Forty Below- Milwaukee, Wisconsin Smoke School, January 22, 2004

The plant in Milwaukee contacted me in December and asked us to come do a smoke school to train about 20 people for visible emissions opacity reading and certification in late January. Normally, I just ask, What day?" This time I picked up the phone and called Andy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Environmental Division. Andy said it would be 37 below zero in late January. He said we should wait until March.

I called the plant and asked them to consider waiting until March. They said they were due and wanted to conduct the school in late January. Andy was wrong. The thermometer on my dashboard has never been more than 2 or 3 degrees away from the temperature gauge at the banks along the route. The dashboard thermometer said the outside temperature was 5 degrees. The weatherman said the northwest winds coming across Lake Michigan produced a chill factor of minus 37 degrees. That is close enough to 40 below for me.

Homer and I had dressed for the part. We stopped by the AWOL-Mart Army Navy Surplus store on Highway 257 south of our new fair city, Washington, Indiana. I am going to tell you the truth. I love this store. An elderly couple runs the store. They keep the merchandise in an old farm shed next door to their house. They are very nice and they love to chat. She said Wal-Mart was giving them some trouble about the name of the store. The last time I almost got court-martialed by the Air Force, I learned that AWOL meant absent without leave. I had to do a lot of fast-talking to get over that one. But that is another story from another age.

The AWOL-Mart store has almost everything except guns. Just piles and piles of clean used and new uniforms, coats, hats, rations, parachute ropes and nearly everything you can imagine. I was looking for some cold weather gear. I got this sheep wool Russian World War 1 hat. I love it. I looked like Doctor Chivago. I got several pair of wool socks that go plumb up to here and some wool gloves. I also got some insulated long underwear that look like they may be made out of a rubber sponge. She said to wash it in cold water and hang it up to dry. If you put it in the dryer, you may kill it. I got one of those hats to go over the wool hat, you know the hat with the snaps that go around and cover your chin. I had some problems with the hard hat. We were having the smoke school in the maintenance shop area of the plant and there were all kinds of signs that said hard hats required. When I put the hard hat on top of the other two hats, it just kind-a barely touched the top of my head more or less balanced up there by a thread. If it moved, it fell off. I finally took of the hard hat and hoped nobody would notice. I wore my traditional overhauls, and a thick flannel shirt and two coats. I guess you call that bundled up.

Outside of three years in England in the Air Force and a short 4 -week temporary duty in Iceland, this country boy spent my entire life in warm weather. Winter in Louisiana is about two weeks in January. The coldest I ever got was routinely sitting on a deer stand for about thirty minutes before it gets daylight. My fingers and toes hurt down to the bone. I remember when I was about 9-years old my Papaw Roddy White, Momma’s Daddy, put me in a leaning ladder tree stand on a logging road next to the Mississippi River Levee on Glasscock Island not too far south of Vidalia, Louisiana. He always believed in giving the deer a fighting chance. He put about 20 standers in the woods and turned loose about 30 blue-tick hounds. I heard the dogs jump and head in the opposite direction. I waited and waited for my Papaw’s old red 53 international picking up truck to rumble down the logging road and pick me up. I couldn’t stop shivering, the tears seemed to be freezing to my cheeks. Snot, can you say snot on the internet? The snot was flowing quicker than I could wipe it with my sleeve. My toes hurt and so did my fingers. He did not come for a long time. I heard shooting way down in the white oaks, pin oaks, hickory, and cypress trees. He did not come for a long time, so I decided to start walking back up the road to the truck. He had told me to stay in the tree stand until he came back.

Well, I will never forget it as long as I live. I was walking though a pin oak flat and suddenly on either side of me, I was completely surrounded by at least a hundred deer eating acorns in frenzy. Most of them were bucks and most had 10 points or better. I had an old Four-ten. / Twenty-two over and under shotgun and rifle. My fingers were too cold the pull the trigger. I just kept walking. It sure felt good to get into that truck. Momma had killed an eight-point. Oh, that takes me back. Most of that old virgin forest is long gone. Replaced by soybean fields. I hear the hunting is still good there. I haven’t been back since I was eleven. I heard the hunting dues at the Glasscock Island club are 1,000 a year. We really need to try and preserve some of this environment for our children and grandchildren. But that was then when times were better and this is now.

It was cold in Milwaukee, ain’t no doubt about it, Homer and I parked the smoke generator outside the shop the day before. Ice and snow were on the ground and the dirt was frozen solid. You couldn’t have driven a tent stake in the ground with a 29-pound hammer. We tied the tarp to a front-end loader the wind was really whipping it up. We tied another tarp around the frame of the tent to make a windbreaker. Homer said he wanted to conduct the smoke school and operate the machine, and I was willing to let him. We put the control box and all of the plastic fuel lines inside the heated shed. We set up the smoke machine so we could put the plant personnel inside of the shed. We would open the roll-up door and let them take the test while sitting in the warm shed. Most of you know me, and you know I try and do everything I can to provide good customer service and make you as comfortable as possible. I try and find state parks with covered picnic areas so you want get wet. It is just my way and I can’t help it.

Bright and early the next morning, we drove out to the plant to set up the machine for the test. I really wanted to stay right there under the blankets in that Super Eight Motel. We ran into some unexpected problems. The propane flowing to the pilot lights on both white and black smoke makers was sluggish and it was hard to keep the smoke stable enough to read the standards. It must have been colder when we were in Rhode Island last winter because the propane lines actually froze up and we had to keep changing the bottles. The thing I remember most about the Rhode Island smoke school was the Latino Fellow that could not understand my instructions.  I was plum cold. I figured we would be stuck with this person all day. He couldn't help it, He did not understand me. I can't speak a word of Spanish. I was on the loud speaker. I said read, and the man just looked at me confused. I called Homer on the loud speaker and asked him to come up front and center. I told him to walk over and stand next to the man and poke him in the ribs with his elbow every time he is supposed to look up. I sure was happy when he passed that test.

This time in Milwaukee, the biggest problem was with the plastic fuel lines. The diesel in the fuel lines froze solid as soon as we left the shed. We had to take the lines inside about 4 times and use a hair dryer before we could get the fuel pump primed and make smoke. When you conduct smoke school in very cold weather, you run into problems than even I am not familiar with. Homer could not get the machine smoke to stabilize, so reluctantly, I took over the controls. I was hoping to sit in the shed and keep warm with the others. It was about one of the quickest and easiest test I have ever done in the past 20 years. I think the only one that went quicker was down in Venice, Louisiana when one of the plant workers came out and said the weatherman says we got a tornado coming this way. I looked over my shoulder and saw the blackest meanest ugliest nastiest clouds you can imagine. I said read, read, read, read, letz get the hell out of here. Sometimes you just have to use good ole common horse sense.

Everyone passed the test in Milwaukee on the first run. We set up the propane catfish fryer in a safe area of the shed and fired her up. I had breaded and seasoned the catfish the night before. We did not need to buy any ice. I just put the fish in a large covered bowl and put them in the back seat of the Chevrolet. Most of yawl know I cook that Cajun Fried catfish with Zatarain’s Fish-fry and Tony Chachere's seasonings. You can buy Mississippi pond raised catfish, fish fryers, and Cajun seasonings in every Super Wal-Mart in America. The Louianna Peanut Oil was a little crystallized form the cold and the propane was a little sluggish. It took a long time for the frying temperature to reach 220 degrees. When we put the catfish in it sizzled and fried. Boy, let me tell you what. You could smell that fish frying clear across Wisconsin. All twenty-five of our trainees were lined up when I dumped the fish on the tray. They did not want to wait for neither the chicken drumsticks nor the french-fried taters. I love them french-fried taters, especially when I cover them with the breading.

Those Wisconsin people really made me proud. We usually cook about a half a pound of fish per person. We usually end up either throwing some away or giving some to the security guards at the plant. But not this time. We ran out, the first time ever. Several of them said it was the best fish they had ever eaten. That sure makes a fellow feel good. They told me that Bret Farve's brother opened a Cajun Restaurant up near Green Bay. They said my fish was better. They said they think he closed the restaurant down.  I reckon he made it to the first winter and said, "Shoot I'm going back to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi." You know I love smoke school; I can’t help it. And that is the way it is. Dam, I forgot to get any cheese. Well here is to the Green Bay Packers and Bret Farve. Bret, I am sorry to hear about your daddy. I can truly say it is a sad ting to loose your daddy. I still miss mine. He would be proud of me. I sure did take after him. He was one of the best educators in the world. He  loved being with his students and he loved to make them laugh.

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