Day 52
October 20, 2020
Day 54
October 23, 2020

Day 53

 

125 STORIES IN 125 DAYS

 
This memory is shared from the Comporium Telephone Museum. The Museum is temporarily closed due to COVID-19 precautions.

Ed Barnes had 72 years of service with Comporium, serving as Vice Chairman until his death in May, 2018. In one exhibit at the Comporium Telephone Museum, he related the following story:

I was one of the crews that worked on that during the summer when I was a senior in high school and I heard a lot of tales about Old Mack from my supervisor. It was bought second-hand from the Bell system and he had brought it from Atlanta. It had a 12-mile-an-hour governor on it and he said he had to stop in Greenville and light the headlights. It had carbide headlights and solid rubber tires at the time. It was converted to electrical headlights and pneumatic tires somewhere along the way, but it was . . . we did things differently before OSHA came along. The pole trailer we had was simply a flat-bed trailer with enough space to keep the poles from rolling off, but one end of the pole was put on the tailgate of Old Mack and the trailer held up the other end. We rode in the open back and when it was going downhill on a hot summer day with creosote poles, you better be ready to get out of the way.

Ed Barnes
1946 - 2018