Jack Wasserman? let me tell you a story…Pretty sure it was 1963. Ron and I headed downtown to see the aftermath of the Greycup. BC lost! There was a kind of riot (nothing like today’s riots but rambunctious enough) As we were walking along Georgia street Ron was almost hit by a water balloon. We were in front of the Georgia hotel and , looking up we could see where the balloon came from; a party about 6 stories up. Ron was incensed.(he was quite a scrappy guy in his teenage years) Dashing down the alley he was able to climb some boxes and grabbed the bottom ladder of the fire escape. Up he went (I followed, what else could I do?) We entered the party and Ron started yelling at people. Jack Wasserman was there and recognized Ron (He and Ron’s dad were great friends) Jack came over and spoke to us. He said that someone had called the cops and we should get out. Caution took over from valour and we went back down the fire escape. In Jack’s column next day he castigated the ‘Thugs’ that crashed his party. Didn’t mention that he knew who we were. I suppose in deference to Ron’s dad.
I still needed a job so I went looking for work. Got a job in an iron foundry on Nanaimo street in Vancouver. This was the old fashioned foundry I had learned about. The place was filled with smoke from the hot iron. The metal was carried by two guys. They would position the pot over the mold and slowly pour the iron into it.
Fortunately my background in foundry work allowed me to get the less stressful job of making cores. Cores where the sand innards of a piece. Like the inside of a cup or bottle. They were destroyed after the pour and the sand mold was chopped up. The inside core couldn’t be removed and used again. It had to be broken up. Hence my endless job. It was an early morning job and while driving to work I would pick up a couple of guys who had no cars.
The workers were practically all East Indians which made lunch time lonely as I didn’t know the language. They were a good crowd and tried to tempt me with their food. (Some kind of gruel which they ate with their hands) no thanks.
I had a helper and he would supply me with the sand and took away the finished work. Unfortunately the bosses decided that they needed the cores first thing so moved my sign in time to 6 o’clock. I could do it but regretted missing out on my evening enjoyment. Not good enough they decided 2 o’clock was a better time for me to start. You can guess what happened next. I quit!
One of the guys working there who I became friends with was the general handyman. He knew everything about the foundry and taught me a lot. He had a great hobby. Flying machines towed by cars! I went out to the airport in the valley once to see what it was all about. Fascinating.
Those of my fellow workers who disliked me played all sorts of tricks on me so that my work would be shoddy and could get me fired. (which is what they wanted). I couldn’t get the molds right and was getting mighty depressed when the foreman came by and asked me why wasn’t I doing such and such before making the work? I said I’d never heard of this requirement. He gave the teachers shit. After this I began producing good stuff.
After the molds had been poured they spent a while cooling off before they were broken up. They were dumped on a vibrating screen which took the sand downstairs and left the metal objects to be washed and cleaned. Dirty work.
A semi-practical use for my 10,000 historical photos
