Hands

You know, hands are such an amazing thing. Look at your hands and cherish them; they're so valuable, more than you will ever know!

I look at my hands sometimes, all shattered and broken, but I can still give a grip of steel for a handshake (the most important of all). They tell a story.

"Keep your hands away from the tongs"...I remember that.

"when the tongs slam shut, if your hand is in there...you'll lose it". There was slippery mud everywhere, and the drill stem would swing over from the derrick. You'd wrap the chains around the stem, and the tongs would slam shut. The well-head would spin, the pipe would thread together and you'd "run" another length of pipe. Over and over again, for 18 hours, sleep 6 and get up and do it all over again...all day long.

I remember seeing that drill stem spinning around inside your gloves as you steadied the pipe, 3/4" chain wrapped around it in both directions, ends whipping around. I remember the snow and wind coming across the platform, It was murder, just endless bone-chilling cold...and you couldn't even feel your hands most times. We were covered in grease and mud, but the show went on, stem after stem. "Running" in and running out.

We'd be so tired at the end of the day that rattlesnakes would come through the bunkhouse and we didn't even care.

"DAMMIT...don't put your hands there!!!", through the fog of exhaustion beyond imagination you'd hear.

"Here, let me show you something; come with me below the drilling floor....put your hand on that drive line! What? You don't want to? Why?...because it's "stoopid" that's why! No one would do that, so why do you put your hands on the drill stem below the chains????"

It was a lesson well learned, and everyone learned it...your hands are important, and the rig will take them away in one second flat. You might get fragged and die, but that's your best day; that damn rig will take your hands right away from you.

And so, one day...I had my left hand crushed. The surgeon said "well, you'll probably never type again". I'm pretty sure I've proved him wrong now, but my left grip will never be as strong as my right one.

Prize your hands....they're really that important!!!!

The shaky wrinkled old hand, being grasped by the soft plump hand of a baby.
The adventurous hands of young lovers, building trust.
The thick callused hands of the farmer.
The dexterous hands of the musician.


As the luminary Red Green put it:
"If you're not handsome: you might as well be handy!"

a reply to: Nothin

...and hence the hand in "handy", right?

Used to love it when the derrick spun up, and you could tell the bit hooked up...progress...down that deep. The torque was almost unimaginable. Five "miles" of stem, and we're diggin'. The whole rig floor would shudder. Running 9-5/8" stem, hard core stuff.

You could feel the tool pusher pull up on the bit. The numbers were crazy, 75-80 tons, down five miles. Blowing 100 tons of mud and rock out into the tailwater pits every hour.

When that well was perforated we had like 16 trucks of dynamite to do it. The explosion even lifted the mud up at the surface,

I am slowly but surely recovering the use of my left hand.
Busted my shoulder and pinched up a radial nerve.
My hand was a limp piece of useless meat for over a month.
Today was the first day I fretted some chords on a guitar.
G, C, and D major. That's all you need to know to get layed.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Great share ... you got the urgency and slight deference to respect ... down nicely.

👍😎

Amen. When I was a coal miner, I was a "pinner". Ran a roof bolter for years and a pinner steel, spinning at high RPM, mixed with gloves, can take a hand or fingers off quick. I know several guys who lost fingers when they slammed a roofbolt up into the roof, while still having their fingers on the edge of the header board....bye bye fingers.
All my life, you could use my palms for sandpaper, so if they even soften up a bit, I feel like I'm not doing enough. I've always loved the "dirty hands" jobs. Coal mining, welding/construction, laying block for foundations.....
Almost never have to trim my nails, they just wear down. My hands look like someone used them to bust rock...torn, rough, a couple of fingers that don't bend quite right...but they're still strong, rock hard and they still give those young bucks who try to give a knucklebuster handshake a wince.

I needed this, thank you very much for sharing this story, and thusly inviting others to do the same.