Harv your story sorta kinda almosta reminds me of mine.
I was twenty five and working for GTE in southern California as a cable splicer. Now back then cable splicing was just coming out of the dark ages. No it wasn't that technology was leading it out. It was evolving from a real macho backwards profession to something resembling a craft.
When I went to work there at twenty they had just revised the apprentice program. Before that you worked as an apprentice for five to six years before you became a splicer. That meant the splicer had a pet dawg and the apprentice had a tormentor or three. They were so backwards, gawd. I heard the stories how the splicer would keep the apprentice just a running after this and that just to keep him from watching the work so he couldn't learn it too quickly.
Of course I came on straight out of the Army where I'd been doing telephone work in a combat zone for two tours. That pet dawg thing didn't hunt. Not for a minute. I sorta made waves. Had an attitude, put a little macho in their macho world as you can guess.
So when my wife came up pregnant we, me, got the royal "whatcha gonna have boy? stuff. Being in that aptmosphere with all those real liberated real men I came off with a "boy of course. You see anyone can plow a field but it takes a real man to make the corn grow."
I had the boy and took their money. And me being me I sorta kinda rubbed it in a bit or even a mite more. You might even say I made it an issue.
I left the telco and went out into the real world for awhile. Then I came back, same yard, same good old boys, and some new good old girls, times a changed a bit. And of course the wife was pregnant again. And of course the same question "whatcha gonna have there boy?" They got the same answer. "Any man can plow the field, but it takes a real man to make the corn grow."
It became a big issue there in the yard and amongst all the friends and family. Now I got to confess that all I wanted in my heart was another healthy baby. But since there was this stand about the sex I played the game to the hilt. Just the way I am.
Sorta like that rooster I keep around the shop. Old scrapper's a big lover but when the bud's come in with their dawgs they, the dawgs, know that they either have to go around him or through him. They've all decided it's easier to go around him than ask him to move. He even does it to me. He'll stand there right in the middle of where you're supposed to walk and bow up. Just the way he is. It's his path at that moment and you can go get your own.
One of the jobs we had at the telco was a facility person. Traditionally when a splicer was too old, crippled, or just frustrated with splicing he'd transfer into facilities and sit in there at the desk and tell us how to do our jobs. It was just the way it was.
Just before I quit the first time we'd had a girl come out of operator's to be a facility person. She caught heck in spades. I did my share. Of course I'd take her side anytime with the guys and then give her heck about how that some poor old boy was working at Mickey D's trying to support a family cause she'd taken a man's job at the telco when it was just her and me.
So first thing out of the box on the rehire I looked down at my cut sheet and there in the facility person's name was "Mary". So I called in and asked for Mr Mary. I caught heck. Especially when I had a snot slinging fit about another girl taking a man's job.
When Mary heard I was taking bets on having a boy she called me and let me know she wanted a piece of that action. She figured that a jerk like me deserved a little girl. She was a good christian lady who didn't. Amongst her didn'ts was gamble. But she didn't figure this was gambling. If I recall correctly she had it figured as just desserts.
The way you can tell if a man's a cable splicer is he'll have scissors in a pouch on his hip. And they have points. If he has scissors and they're not pointed then chances are most likely he's an EMT.
But don't you call them scissors "scissors". They are snips. But if you wanna have some fun call them scissors and get the spiel. There's a spiel. The difference between scissors and snips is with snips you can cut pennys. And if you've got a live one he'll take your penny and make two of it real quick like. It's macho thing I guess.
Of course I had to take it to another level. One day I was exposed to a real macho lineman. Big old boy that didn't wear deorderant cause it hid man smell. He took a bud's snips and split a quarter like it was a penny. Now I knew anything a real macho lineman could do I could do even better. So from then on I didn't cut pennys. I cut quarters. And I stopped calling my snips "snips". They became scissors. After all snips was what guys who could only cut pennys carried. Real men that could cut quarters were secure enough in themself to understand they were really scissors.
All that to explain that day in the delivery room. I have been around some wounded. I have been around some injured. And it has bothered me but not enough to cloud me doing what had to be done. You do what you have to do when you have to do it.
But when I was pacing the little lady with the breathing and the doctor pulled out the scissors to cut that place that without the cut might rip, I lost it. It got real hot in that room and I felt like I was the only thing that wasn't moving in the wrong way all over the place. The nurse caught me and I do think she enjoyed it. Way too much even. She had a grin from ear to ear I do remember as she supported me there just about the time this head popped out and the doctor exclaimed loud enough for half the county to hear "YOU LOSE".
Of course I didn't. But I did have to pay up to friends and family and the folks at work. I put on the cloak of humility and went around paying my due. But I did pay them with pennys. After all you show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser. And any man can make a tree grow. But it takes a real man to cut that puppy down and split the trunk.
