Ditch cleaning

[LouNY]

My railroad buddy showed me pics of one of those several years ago. They filled the bucket, then tracked to a location that needed fill, dumped the bucket and tracked back. He said it was painfully slow when they had to track a great distance to dump. Only beat those men shoveling the silt onto the flatcar by a tiny bit.

Kinda like the first autos. Barely beat a horse. Barely.....

unless you were the one on the shovel handle, then it was much better

 

[ovrszd]

unless you were the one on the shovel handle, then it was much better

Definitely!!!!

We have a lot of drainage culverts built by collecting rocks and hand mixing concrete and forming them up. Some big enough you can walk thru them. Were built utilizing the CCC government program to create jobs for men. All done by hand. Men were men back then.

 

[LouNY]

When I was young I heard many stories of the CCC work and also about the Irish immigrants,
how they dug ditches and filled them with the field stones to make stone drains in the fields and they were working for 25 to 35 cents per day.

 

[ovrszd]

When I was young I heard many stories of the CCC work and also about the Irish immigrants,
how they dug ditches and filled them with the field stones to make stone drains in the fields and they were working for 25 to 35 cents per day.

And glad to have the job. Hard times. Our society today would not fare well.......

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Don't forget the WPA...the Works Progress Administration; they also built a lot of bridges, and other infra structure. My Grand dad's privy on his farm had a concrete structure with a hand made wooden, pegged seat, and a sign that said "WPA 1938".

One of my favorite old time comedians, Brother Dave Gardner, was telling how poor he was growing up in the South; he said "The first piece of light bread I ever saw was thrown off the back of a CCC truck". Any way, if you grew up poor you'll understand it.

 

[ovrszd]

Don't forget the WPA...the Works Progress Administration; they also built a lot of bridges, and other infra structure. My Grand dad's privy on his farm had a concrete structure with a hand made wooden, pegged seat, and a sign that said "WPA 1938".

One of my favorite old time comedians, Brother Dave Gardner, was telling how poor he was growing up in the South; he said "The first piece of light bread I ever saw was thrown off the back of a CCC truck". Any way, if you grew up poor you'll understand it.

Yes, I forgot about the WPA. Didn't mean to slight them in any manner. Those organizations were very much needed.

We may see the day for something similar again.

 

[cqaigy2]

Yes, I forgot about the WPA. Didn't mean to slight them in any manner. Those organizations were very much needed.

We may see the day for something similar again.

Might not be a bad idea. Give people work they feel proud of instead of sitting at home on unemployment. At least, that would be what i would prefer. Sitting at home like that is not good for your self esteem and probably your mental health, not to mention physical health too.

 

[shaeff]

Might not be a bad idea. Give people work they feel proud of instead of sitting at home on unemployment. At least, that would be what i would prefer. Sitting at home like that is not good for your self esteem and probably your mental health, not to mention physical health too.

If I were unemployed I'd jump at the opportunity. Sadly, I doubt many of today's unemployed would be so eager. Many of them want something for nothing, and many (now with COVID-19) are making more on Unemployment than they did while they were working. Not turning this political, but people fail to see the need of projects like this, both for our infrastructure and for an earned paycheck.

 

[PILOON]

There was a time whereby you could only get UI only if they could not offer U some work be it whatever.
Then came the lawyers that argued that you could not force someone to work outside of his trade. i.e. make an unemployed office worker dig ditches or sweep streets.

Knew one person that played on words to get it (UI) during the winter.
Claimed she was a 'plongeur' which in french is a diver, but also refers to a dish washer (unofficially)

I suspect today's workaround is to not marry so the better half can enjoy UI benefits whenever they choose. (that in small family firms as UI is not possible)

 

[kenmbz]

Where my uncle's house was in MA there were CCC camps and you could still see the building foundations. In those areas they were "taking back" the forest and having the teams plant trees. When I was a kid, you could see in some areas still, that the trees were all in straight lines. People in that area jumped at work when the mills were shutting down, almost everyone on our little hill knew someone who had worked in these camps.

Whenever the government gets involved in unemployment, they always make a mess of it. People who they forced to work were doing 3-4 hour commutes and barely making enough to cover the bus fare. Those that didn't want to work always found a way around these rules anyway, so only the people who wanted work were punished by ineptness of the Gov. to find them work that was close by. This wasn't that long ago.