Cool poem I found doing some random logging searches:
Poem from Fred Ross: calls himself the Poet of Juniper Mountain
There's an empty seat on the crummy, where used to sit Hooker Jack.
In a little bungalow in the suburbs, there's a new widow dressed in black.
It happened last Thursday afternoon; there was nothing anyone could do.
The puncher ran into a hangup and jerked the mainline in two.
Jack was up on the landing, tying down a yarder sled, when the spar pole broke at the cheek bolts
and crushed a hooker dead.
So old Jack is in logger's heaven, and many stories have been told,
about the cold brooks that trickle by the wayside, and the streets are paved with gold.
There will be no blocks to carry, and no more haywire to pull,
for it doesn't snow in the winter, and the coffee jug is always full.
Alarm clocks haven't been heard of and woolen underwear is a thing of the past.
So after thirty years on the mountain, old Jack made it home at last.
We know when at last we join him, he'll have the layout made, and with his coffee jug beside him,
he'll be sitting in the shade.
Then old Jack will arise, this logger big and strong: "I been through a whole jug of coffee; what took you guys so long?"
Then we'll all gather at the spar pole and sit on the yarder sled,
while Jack tells of the new job that at first we looked to with dread.
Up here they only fly one choker and there's four men on the crew.
You don't have to wear your hard hats, and your cork boots are shiny and new.
You'd never see a man run to get his self out of the bight,
and it's a unheard-of thing up here for a logger to have a hangup to fight.
The crummies are all air-conditioned; the side rods never come around.
The yarders all have mufflers and never make a sound.
There's no such thing as Monday and you'll all get paid every day.
The cookshack door is always open to feed each and every stray.
Sometimes I think it's almost too easy for a high-ball logging man,
who gave all those years of his life in pursuit of the silver strands.
Poem from Fred Ross: calls himself the Poet of Juniper Mountain
There's an empty seat on the crummy, where used to sit Hooker Jack.
In a little bungalow in the suburbs, there's a new widow dressed in black.
It happened last Thursday afternoon; there was nothing anyone could do.
The puncher ran into a hangup and jerked the mainline in two.
Jack was up on the landing, tying down a yarder sled, when the spar pole broke at the cheek bolts
and crushed a hooker dead.
So old Jack is in logger's heaven, and many stories have been told,
about the cold brooks that trickle by the wayside, and the streets are paved with gold.
There will be no blocks to carry, and no more haywire to pull,
for it doesn't snow in the winter, and the coffee jug is always full.
Alarm clocks haven't been heard of and woolen underwear is a thing of the past.
So after thirty years on the mountain, old Jack made it home at last.
We know when at last we join him, he'll have the layout made, and with his coffee jug beside him,
he'll be sitting in the shade.
Then old Jack will arise, this logger big and strong: "I been through a whole jug of coffee; what took you guys so long?"
Then we'll all gather at the spar pole and sit on the yarder sled,
while Jack tells of the new job that at first we looked to with dread.
Up here they only fly one choker and there's four men on the crew.
You don't have to wear your hard hats, and your cork boots are shiny and new.
You'd never see a man run to get his self out of the bight,
and it's a unheard-of thing up here for a logger to have a hangup to fight.
The crummies are all air-conditioned; the side rods never come around.
The yarders all have mufflers and never make a sound.
There's no such thing as Monday and you'll all get paid every day.
The cookshack door is always open to feed each and every stray.
Sometimes I think it's almost too easy for a high-ball logging man,
who gave all those years of his life in pursuit of the silver strands.
