Chapter Ten

Calls with interesting outcomes

If you get a couple of cops in the room and get them started, you will undoubtedly hear some stories, we all have them.

One time on Graveyard shift, Norm and I responded to a call of a bat in the house.

It was a quiet night, so we responded to see if we could help.

The caller took us into their bedroom where the bat was flying around trying to find a way out. 

It took us a bit, the bedroom was small and the bat was fast; but we managed to throw a blanket over it.  We took it out; we didn’t think about it at the time, but we released it (now, we would have held on to it and had it tested for rabies – no one was bit, so it wasn’t a danger to them.)

The next night we come to work and to find a front page headline in The Dalles Chronicle, Batman and Robin are on the job.  They then had a short article about the incident – didn’t name us.

We got ribbed about that for a few days.

We were working day shift when a call came into the 9-1-1 center.   The caller was screaming that they were going to kill her.  The dispatcher tried to calm her down to get more information, but all she would say is they were going to kill her.

She did get the address and put it out over the radio. It was on West 3^rd St, across from the Veterinarian’s office.

We responded lights and sirens; one officer coming in from the east the other from the west.  Hearts pounding, adrenaline flowing and trying to figure out just what we would have to do when we got there.

The caller then screamed that they had killed her.  Wasco County was advised as was the State Police.  Sirens were blaring from all over.

We arrived on the scene drawing our weapons and ready to defend ourselves and take down the suspect(s).

What we found were some Mexicans who were in town for the cherry harvest.  They had decided to rent a house instead of staying in the housing in the orchard.

One of them was holding a knife with blood dripping off of it when we arrived.  There were four of them; we told the one who had the knife to drop it and all of them to hold their hands up, they spoke enough English to understand that and did so.

The one with the knife was standing over a goat that he had just killed.  They had dug a pit in the front yard and were going to barbecue it.  One of them spoke good English and we told him it would be advisable to do this somewhere else, next time; there would be less drama.

We went to the neighbor and tried to tell her that what they did was legal, she wouldn’t hear it; she expected them to be arrested and told us so.

When we wouldn’t arrest them she said she would be talking to the Chief the next day – if she did he didn’t say anything to us.

The Dalles City limits were not straight by any means, sometimes you actually had to go out of the city, through the county, to get back in the city. 

There were some areas where two houses were in, while a house in between them was out.  It wasn’t unusual to have one side of the street inside the city limits while the other side was out, for several blocks.

I was driving down one of those roads, where the outside was an orchard.  I was flagged down by a Mexican.

He was very upset, because there was a man on the property that was drunk, cussing and being very obnoxious, around the complainant, but more particularly his wife and children.

He was upset about it and wanted something done.

I explained to him that the orchard and camp was outside the City Limits, but I would have a deputy come up to talk to him.

Too be honest with you, the first thing I thought of was, “what do you think is going to happen when you are living in orchard housing?”

That comment didn’t come out of my mouth and immediately I thought, this man and his family have a right to live in an environment that is free from that kind of behavior.

I drove by the next day and saw him talking to some others.  I asked him if the man had been taken care of, he said yes, the deputy came by then talked to the Orchardist, who kicked him out.

During Cherry Harvest we have anywhere from 5000 to 10,000 workers and their families come into our area. 

These men and women, for the most part, stayed in the camps.  They worked hard, it isn’t an easy job, but they can make good money following the harvest.

Most go back to Mexico and are able to live comfortably with the wages they earned during the summer.

In the city we have very little contact with the workers, the biggest problem we had when I was on the streets was workers causing accidents. 

People who have cars for sale will park them along the roads heading to the orchards with for sale signs on them.

There are always some young men who decided they wanted to buy a car with their wages.  Many of them had never driven before, or had very little experience.

Occasionally we would have fights, but not very often and when it did happen it was usually started by one of the local citizens.

The other problems we had in the mid-70’s, after the law on domestic violence changed to mandatory arrest if we had evidence to do so.  Many of the men thought, that as the man of the house, when their wife didn’t obey them, they could assault them.  Eventually, they learned not to commit the assaults, at least not in our community.

However, even those calls were few and far between.  For having that many people come into our area, they created very little problems and were vital to the health and vitality of the community.

But there were years when there was insufficient workers and the orchards were looking for help.

I can remember one night at 0130 I stopped three teenagers because they were violating curfew.  They were in a business area and acting suspicious.

I asked them why they were out so late.  ‘Nothing to do in this town’ was the answer.  They couldn’t find jobs so slept in and then were just hanging out at night.

I told them that several of the orchardists needed workers, they sneered and said they would never work with those people.  Basically it was ‘beneath’ them.

Despite my first ‘response’ to the man who was upset, I do have a lot of respect for the workers.  They work hard, help our citizens and cause little problems.

Shortly after moving to The Dalles one of my co-workers at Safeway needed workers in her cherry orchards.  The orchard was old and had not been taken care of before they purchased it.  They had some Mexicans come by to see if they would bring their crew in to harvest the orchard.

Because it had not been cut back it would be easy to pick the fruit, so they all declined.

The co-worker was asking around to see if anyone wanted to help out.  I mentioned it to Carla and she said she would.  She would take our oldest daughter with her and helped for a couple of weeks.

Now a good worker could pick enough cherries to make almost a hundred dollars a day.

Because of the age and condition of the orchard, and the fact that Carla was not real experienced she didn’t make anywhere near that much, but she did get it up to $25 a day, which wasn’t too bad.

One day I decided since I had the day off, I would go up with her, figuring if she made $25, the two of us should make at least another $15-$20. 

It was the last day, when we arrived they invited us up to the house to have breakfast with them.  Instead of starting work at 0500, we ended up out there at 0900 and stopped work early.

Now even IF we had worked the entire time, I wouldn’t have made up the additional money, that is hard work!

Many of the orchardists have a dinner where, at the end of the season and on the last day, they have all the workers gather and the orchardists cook and serve them.

We have friends with an orchard.  Their daughter was the same age and the best friend of our oldest daughter.

She was out at the orchard the day they would be having the dinner.  I got a call of apology because they were enlisting her help to serve the workers and hadn’t talked to us about it.

Neither Carla nor I had any problems with that, it was a good experience.  These men and women work hard and deserve recognition for that hard work.  While I know orchardists show it in many ways and this is just one of them, it is a good way to finish off the season with a thank you.

One of the things we used to be asked to do is help get trucks with large items on a trailer get to where they need to be.

One Sunday morning I was assigned just such a task.

They had a large transformer coming into town on railroad flat bed.  It was to be transferred over to a flatbed trailer that would be towed by two semi-trucks and a push vehicle, a pickup with a bar on the front that was hooked up to the back of the trailer.

We had several blocks to go on a side street; we would have to cross the railroad tracks at Monroe St., go up that street to 2nd and then out 2^nd to the Big Eddie substation.  A deputy would meet us at the City limits and escort them the rest of the way.

The trailer had small balloon tires all along both sides of the trailer.  The speed was about 2 miles an hour.

Things were going well until we got halfway over the railroad crossing. 

I heard the train whistle, looked down the rails and saw a train coming down the tracks, slowing down as best they can, and blowing their horn; I knew it couldn’t stop in time.

The trailer was over the tracks, the trucks sped up as best they could, but the chance of them making it was nil.

There is an old story.

A man was applying for the position of a switchman in a rural area.  There was a house for him and his family to live in while assigned there.

During the interviewed he was given a number of scenarios.

One of which was, he got word that there were two trains on the track coming at each other.  It was 0200 hours, dark.

What was he going to do?  He said, I would go out to the tracks and wave the red lantern so that both engineers would see it and stop.

He was told that they were going too fast, and wouldn’t be able to stop in time. 

The man said, then, I would get on the telegraph and try and get word up the line, both ways.  The lines are down, now what are you going to do?

I would call my wife to come out of the house.

Why in the world would you do that? he was asked.

Because I would want her to see the most spectacular train wreck in history, was his answer.

I called on the radio to John, who was my Sergeant at the time; I said we are going to have a huge accident in just a moment.

The train kept getting closer, the trucks were using all the power at their disposal, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

They managed to get the trailer off the tracks, but the pickup push rig was still on the tracks when the Engine arrived and hit it.

The driver stayed in the cab until the trailer was off the tracks then dived out onto the ground; uninjured.

The truck was demolished; the force of the accident tore his push rod off the trailer.  The trailer was not damaged.

The train finally stopped, about half a mile up the tracks.

We had some upset people.

The representative of the moving company was livid.  The drivers were livid, with the one in the pickup much more so, (he was banged up a bit but okay.)

The conductor came up, out of breath from running to the scene, and he was just as mad.

I stood in between them, trying to get them both to settle down. 

The conductor was yelling that the moving company should have notified the railroad that they would be crossing the tracks so they could have delayed all train traffic.

The rep, for the moving company, said he had both the day before and that morning when they started moving the transformer.

John had arrived at the time, we talked about it and figured it was miscommunication of some kind and we didn’t need to get in the middle of it.

The transformer stayed on the side of the street for a while.  I was due to get off work, so I passed along the assignment to day shift and went on home; thankful that the accident hadn’t been a whole lot worse!

Copyright November 13, 2017 Art Labrousse

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Mathew 10:8  KJV  “Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat.”

For the workman is worth of his meat. 

No matter what the job is, unless it is illegal, workers need to be respected for their work.

It doesn’t matter if it is the Chairman of a large cooperation or the janitor that works in the building.

If they are doing their job well and as to the best of their ability they deserve respect.

Too many people equate value with the size of a salary, or the degrees that are necessary to obtain a job.

Yet, no matter what the job, even the most minimal, has a reason for being.  At least in most cases.

Some jobs are worth more as far as responsibility, authority and job requirements, but without those ‘lesser’ jobs it would be more difficult to accomplish the goals of employer.

I Corinthians 12:13-15   KJV  “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

¹⁴ For the body is not one member, but many.

¹⁵ If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?”

Just as we need to respect the service of our fellow Christians, no matter their mission, so we must give respect to those that wait on our table, check out our groceries or any other duty performed on our behalf.

Even those that pick cherries for a living.

Later, Art (-: