Loading...

All right, Bill goes after I'm done. Let's see if I remember. I'm going way back here and I've been impacted quite a bit from strikes. Before, when I was really young, my cousin, I, and some of my family, you know, and probably one of the reasons why I ended up working for the phone company, they had worked. And my cousin, before, you know, I was old enough to have a job, was on like the longest strike. Back then, you know, it was the Bell System owned by AT&T. So it was nationwide. And before they settled on a contract, they were out for months. You know, there was no telling how that was going to end up turning, you know, what the resolution of that was going to be. He ended up going back to work but he would remember going to the telekinesis and he was working there for a while in the meantime. And they finally settled though and he went back to work. Now, after I started working there, there's been about three strikes. And then like you're out, right, three strikes. You know, maybe that's why they ended up breaking the, breaking up AT&T into just many segments because they didn't want to deal with strikes anymore. Could be. Anyways, the first one didn't last very long and everybody went back to work, you know, within a matter of days. The second one lasted a really long time, like weeks. And I remember, you know, I was home and my first wife came home from work and saw me, you know, and it wasn't going to cut it with her, you know, me being home all day on my ham radio, you know, and no money coming in because you don't get paid during a strike. So I had to figure something out. I didn't find a paying job but I did get a big advantage because a ham friend who's a silent key now, he was an air conditioning man. And I got with him and I went with him on a lot of his calls and I learned a lot about air conditioning. How to, you know, put together the copper pipes with the solder and the torch and everything. And that came in handy later to know how to do that and how he put the Freon in and how he replaced the compressors and stuff. That doesn't have anything to do with the strike. But that's how it impacted me. I actually learned a skill that I wouldn't have otherwise known. You know, he wouldn't pay me, of course, for that. I didn't help, you know, maybe a little and the payment I got was to learn a little bit. And then after the other strike, that one didn't last long enough that I had to take any actions other than, you know, just to wait it out. The alternative is to go, you know, to the picket lines, you know, because the union has an organized picket line. You contact them, they give you the schedule and you're supposed to be there and the signs to keep people who are supposed to be on strike and go to work anyway. Well, you know, if they do that, they have to cross the picket line. So I guess, you know, strikes have impacted me quite a bit. I know that when I was in Miami after I moved from Brooklyn, New York had the biggest garbage collection strike in history. And I was watching pictures of how the garbage was collecting on the corners piling up in front of people's houses and it looked awful. And I remember thinking that, boy, I'm sure glad I don't live there anymore. That one directly didn't impact me. But those strikes can get pretty fierce before, you know, they settle on the contract. And those are several that I know about, you know, in my lifetime. Some affected me more than others, one a great deal. AA-4-H-O on Miramol, Florida. Back over to Bill now.