The Worst Work Day

During the summers while I attended college I worked for my father’s helicopter agriculture spray company. My job was to drive around in a large truck with a 1900 gallon water tank, mix up chemicals and fertilizers and with main rotor blades running load up the aircrafts tanks. I was the loader. One day our job was to apply dry fertilizer to a crop. A large truck pulled up with a large container and an auger that would pull the product out of the tank and into a large metal bucket. The bucket was connected to the helicopter by a fifty foot cable. My father would hover over us with the dangling bucket and we would grab its rim and gently guide it under the trucks auger and fill it with the dry fertilizer. Simple work….but sand blasted every time the helicopter would come in for a load. The other downside was that the aircraft created quite a large electrical ground current. Each time my father came in to be refilled my work companion and I had to grab the metal bucket. We became the ground for the electric charge. Wow would we get a shock! It became quite hysterical as the other fellow and I took turns grabbing the bucket….then getting the jolt. We were laughing at the others reaction each time we would have to grab hold….gritting our teeth as our hands touched the metal. It was a very long painful day but in a strange way pretty funny. Eastern Washington