My dad tells a story about an old engineer up in Alaska. Dad came upon him in that 50 below weather. The fellow was under a truck, fixing it, and singing at the top of his lungs, happy as a polar bear.

When dad asked his friend about him, he was told that was old so and so, from up on the North Slope. Seems he was a pretty tough fellow. One time they sent him two young engineers, fresh out of university. Well, the old boy and my dad's friend didn't care for them, they made work twice as hard and kept getting in the way. Finally, my dad's friend said that he went to the old engineer and asked how in the world they were going to get rid of those kids so they could get their work done. The old boy said, "Don't worry about it; just follow me and do everything I do."

The next morning, early, the old guy jumped out of bed, stripped off his clothes, and ran out to a snowbank, jumped in and started rolling around in the snow, yelling at his friend and the youngsters to come on and take a snowbath, it was good for you. Well, the fella telling my dad this story said he couldn't do anything but follow suit. It worked. The young engineers packed up and left that day. When they got to HQ they told the powers that be they'd better get those old boys down from the Slope as they were definitely getting "bushy".

katlaughing