True. But Ron and Brian worked areas like me an both are in the ground. It’s just a gives me pause sometimes. In the old days we really didn’t know the risks, and were young enough to not pay attention.
I lost one of my very best long term friends ever just last month. He was the most amazing person that I have ever met. I would be quite pleased with myself if I was even half the man that he was. He spent his childhood in Africa where his parents were missionaries. He was only 71. He started having health problems a few years ago. It was mostly related to his vascular system breaking down. He had no family history of that.
He was a machinist and frequently came into contact with all sorts of solvents, lubricants and chemical cleaners. He was extremely thrifty and I do not remember ever seeing him wearing a pair of rubber gloves. I have to wonder if all those exposures to chemical agents didn't have something to do with his demise.
Without minimizing the difficulties of those who have had problems and have died with injuries related to asbestos... it just does not concern me that much more than other hazardous dusts that I have been exposed to during my life. I spent eight years working in a lumber reman plant where we made mostly cedar products. Cedar dust is also now known to make people sick. We never wore dust masks even when crawling into the dust collection system to clear clogs in the cyclone collector. I have spent the last three years restoring an old house. I saved the asbestos sheeting that I recovered from a few areas in the house and used pieces of it as a heat shield when I was soldering while putting in new copper pipes. The stuff is amazing, its no wonder that it was so widely used.
I handled it gingerly and used a dust mask when cleaning up areas that had suspect dust. I also wore a filter mask when taking down suspect ceiling popcorn and cleaning up the mess that made. At this point I take lots of precautions around dust because it can really clog me up and causes me to snore at night keeps my wife up as well.