decided to up his game a touch. He was handling the bridge work with ease and started looking at larger projects. He was drawn to the rural areas as they did not see the number of bidders as the urban jobs experienced. The drawbacks to country work were the supply issues. Concrete and gravel pits were sparse and scattered.
The use of concrete pavements required high production plants. To be successful a contractor had to be self-reliant. Portable gravel processing and concrete production plants were the norm. It was common to purchase gravel from farmers. Move in, strip topsoil, mine the gravel, process, load out and restore to growing fields.
The first project was Route 20 in the town of Ripley. It consisted of a multi span two lane bridge over numerous railroad lines, half mile embankments, with concrete pavement. After completion the existing through girder spans were removed and approaches were graded.
Union Concrete self-produced gravel items and aggregates along with plant mix concrete for the project.
The gravel and dirt were mined off a fruit farm adjacent to the project. While it was close to the job, it was a challenge to get it out of the ground while saving as many fruit trees as possible under the watchful eyes of the farmer.
The mining was accomplished with a northwest shovel purchased from the Niagara Falls Power Project along with our brand-new CAT 944-wheel loader processing gravel.
It was on this job that I experienced my first of many disputes with Local 17. I was twelve years old and had a chance to play on the CAT 977 crawler loader. While cruising around the job, Jim Holland suggested pushing dirt off the embankment into the waste area instead of just wasting fuel. After a couple of hours, the Local 17 steward told me to park it, as I was doing covered work. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he wasn’t going to spoil my fun. I told him to go talk to George. After a few minutes he was back on his machine, and I was still pushing dirt. It seems Jim H intercepted him and told him to leave George alone, and rather just call the hall and report that a twelve-year-old was stealing work. At that point he decided to forgive the infraction.
On the ride home that night George and I discussed the importance of giving full respect to the union tradesmen, but to never let anyone interfere with a job getting done.
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