Chapter 22

Life was good. We were making good progress at work. I watched Jason pretty closely for the Thursday and Friday of his first week and didn't take long to determine that he was exactly as Dan had represented him: extremely capable and willing to take the initiative in scheduling his work.

I also found it interesting that before we left the office Thursday he asked about the location and hours of the library and what sort of activities he might find that didn't involve bars and clubs. A good sign, I thought. I'd worked with some who'd come to work some mornings hung over and suffering from lack of sleep, and when you're working around high voltage electricity, that's not the best condition to be in.

Friday was the tour. At nine, a school bus pulled into the parking lot and discharged a dozen students and a teacher.

As the boss had said, "You asked for this. They're yours." So I was there, along with the safety director, and we herded the group into the conference trailer. Mister Graham, retired civil engineer, now physics teacher, was the 'adult leadership'.

At least it was an 'honors' class, which meant that a certain percentage of idiots, thugs and other human detritus was eliminated. Instead, I saw before me the academic cream of the crop, but they WERE still high school students.

"Isn't that your husband, Tina?" one girl whispered.

Tina nodded. "Shhhhh!"

"If I can have your attention, please," I said.

The group MOSTLY quieted down.

"I'm Alan Addison. I'm an electrical engineer on this project, and yes, I AM Tina's husband. We at Chambers Group are happy to have you all come visit us. We hope that what you see today will give you an idea of what it takes to keep modern life going, and just maybe it will pique your interest into becoming one of the people who make these things happen."

"I need to tell you, though, that this is a REAL construction site, not an amusement park, and the hazards, while we work very hard to control them, are VERY real. I'm going to turn you over to Mister Gillis for a few minutes. He's our site safety representative ('and big anal-retentive asshole', but I didn't say that part) and he will give you a safety briefing and then pass out hard hats and safety glasses and earplugs for your visit. These are things we use every day." I turned to the overweight and overbearing man standing beside me. "Mister Gillis, if you please..."

I'd heard the briefing before, so I stepped out of the room and picked up my coffee cup. Still warm. I saw Tina smile at me as I moved away. And Susan. Susan wiggled her fingers in a little wave, smiling.

Gillis finished his spiel and started passing out the safety gear. After a few bouts with "But it'll mess up my HAIR!" and "I don't CARE what's cool, the brim goes to the FRONT!" and "Yes, EVERYBODY looks just as goofy in the safety glasses" we started off on the tour.

First stop was the control room. It was taking shape now. The operator consoles were in place, although the screens were mostly dead. I got my control engineer buddy to power one up with a preliminary display to show what state of the art controls looked like.

"Dude, I could TOTALLY do THAT!" One kid said.

"Jeremy, Just 'cuz you're a warrior troll emperor on-line doesn't mean you know anything else..." one of his buddies chided.

"Jeremy, if you want to give it a try, you need to call Mister Harris there. He's the controls engineer and he's the guy that built that display."

"And fifty others," Harris said. "Do you do any programming?"

Jeremy back-tracked, "Uh, nooo ... But I'm good with computers."

"If you want a closer look, tell your teacher and I'll see if I can't arrange for you to get one," said Harris. "You never know. Might find out that it floats your boat."

Jeremy's face displayed a little bit of thoughtfulness. We did few questions and answers.

"Follow me," I said. I took them into the control equipment room where electricians were busily terminating cables that brought data in from the unit outside. Dozens of multi-conductor cables were strewn on the floor like Technicolor serpents. Others shimmered in foil jackets. "Each of those cables goes from ONE specific place outside, in what we call 'the field', to in here, where it goes to a specific place on those interface cabinets."

"Duuuude..." one of the other students said, obviously impressed.

"And Harris in there has drawings that show EVERY one of those cables and instruments in several different ways. One of these wires coming in will make something happen on his display. And a control change on his display will send a signal out on other wires to make something happen out there. It's not magic, guys. Everything here, somebody had to sit down and think about and design, and now these guys," I pointed to one of the electricians, "Like James here, they have to install them. So that YOU can have all the plastic cups you'll ever need."

We walked out into the huge building. "Who's got a hot car?" I asked. "Not your Honda, Tina."

Titters came from the class. One guy raised his hand. "Got a big pickup truck. It's got a hemi in it. Three hundert ninety horsepower!"

"It's 'is dad's truck!" somebody helpfully added. Snickering ensued.

"Shuddup!" he said.

I patted one of my little motors. "Here's a thousand horsepower. And not just to go up the hill, then back off the gas. This is a thousand horsepower, twenty-four hours a day. For years."

I took them through the production unit, had the process engineer do an overview. He brought out his 'show and tell' board with glass containers of raw materials and finished product, and talked about temperatures and pressures and 'gozinta here' and 'comes outta there'.

Then we headed back into MY world, the electrical substation. Another overview, a few questions asked and answered, and I said, "This is Jason Ellerbee, my lead technician. Jason, can you roll one of those fifteen thousand volt circuit breakers out to show 'em?"

Jason did that, explained a bit about it. Everybody watched. Little blonde in the front watched closer than most. I had Jason show them the safety equipment, the garb needed to work safely around live electrical equipment.

"Why don't one of you try it on?" I looked at the class, picked the guy who was closest to fitting the grey quilted fire-retardant suit, and put him in it, then gloved him up. I put a pen on the floor. "Try to pick up that pen, ' I said.

"You gotta be kiddin' me," came the muffled reply. "How do you SEE out of this thing?"

I did my high voltage demonstration with arcing and sparking from a high voltage (but very low power) demonstration unit. We played a bit with the new, electrically dead equipment to show the sights and sounds, then walked through the facility to the substation we had that was live, and showed them that one.

"Notice," I said, "Live electrical equipment looks and sounds almost EXACTLY like dead electrical equipment. And the person who doesn't recognize that is liable to find out in a flash."

Jason was there with me. "Like my old boss says, 'Not only will it kill you, but you'll hurt REAL bad the whole time you're dying.'"

"Remember my sparks, folks. If I hadn't had on gloves rated for twenty thousand volts, I'd be lying on the floor whimpering from just that little bit. A Taser compared to THIS stuff is like a squirt gun compared to Niagara Falls."

We herded everybody through the unloading facility where we took in our raw feedstocks, and the shipping facility where things went out to the world, then we ended back up in the conference trailer. I showed the 3-D models of the plant, all computer-generated, and pointed out where we'd actually walked.

The boss came out to see everybody off, passing out free T-shirts, and the tour was over.

Mister Graham stood in front of the group. "Mister Addison, Mister Greenlee, thank you for the tour. What'd'ya say, people?" he said to the class.

"Thank you..." rang out. I saw Tina smiling.

The tour ended, I went to my office. Steeped myself a cup of tea, with honey. Throat was sore from all the talking. Jason came in towards lunchtime.

"You should do this shit for a living," he said, smirking.

"Oh, I don't know. Might give you the next one. You have stage presence."

"Yeah! I'm practically the Vanna White of high voltage!" he laughed. "So that was one of their advanced placement classes?"

"Yeah. The teacher is a retired civil engineer."

"I heard some of 'em ask some pretty good questions," he said. "Maybe we'll get a few engineers out of the bunch."

"At least two," I said.

"Yeah. I noticed Tina and Susan. You got lunch, or you wanna go catch something?"

"Let's go!"

We took off in my truck, headed for the restaurant and fought our way to a booth.

"Went to the library last night," he said. "Somebody already colored in the book..."

"I expect better out of you than tired old jokes, Jason. That one's so old it's part of the fossil record ... Besides, I've been to the library."

"Still," he said.

"And that's why god invented the internet, anyway."

"Yeah, but it's nice to be where books are, sometimes. And other stuff. D'ya know that Dan an' Cindy do concerts at the park where they stay?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "We went to a bluegrass concert a couple of weekends ago and Cindy sang a couple of numbers with'em, just like that."

"Ya'll got anything like that around here?"

"Every now and then. Tina and I used to drive to a concert every time we could. We're into classical, but we've done bluegrass, too. And since we got the plane, we can spread out to cover a bit more area."

So Friday ended and I get off work and as soon as I'm on the road, I flip my phone open and call Tina. She's been out of school for almost an hour by now.

"Hey, babe! " I said when I heard the rustle of phone to ear.

"Hi, yourself, but I'm not the babe you're prob'ly lookin' for," Susan giggled.

"No, but pretty close, I'm sure. Where's Tina?"

"In the bathroom!"

"Our trailer, huh?"

"'Course!"

I heard a muffled sound over the phone. "It's your husband," Susan said. To me, she said, "She KNOWS who it is. She has a unique ring tone for you! I think that's sooooo cute!"

I heard Tina's voice. "Gimme MY husband!" Susan's giggle. "Hi, sweetie! You on your way home?"

"Yep! What're you an' Susan doing?"

"Working on that term papers," she said. "I thought we'd go get something to eat when you got home. If you want..."

"Sounds good," I said. "Although I love your 'dump soup'."

"It gets old, baby," Tina said. "We'll see you in a minute, huh?"

"Yes, baby," I said.

"'Kay, my love! Bye!"

It was a small source of pride that I walked in on the two of them and got assaulted by questions about the life of Nikola Tesla and I was able to answer many of them. He was one of my heroes.

"How does HE know all this stuff, Tina?" Susan asked.

Tina looked at me. I admitted that I'd written papers on Tesla myself.

"Figures," Susan said. "Dad said 'Isn't he that guy with the coil sparky thing?' and Mom didn't have a clue."

"Everybody's not the same, Susan," Tina said. "It's Alan's thing, is all..."

"You two go ahead and do your work. I'm gonna stretch out for a few minutes before dinner!"

"About that," Susan said, "We're supposed to meet Mom an' Dad at the restaurant."

"Okay," I said.

"Dad said, and I quote, 'don't give him any crap about payin' tonight'" Susan said with a giggle.

"Sounds good to me" I said. I kicked my shoes off and lay back on the covers and closed my eyes for a few minutes. Dozed right off. Woke up to Susan's giggles and Tina's wiggles of my sock-covered toes. Life could certainly be worse.

I got up and put on my street shoes and the three of us headed out to dinner. We arrived at the restaurant and saw Mike and Kathy's SUV in the parking lot. The three of us walked in and spotted them sitting at a round table to accommodate the five of us. Mike rose and shook my hand when we walked up.

"How was the tour?" he asked.

"I thought it went well," I said. "But ask them. They may have a different idea."

Kathy eyed Susan. "Well kiddo, you've seen the inside of one of those projects. You still want engineering?"

"Oh, yes! An' Dad! Have YOU ever seen one of those things?"

"In my younger days, baby," he said.

"It's amazing!" Susan exclaimed.

"It IS!" Tina added. "No wonder Cindy gets so excited about it."

"Cindy? Oh, yeah ... Ya'll's sister!" Kathy chuckled.

The conversation turned to ACT scores and reaffirmation of college plans. We were sipping drinks and talking when Susan let out a little squeal. We all turned to her.

"That's Jason!"

"Who's Jason," Mike asked.

"He works with Alan."

"My new technician. Lost one for family problems. Got Jason to take over for 'im."

Susan was waving.

Jason saw us. He sauntered over. "Hi Susan! Alan. Tina."

Mike stood. "I'm Mike Carter, Susan's dad. And this is Kathy, Susan's mom."

"Pleased to meet you both. I'm Jason Ellerbee. I work with Alan!"

"Are you meeting somebody here?" I asked.

"No, just me an' my book," Jason said, sheepishly. "Was gonna find myself a table in the corner and eat a meal and read."

"That's sooo SAD!" Susan chirped. "Why don'tcha sit with us!?!?!"

"Yeah, why don't ya?" Tina reinforced.

"Got an extra chair," Kathy said.

"No use in tryin' to escape, Jace," I said. "It's too late!"

"I guess it's better than sitting in a corner," he said, pulling out the empty chair and settling in across from ... Susan. He pulled a paperback book out of his back pocket and laid it on the table. "Uncomfortable to sit on," he said.

I looked at the book's cover. It was science fiction. I made a comment.

"Geek fodder" he laughed.

"I wouldn't say that, exactly," Mike said. "I read this stuff."

"Me too," I said. "But then, I've been accused of being a geek an' a nerd all my life."

"Oh, yeah," Jason said. "I know the feelin'."

Tina brought up the day's tour. "You did a good job explaining that big circuit breaker," she said.

"I didn't know that Alan was going to tag me with that," he said. He looked at me. "What if I'd've turned into a tongue-tied idiot?"

"I'd've blamed it on exposure to industrial chemicals," I laughed.

The meal went pleasantly. I already knew how Tina and I interacted with Susan and her parents. I was not too awfully surprised to find that Jason was more than adequately sociable in that setting. He had a dry, self-deprecating, sense of humor, and was good listener as well as not the least bit bashful about jumping into the conversation.

When the meal finished, he was trying to pick up the tab for the whole table, but Mike stepped in. "I told Alan that this one was mine!"

"But Mike, I just barged in here..."

"Nope. You got commandeered. And I don't have any problem with this at all!"

"Okay," Jason said. "But I get the next one!"