[Smokin' Joe]

The vast majority of 12-year-olds are not capable of operating heavy equipment.

Neither, for that matter are the vast majority of adults.

[Old Professer]

The vast majority of 12-year-olds are not capable of operating heavy equipment.

Neither, for that matter are the vast majority of adults.

296 posted on 07/09/2004 1:01:29 AM CDT by Smokin' Joe

As far as I'm concerned this statement should be the final word.

[MARTIAL MONK]

I've seen a lot of dozer drivers. It's like flying a plane, anyone can do it until something really, really bad happens. I've seen an embankment start to crumble with a semi-somnolent good-old-boy riding on top of it. In half an instant he's wide awake and pulling from every minute he ever spent in the seat. He uses the other half of the instant to crank thirty tons of slithering steel around by brute strength. When he feels that hunk of runaway metal reach the spot where it can pull itself out of the death slide, his fingers become as light as a fairy dancing on the wheel and levers. He is the soul of the machine.

No safety classes can teach that. These are the boys who learned from their fathers at 10 or 12 or 13. These are the boys who ran equipment 'till dark and then worked on it until midnight. These are the boys who learned how to be men. They have as much steel as any Cat. That is what is missing today.