Sammy

Many years, ago before I was ever employed at Bath Iron Works, things were done differently in the shipbuilding trade. Instead of powder paint spray adhesion there was another more dangerous process for making metal impervious to the elements of the sea. The Harding Plant, a remote fabrication plant in the next county from the main shipyard of BIW on the Kennebec River, was heavily involved in a manufacturing method known as galvanizing.

As the story was related to me, there were three large rectangular lead-lined cement vats of boiling acid, neutralizer, and zinc. You must remember this was in the days before OSHA, so workers didn't know this was bad for them to even breathe the fumes from these witches caldrons.

Sammy was a rigger/crane operator and was perched on the edge of one of these boiling vats directing the load of an overhead crane when suddenly, he faultered and slipped into one of the vats and boiled for a few minutes while his coworkers rushed frantically to extricate him.

Sammy was examined medically with all the latest methods and techniques of the time, blood pressure, temperature, and visual reckoning. The docters all agreed he was a lucky man to survive such an accident even though he sustained third degree burns over his entire body.

Within a few weeks, Sammy surcombed to his wounds and passed away. His coworkers were devistated. They had lost a brother who kept their minds off their tedium with his sense of humor. Sammy could be counted on to pull any union brother out of a temporary slump by just telling one of his tall tales or simple jokes. His loss was deeply felt by all who worked at the Harding plant in the fifties.

By the time I began working at "Hardings," stories of Sammy were common knowledge. Here was a man who sacrificed his life for building ships, a model for us all. In my youth as a shipbuilder, I was so gong ho to beleive in something that I thought we could do anything and I beleived in models like Sammy. Then the weird stuff began happening.

The security guards were the first to report strange incidences late at night when all of second shift had gone home. One guard claimed he heard footsteps on the mezzonine traveling across the ceiling of the floor above him while making his rounds. Another guard swore that one of the overhead cranes started up and traveled the whole length of "B Bay" by itself back and forth. The guard checked the service box for the cranes and it was in the OFF position. In another report all the inteior lights of the plant came on and then went off several times while another guard made his rounds. Workers started noticing that there lunch boxes had been hidden or tampered with. These phenomenon continue sporadically to this day. We just blame it on Sammy.

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