Recently the company that makes exceptional work wear was in the news. Carhartts, a brand that is well known in America for it's durability, opted to require vaccines for it's employees, even though the supreme court ruled government mandates for private businesses unlawful. That's their business I suppose, though I don't agree with them. It won't keep me from buying their clothes; the stuff they make is tough as nails and is popular with people who make a living with their hands.

The article reminded me of my younger brother, Brett. Many years ago, he had gotten a job shortly after he graduated from high school. It wasn't what he wanted to do, but he needed to work somewhere and while perusing the help wanted ads in the local paper, he saw an ad for a laborer at the Marion Bronze Company. He applied and got the job, though I believe he found that it wasn't a good fit for him.

The men who worked at the foundry were tough; bristling with muscles. Tattooed brutes in leather boots and Carhartt pants and overalls. Most didn't bother with shirts or jackets, preferring to go bare-chested, their thick mounds of chest hair wet and dripping with sweat. Bandanas circled the heads of some in an attempt to keep the stinging sweat out of their eyes. Some had holes in their pants from molten metal splashing onto their legs. It was hard, dirty work and it took a particular kind of man to do it.

The air inside the foundry was stifling. Light filtered in from the dirty windows high in the walls of the building. Metal sparked and hissed as it was poured into molds for various projects and cooled down. It was akin to working in hell and the men who chose this line of work were a coarse lot.

Brett, on the other hand, was a smooth skinned kid, just out of high school, with no experience working anywhere, other than a Sohio station pumping gas. Wanting to fit in with this rough crowd, he went out and bought a pair of Carhartt's overalls shortly after he received his first paycheck. For those who aren't familiar with the product, the company makes work clothes out of a twelve ounce canvas duck material, reinforced at stress points with metal rivets. He chose the bib type, with two cloth straps that connect the back to the front with brass hooks that fasten to brass buttons. It so happened that the buttons rested right on his tender nipples. He never considered wearing a T-shirt or some other form of covering for his bald chest. He wanted to be one of the guys, and none of them wore shirts.

After he was working there for a few weeks, he was paired up with a fellow who had just gotten out of jail. Apparently the guy had committed some heinous crime and had spent a few years in the slammer, so he was a bit of a hardened criminal. It was just Brett's luck to have this fellow as his partner. They were directed to lift a pot of molten bronze from the furnace. The melting point of bronze is between 1675 and 1900 degrees F. Of course they each had two handles used to lift the molten metal, so they were somewhat removed from the heat, but not totally. It was during the process of moving the container that my brother realized his folly in not wearing something to serve as an insulator between his flesh and the heat. The brass buttons started to heat up and burn his nipples. The convict, realizing the pain Brett was in said, "Botts, you drop this and I'm going to kill you." What do you do in a case like that? Better to suffer burned nipples and live I suppose. They managed to get the bronze poured into the cast without incident and were able to put the hot pot down. Brett mentioned that his nipples resembled two cherry tomatoes for a week or more and hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before. I believe that it was shortly afterwards that Brett found other employment. It might not have been as lucrative, but no doubt it was safer.