30 Year Flashback

[thirdeye]

A guy I've worked around for years is retiring later this month and I've been looking through old photographs to take to the "going out of business" party. I stumbled onto this classic one I took in 1978 on a job up in Montana. In the old days, before all the rules, the oil companies let us have cookers at work and we had them mounted on the rails of our company trucks. Welders on the job built the cookers from leftover sections of line pipe. The vents controls on the ends were made from the metal backers on grinding discs. We would cook stuff everyday, even if it was reheating a foil pan of leftovers......here is some pipeline chicken. A pretty cheap lunch in those days.

That beer bottle is probably full of water , you know... fire safety on the job and all.

 

[HeSmellsLikeSmoke]

LOL, that looks great mounted on the back there. Probably cooked very well too.

My dad, who was a Texas welder, fabricated a huge "dutch oven" out of a piece of pipe with a acetylene burner under it. He used it to make big pots of chili on the job for hot lunches for everyone who chipped in for the meat.

He also built many a pipe BBQ grill for the various bosses on the job, with me helping him during slow periods at work.

Man, the rules sure have changed, as you say.

 

[jacob]

Did you say chicken Brother, thats a big bird. And they say modern day tech. doesnt affect our food supply.

 

[bbqjoe]

Invention is the mother of necessity.......No wait!
mother is the necessity of invention........No wait!

Necessity is the mother of invention!

 

[Napper]

The times sure have changed.
I have worked at a major chemical plant for 28 years.
I can remember the maintenance department making many a stainless steel fry pot for folks! They had a fish fry just about every friday.

No more. Actually there is no more cooking in the area. Lunchroom is the only place that you will find grease. (and lots of it!)

 

[Mr. Bo]

slightly off/on topic

I used to work in construction and remember another type of cooker that was pretty useful on the job.
It was a wood framed box covered with masonite siding and lined with foil backed styrofoam insulation. The thing had two food racks inside and an old style white light fixture mounted in the top. The heat source came from a 75 watt bulb.

We used to put TV dinners and leftovers of all kinds in there first thing in the morning and pull out steaming hot food for lunch.

 

[chad]

When I was working for W.R. Grace back in the real early '70s we had a large steel box in the break area in the electric shop. It was probably 36" wide and 18" or so deep...had a couple of shelves. It was heated by some high watt flood lamps and used to heat/reheat our lunches.

 

[Mo-Dave]

Thrideye what part of Wyo. are you located? I worked in the oil fields as a pumper some year ago out of Gillette Wyo. I took care of a field out in the Keyline Grass land, it was a gas field, loved it and do miss it. That was for City oil co, don't know if they are still around. I also worked for Sunoco in a water injection field, if memory serves me it was about 15 miles from Billings Montana. The water injection field I don't miss so much.
Dave

 

[Mo-Dave]

Thrideye what part of Wyo. are you located? I worked in the oil fields as a pumper some year ago out of Gillette Wyo. I took care of a field out in the Keyline Grass land, it was a gas field, loved it and do miss it. That was for City oil co, don't know if they are still around. I also worked for Sunoco in a water injection field, if memory serves me it was about 15 miles from Billings Montana. The water injection field I don't miss so much.
Dave

Forgot to mention, I used to put my lunch on the exhaust pipe of a one lung pump jack motor. About halfway threw the field on my way back around I would stop and pick it up all nice and hot. Also if a welder was out at the field, we used his cutting torch to heat up cans of soup or chili, nothing will heat those up faster than a torch including a microwave. If anyone does this be sure to poke some holes in the cans first or you will wearing your lunch in about 4 sec.
Dave

 

[thirdeye]

Mo-Dave,

I live in Casper. I worked on some of the construction of City Service facilities in 1976. Gillette is really booming. Methane gas and mining amount to most of the new surge. Wyoming has been praying for one more boom.....we got it!!

 

[HeSmellsLikeSmoke]

Mo-Dave,

I live in Casper. I worked on some of the construction of City Service facilities in 1976. Gillette is really booming. Methane gas and mining amount to most of the new surge. Wyoming has been praying for one more boom.....we got it!!

I used to live in Casper. Was in 1942 or 1943, but I don't remember seeing you???

 

[biffleg]

Classic photo!