“Mahz-n-Wawdzzz”

The Keed.

The vaunted Bloomfield water-tower (pictured) is being painted
It’s a standard water-tower; a large vessel on six braced columns, about 125-150 feet high — made of steel.
A similar design stands guard in De Land, Floridy, over Linda’s mother’s retirement-center, although it’s taller.
I visited the site last week (probably Wednesday, September 19, 2007), because it’s interesting to me.
I encountered a humble hourly grinding steel angle-irons down to bare metal. They were on the ground, and not a part of the water-tower.
“I used to do this sort of work,” I said; “although in the middle ‘60s, and all the water-towers we painted were golfballs.”
“We painted a golfball down by the Jersey seashore, and it was the neatest job we ever did.”
“It had just been built, so we were sandblasting off the scale, primed it, and finish-coat. —That included inside the vessel.”
“We started another in Baltimore, and that one was rather unfriendly at 175 feet. This one at the seashore was only 125 feet.”
“We did it with a single air-powered spider. I see you’ve erected scaffolding all around this thing” (see picture).
“We have to contain it,” he said; “concern for the environment.”
Before doing anything at all, they have to contain the entire water-tower in a gigantic cylindrical plastic tarp, including a roof.
“Yeah; I remember about 75% of our spray blew away.” I said.
“Well, we also have to worry about our sand,” he said.
“Ya mean you’re sandblastin’ this thing?” I asked.
He pointed to a gigantical blaster-vessel that had been towed in on a flatbed behind a giant Mack truck-tractor.
“We’ll have two,” he said. “They hold 9,000 pounds of sand each.”
“Holy mackerel!” I said. “At the seashore we had a single three-bag blaster that held three 100-pound sandbags (300 pounds total). It was pushed by a small Schramm air-compressor that generated 125 cubic-feet per minute. I loaded the blaster — by hand — and ran everything.”
“The largest sandblasting outfit I ever saw was four six-bag blasters pushed by a gigantic 650 cubic-feet per minute Schramm. I loaded them things too, all by hand, and ran that monster.”
“Well, a 650 is just a tinker-toy compared to what we got,” he said.
“To me it was a monster,” I said. “It had a giant 8-71 Detroit Diesel bus-engine, engaged by a giant four-foot steel lever. I had to stand back just startin’ that thing. Similar blower to what was on Big-Daddy’s fuel-dragster.”
“Git to work, you lazy layabout,” shouted someone from high above.
Just like the Mahz-n-Wawdzzz painter-crew — really great guys, and very conscientious.
The hourly called his boss on his cellphone: “Somebody wants to visit, but seems very interested, and sounds like he used to do work like this.......”

“Mahz-n-Wawdzzz” (Myers & Watters) is the painting-contractor I worked for during college. We mainly painted high-steel; especially in oil-refineries. “Mahz-n-Wawdzzz” is how our Greek supervisor pronounced it.

“Linda” is my wife. Her 91-year-old mother lives in a retirement-center in De Land, Floridy; under “the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower.”

A “golfball” is a water-tower on a single central leg. It looks like a golfball on a tee.