Ed Gabrielsen

I always liked the way he looked. He was the big boss on the job site. He only spoke to me once or twice. But I remember how he seemed so put together, and it surprised me because it was such heavy work and everyone was dusty and dirty. But his blue jeans fit him just right, and his belt was perfect. How did he do it? I felt like such a slob when I saw him walking around, talking to the crew. What was I doing there? Why the hell did I ever get involved in that kind of heavy construction work?

We were digging trenches and laying wire for the new street lights in Tucson. It was sometime around 1992. Or maybe it was 1991. I don’t exactly remember. I had just moved to Tucson, and I needed to find a job. So a guy I met named Al, he was actually my landlord, told me his company was looking for laborers. I needed a job. So I jumped at the chance to work.

Al told me to meet him at the yard, and so I rode my bike at 6:30 in the morning down Speedway to the chain linked fenced yard where they kept all the front-end loaders and trucks and shovels and rolls of wire and all the other stuff for the work they were doing. I showed up, and he gave me the job.

It was summer, and it was hot in Tucson. What the hell was I doing there? I told the other guys on the crew I was a finish carpenter. They didn’t believe me. To them, I was “gringo.” They were actually very nice to me. Two guys from Mexico. They could work me into the ground. It was pretty amazing. I had dug a few ditches before, but never in caliche. Digging caliche is like digging concrete. It might as well be concrete. In Tucson they don’t have soil. They have caliche. And so, I learned a lot on that job.

“Hey, Gringo! Mucho trabajo?”

“Si, amigo. Mucho trabajo.”

I learned to love those guys. Their wives made them fantastic lunches. Each day at lunchtime, we would find a shady spot and they would pull out their lunch boxes with big foil wrapped burritos hand made from home. Meanwhile, I was eating some garbage from a gas station at the corner. They knew how to live and how to work hard. They could dig ten times faster than I could. They could work all day long and not look tired. Meanwhile, I was dead by 10 in the morning and looking to go home.

I learned a lot on that job. How did the big boss stay so well dressed and clean? How did he always look good, with just the right blue jeans and the belt that fit perfectly? Driving a new pickup truck. Wearing a nice cowboy hat. I wanted to be him. I wanted to drive the new pickup truck. I wanted to wear the clean bluejeans. But I was down in ditches digging caliche til my hands bled.

I learned a lot on that job.