The oddest thing.

Met a new guy in the elevator this week. It turns out that the guy was with Rock-Tech which makes the Rhino rockbreaker. That got me thinking and brought me back to my mining days. One of the first weeks I was employed in mining more than 40 years ago, my boss assigned me as a rock breaker on a grizzly on the 2800 level. In plain English I was given a track hammer -- which is a custom style of sledge hammer used for driving railroad spikes. I was to stand on the grizzly, which is a metal grid that had 16 inch openings, above an ore pass some 2200 feet deep. It was the most basic mining job I ever did that required very little skill, or so I thought. The job was to smash the hammer into large rocks and break them to they would fit through the holes in the grizzly and fall into the ore pass. The idea is that smaller rocks flow more easily through the mine ore passes on their way to the crusher, which makes them even smaller. At first I couldn't believe this was an actual job, but my shift boss assured me it was indeed. After several minutes of banging away on a large rock, my hands, wrists and forearms were aching. I remember thinking that this was the stupidest thing I had ever agreed to do. The rock was not breaking. But the money was good.

Soon enough, a more experienced miner named Al came over to explain a few things. He said the whole idea of the track hammer was that the narrow head of the hammer could hit more effectively into cracks and crevices in the rock. He showed me. He was right. After hundreds of swings and blows, I slowly got the knack of breaking rocks. It was hard work. But it was satisfying to be able to look at a larger boulder, hit it a few times and then break it into smaller pieces. Nowadays they have machines to do it. But I am glad for what I learned.