HOO HOO HOO

 Hoo Hoo Hoo

Oregon’s economic base in the early 1950s was lumber.  Between college terms I worked in the logging woods as a choker-setter,  the person who wraps a wire cable (choker) around the log so it can be dragged to the truck landing.  The job pays well because it is dangerous and requires nimble, almost athletic, physical action.  The chokers that grip the logs are connected to a heavy cable  that pulls the timbers to the truck landing.  The person controlling the movement of that main line receives his calls for forward or backwards or stop, and go from a man close to the choker-setters who sends his directions through a telegraph-like device that is connected to the line operator.  One click for stop or go.   Two clicks for forward and three for backwards. Likewise, the telegrapher gets directions from the choker-setters, who yell, HOO for stop or go, HOO HOO for forward, and HOO HOO HOO for back. (Wives of loggers belonged to an organization named the HOO-HOOETTES.)

I still regret not having my picture taken from those logging days.  You had to “stag” (cut off) the hems of your jeans  leaving ragged edges that would not snag on a limb causing an accident.  Also, no belts (they could snag), only suspenders.  Add the tin hat and you’ve got the heroic image of an authenict Oregon logger (never “lumberjack”).

One summer outside Eugene, Oregon, I was working on a high-lead show where the trees had been knocked down during the winter.  The heavy logs sunk into the wet ground making it impossible to rig the choker.  The creative solution was to have the choker-setters, in the morning, load their shirt pockets with dynamite caps and carry loggers #2 dynamite sticks in a pouch.  Dig a hole under the log , attach a cap to the dynamite and jam the stick into the hole.  Stand on top of the log and touch the two wires from the cap to a battery and BOOOOM !!!  If an OSHA agent ever saw that, he would go nuts.  Trip and fall on a log with those caps in you shirt pocket and your chest would be found somewhere high over Sacramento.

In the summer, because of fire danger when humidity would hit a certain low mark, the crew had to leave the forest.  Everybody would pile into the crummy (the worker’s transport vehicle) and head down the mountain so the men could  go home and use the free time to work in their yards or respond to their wives’ honey-do lists.  Yeah, right!  The crummy would stop at the first tavern.  Make your choice: sit in that crummy or join the boys for a cool one.  Or six.

Hey … anybody got a camera?