Baldy

Took a copy of volume 40 to Marianne Brush, whose husband Tim (“Big Voodoo Daddy”) died of pancreatic cancer before any of us were ready to have him leave us. She loved seeing him on the cover and eagerly read the stuff inside about him and the band Voodoo Chili. What a great guy Tim was. Every time I’d show up at a Voodoo Chili gig, his face would light up like we were long lost friends and he’d say, “Mr. Lane! How great to see you.”

While looking up Tim’s name in the Index, Marianne came across a Herman Brush and wondered if it were Tim’s father or brother. Somebody wrote about him in volume 19, the “Steelworkers Tales” issue. When I told Marianne that Herman’s nickname was “Baldy” and that he’d worked at Inland Steel, she said, “That’s Tim’s brother, whom we haven’t heard from since he moved to Florida during the early 1990s.”

Paul Boyter, who interviewed Herman and is the author of “Baldy,” wrote about practical jokes steelworkers at Inland played on each other and whenever possible, foremen, such as painting a guy’s boots while he was sleeping or spraying a little cheap perfume on the back of someone’s shirt near the end of a shift so the guy might have some explaining to do when his wife noticed the odor. Also people made tails out of adding machine tape and a paper clip and then would surreptitiously hook it in the back of an unsuspecting person’s belt. As the tape unrolled, the foreman or shipper would have a white tail trailing behind him. Boyter wrote: “Baldy said it was common to see several people throughout the day walking around with these tails. They didn’t usually notice their tail until shutting a door on it, having a room full of workers laughing at them.”

It seems that in the old days almost all steelworkers had nicknames, many ribald, such as Wart Man, Stutters, Glass Ass, Half Ass, Crazy Joe, Okie, Gator, Hot Dog, Boozie, Hill Billy, Tomato Face, and Captain Crunch. Some were based on the workers’ ancestry, such as Serba and Mex. Pete Fernandez recalled that at Inland Steel there was one worker called BUFF (for Big Ugly Fat, F----r), and another called BLUFF (with the “L” standing for lazy)

Took copies of volume 40 to bowling to give to teammate and friend Clark Metz and Cressmoor Lanes owner Jim Fowble, whose name is mentioned five times. He was bowling on a team with son Dave and his wife was also on hand and opened it up after I said Jim was in the Index. On April 8, 2008, I wrote that he had bowled an 803 the week before and added: “Awesome considering he has a chronic bad back.” On December 10 I wrote that Jim Fowble’s son Dave bowled an 857 the week before – unbelievable. One reference was to Jim, a Vietnam veteran, taking volume 39, “Brothers in Arms,” to his Legion post.