Grindhouse

will be name of my new club. Techno in this corner, dance in that corner, trance over here, and of course, a mosh pit in the center!!!

The Grindhouse is the pavilion out behind the Conservation Dept. Office. While half of those on Work Crews left to go complete a campsite and build a trail to it, the rest of us sorry souls gathered to sharpen tools. And what tools they were! Picks! Maddox! Hazel Hoes! Log Tongs! Rock Bars! And they were all dull! So dull in fact that the Cons department broke out their finest grinders and said, "Have at 'em!"

So I became a Grinder. A metal working machine. I twisted my hat backwards, slipped on a pair of blades, pulled on my three finger gloves (don't judge, I find that it helps), grabbed the grinder and set to work. Water hissed as it met hot metal. Sparks flew as human grit and grinding gears tore into bent and jagged metal. Battle cries were released as men savagely prayed to their totems. And then the screams of metal on metal ended, and grimy fingers reached up to remove safety glasses. Sharp rays of sunlight were reflected off the gleaming metal. It was finished, it was perfect. And then we pulled it out of the vice, handed it to the next man, and put a new one in. And another. And another. The number of tools is both staggering and yet, almost but not quite overwhelming. Impossible to finish, and yet, almost within grasp. So we worked and sweated and glugged down great quantities of soda. We grew bored, frustrated, apathetic.

That is the Grindhouse. Work 7 and a half hours a day cleaning and sharpening. Come back as black and grimy as a coal worker. Find chunks of metal in your clothes. Note the countless, small pits in your blades formed by mini chunks of fire. Eat with both gusto and disgust as hunger overwhelms common sense (like all dining hall food, the food here is fried, full of carbs, and generally gross). Wake up in the morning and find new ways to put a bevel on a bitch hoe (an actual tool invented by one Richard Smith, combining the Pick and Hazel Hoe into one hell of a unit). Its not too exciting, its not enthralling, but damn! if it doesn't sound cool!