Transcription #1 from the Ralph Dudley interview

0:00-14:00

Hello everyone.

Hi Chardaye, I’m Ralph Dudley. (When did you start working at the Bethlehem Steel Mill?) 1955, August 31-I was 20 years old. (Um, did you have a job prior to working at Bethlehem Steel?) I did, I worked in the slaughterhouse for S.K. I killed 1900 pigs a day, that’s a true  story.

(pause)

(Ok are you a first generation, Steel Mill worker?) I am. (What position did you first work for?) I started off a Millwright helper and oiler/greaser and they were both the same position. (What does that entail?) Wellp, a Millwright helper, you were the helper on the job for the main mill right. You got tools, you went for the parts  you did all the labor work. The miller right smoked a cigar- enjoyed himself. (Did you have any jobs after that?) After that, no I worked there forty one and a half years and I retired 1996. (Do you recall the last at Bethlehem Steel?) I certainly do, we had a big party, it was three of us that retired the same day. And, I really, tell the truth, I hated, I hated retiring- but I had to because my wife was sick at the time. (What are you doing now after?) *laughs* I’m my wife's atta-boy, her personal chauffeur, her got get it bring it back, actually I work with recovering alcoholics. that I get a lot of enjoyment out of. (What was one of your most memorable moments at bethlehem steel?) Oh gosh, they’re all memorable, you know that was one job I truly loved, I been retired since 1996. I’ve asked other retirees, do you ever dream about your job? They look at me and laugh and say no. Well I dream about my job once awake and I always get the dirtiest job and the laziest helpers, and never get a paycheck. I'm still working down there. (Do you know how much you made?) Oh, ,I squandered just about every nickel I made...well I had a large- what do you mean how much I made? (How much you made bi-weekly) Oh well close to a thousand dollars a week. (Interesting you mention you’re still working there because you dream about it, talk about the work in your dreams and when you wake up) Well, I’m exhausted- I always get the dirtiest jobs or called into the sub cellars- or there are these big cockroaches- not cockroaches but big old bugs. They’re really big bugs, certain times of the year when they’re in mating they can fly with a wingspan of six inches. They’re located in the coal mill I worked at. My dreams I always crawl underneath the mill, repairing lines, replacing cylinders, and stuff like that. I’m never done, always a part mission or something like that. I wake up and usually go looking for my too buggy- can never find my tool buggy, I had a nice tool buggy. Sometimes it gets lot in my dreams, me and my help are looking for my tools or I’m looking for my safety shoes or my hard hat. I do get nasty jobs- like changing wheels and cables up in the looper towers, working off a 18 inch edge, very hot, very nasty, very dusty. I guess you can call that a nightmare. Other than that I have these dreams once a week. Seems like it’s on schedule like I’m clocking in, I’ll wake up looking aruond like it’s time to go home, but I never get paid, never get a lunch break either. I used to smoke in them days, I dont recall lighting a cigaretter up. But that’s what my dreams are about Bethlehem Steel.

(Why do you think you dream about it?) Because I’m still working, I love my job, I worked there 40 years. I did not hate going to work down there, when I left my house I was happy I was going to work- that’s true. I felt honored I could work at a place like that. they put up a lot with me. When I first got hired down, I was hired as a millwright helper and I said what does he do? They change bearings, in my  mind I thought little bearings like a bicycle. When I looked in the mill the first time- my boss told me there’s a wrench over there, two of you guys are working on a wrench. They had nuts like that, It took two of us to hold this wrench up. We had to break these bearings down, they looked like huge elephant. What are these? They said, backup rolls and these are the bearings. The bearings were almost as big as this room. Once a week they had to tear it apart. they had a bearing mechanic and used to scrape the new bearings and fit them up, we would put them back together. We worked on them all week long, they shut the mill down.. Take the old rolls out which had the old bearings on it and put the ones that we worked on all week- put that in the mill. Spent the week repairing the ones they took out. I got taken off that job, sent me down to electrolytic department where they coat the steel. There are a whole lot of rolls and the steel ran through it, it was constantly running. Upstairs, then to tanks, to the furnace. It would a kneel itself, and come out feeding tanks, go through a process, then wrap up on the end of the line and was a ready product ready to go. Those were the mills I worked on, it was a block long. Raw material one end, finished  product the other. We had to keep the mills running. I was a helper and oiler/greaser. Oiler/greaser- somebody who run around, greasing the bearings so they don’t burn up, It was hot, nasty, all kind of chemicals. Acid, sulphuric acid, it wasn’t a pleasant job. They had a furnace, the heat unbelievable. The bearing on top that furnace, constantly burnt up because of immesne amount of heat you know, they would open the furnaces up. You’d go up on top and change the roll/bearings, you could only work 4-5 minutes. It was so hot, you would have to go out lay on the roof, another crew would go in and work, until they were exhausted. It was constantly switching back and forth. That was probably the most hardest part. Changing them furnace rolls- and change wheels. Top of these big towers-elevators that carried the steel up in the air. It was constantly running up and down and they came off in those rubber tanks and different processses before the finished product. But anyway, the wheels would go up and they’d have to go up- these cable were anywhere form three quarter to an inch and wree hundreds of feet long. We’d  have to get the cables off and get these huge wheels on a base and we’d have to install a new one- they would burn up and collapse and cause a wreck in the mill. That was my job to get in there maybe change that, hellper to a mill right trouble shooter. I was- I had my own helpers and I could set back and smoke a cigar and send the boys to the restaurant- get me this and that, you know. But, it was an enjoyable job, I never know what I was going to be working on one time or the next, until I got off work. Anything else? that was electroletic. Now, the pickler and mill they were are around where I worked, the pickler was the nastiest part of working donw Sparrow’s point. For me, it was pure nasty- it was hot in the summer, cold in the winter- you froze. THey put these big tongs out and started a fired- you got heat. The mill was hot because of all the steam. They had all kind of nasty things that could go wrong and get you hurt. It was a challenge and interesting job. I’d do it again if they’d hire me back. (I hear you were commissioned to do drawings) I was, that was the best part of my job. SOmebody got hurt down there, they didn’t have anyone to takes pictures- they’d come and take me to the area and I would draw the accident from what they described. then They’d take the copies and put it in the accident report- 8-16 hours to do, I’d get it done in an hour. I found some pleasured moments  in the mill. When someone would mess up- not hurt- but do a dumb thing, make a wreck or whatever- I would come and draw a cartoon of that person messing up. At the time the President of the union- Donald Pellner- he was having troubles...

From 20:00 -

Ralph, Pause, it was part of the job. Oh, thank you vodka and seven up, that’s good. There you go, I ready, okay

Interviewer: When did start drawing, like in high school

Ralph: Oh, That goes way back, I was 7 or 8, my mother enrolled in an art class, up in Baltimore City. And, it was nude drawing, Thursday nights,  and still drawing on Monday nights. I always missed Monday nights drawing, and I always look forward to Thursday night because it was my first encounter that I ever seen a naked women. I was only maybe nine years old. And I was in an adult art class. I would never show up when they had the male models, I would only show up when they had the female models. I guess that I was only 9 or 10 at the time, that was the only professional drawing that I  took lessons on, and it was just on the nudes.  But the body, I am just not say just the  structure of the body, hum.

Interviewer: Do you recall who you gave your first drawing to? No, I do not, I drew a lot around the house, my mother kept a lot of the stuff. She gave some to the relatives. I done a lot of oil paintings when I was younger, when I was fifteen.

I done an oil painting for Colgate Elementary School, I was 12 or 14 years old. It hung in their hall for , I know 30 years. And much later in the 80’s I went back to the school, and I asked if they still had the painting , and they had it, they put it in one of the closets, they retrieve it and they give it to me, and it was just like the day that I painted it.

Now it is hanging in my dining room. The painting has to be over 50 years old, its about 55. It’s an oil painting, and I am kind of proud of that. Cause, I think that this is the first oil painting that I had on display. I use to do a little job for people that had businesses. Logos, I done a lot of logos, like a design of their business. I done things like that for  different,, but I never made  a big career out of it or anything like that. I was raise in family with two boys and working down Bethlehem Steel, and that consumed just about all of my time. I talk about, but I should talk about it, I got into a group of men down there. There were hard drinking mill rights, they stop after work on North Point road , and I love stopping with them, drinking shot for shot. I was young man and  these were old still workers. They were guise, telling all of these sea stories, man I just ate it up.

They’d go home to their families and I’d still be down there drinking. I drank for quite a few years. But Bethlehem Steel put up with my drinking. I would come in drunk, I came in drunk several times. And the foreman told me Ralph, go somewhere and lay down and sleep it off. Well I’d lay down for six or seven hours.

Now, this  was my regular shift. And at the end of the shift, I go would go down in the office, and  they’d ask if you would like to work over. What I am doing is working over during the job that I could not do in the first 8 hours.  I said you know really,  I am ashamed of myself, I’ll do that. I’d work over, and do the job that I could not do in the first 8 due to my drinking. I drank for quite of few years down there, but it didn’t effect my  quality of work; it did not effect my job.

And the supervisor most of them I drank with. So, they took care of me, and they looked out me. The latter of  my years the Bethlehem Steel, I quite drinking. I have not drank in 35 years now. I quite smoking 35 years ago, and I quit drinking 35 years ago. Maybe that’s why I am 79 years old. I saved all of the parts before they were totally destroyed.

Today, I work with the recovering alcohol, I do what I can to help them, I 12 step them, I do what I can to get them back on the road to sobriety. I work almost every night with the alcoholics today. I don’t have to do that, but it is a pleasure I getting enjoyment out of. Seeing some lady or some young man  blossom from somebody that has been beat down by alcohol, to see them recover and go about their life in a in an orderly manner, you know. And they don’t have to compromise their principles, that they can be an upright person; I enjoy seeing that.

Laughing, now what else would you like to ask me? That has nothing to do with Bethlehem Steel.

Interviewer: Sounds it has a little to do with it.

Ralph. Laughing, they started me there.

Interviewer: Can you recall some of the friendships you made over time at Bethlehem Steel? Oh God yes! I had great friendships with just about everyone down, I do not believe that I had an enemy there.  I can’t ever recall anybody being angry at me.  My wife tells me that I would talk to a brick wall, if stand stills. But, anyway I had some fantastic friends down there. But, most of them are dead now, due to their longevity, they retired, punched a  ticket and get out of town. But, I can’t just say one person, I had one fella , I used to hit him, his name is Geno Genaminico , say that real fast, Geno Genaminico. I could get him so mad that I thought he was going to kill me, but the boy loved me to death. He said Ralph, nobody could anger me more than you, but you could, you got away with it. I knew when to back off. It was a trick to it. Geneaminico, he is old now, he has  a lot of health issues. We all have health issues. I have some goods things that I brought out of Bethlehem Steel. I got asbestosis, COPD, I can’t breathe, I can’t hardly walk anymore. That goes with the job that I had there. Like I told you earlier , with all of the chemicals and the conditions that you work under, down the road you pay for that. The asbestosis  was unbelievable, we had to work in areas where the abestois looked like it was raining, snow actually, flakes just coming down. And, the poor old electricans had to get in there, they had to blow these heads . They had these rollsfrom electical

……………………….

Asbestos, cotton like asbestos, Pure Asbestos, and we didn’t know no better, we’d go up there and work around it, chip around it, we threw it away and it’s jut flakin, we breathin it in breathin it in and it was danger, it was nothing but danger and nobody said hey youre not allowed to work on that, it’s asbestos, get outta here or put something on that you know, you won’t breath it, they never told us that, that’s one bad thing bout bethlem steel, that kept secrets like that to themselves and they let these men go in there honestly not knowing nothing about it and then breathing that stuff in and years later they die that was from management I’d never forgive them for that, they done a lot of nasty things but the thing of it is, they put a paycheck in my wallet every week, so I can’t, can’t complain too much. I had a good living form bethlem steel, like I said in the beginning of this interview I made almost thousand dollars on average every week, that was good money you know  and I took my wife on two or three vacations a year and she enjoyed it you know, now the wife I have now seems like I was born married (Laughs) but anyway the wife I have now, I have nothing but me to offer her you know, my spendings are all gone, the only thing I got coming in is a small pension check and social security and I had to go out and had to get another job as a security guard, at seventy nine years old, im back out working. But it’s not a hard job, it’s an easy job, but I, I have to do this to make ends meet thanks to bethlem steel going belly up. If they hadn’t gone belly up I’d be living a comfortable life, the took my social…uhh they took my medical uhh plan away from me, they took my life insurance away from me, they cut my pension and I mean that’s the negative things, but there’s more positive things than negative things I got outta bethlem steel,  I got a good life, it allowed me to do things, allowed me to have a new car almost every two years, allowed my boys to grow up you know with good clothes on their back one of em went to college, the other one, he, he didn’t go to college but they still you know, I was proud of  uh of what bethlem steel did for me that I could do for my family…anything else darling? Nothing?

Lady: Oh you want me to take over? You sure? OK

Dudley: I’ve enjoyed this. Huh?

Lady: She did a good job

Dudley: She done a very good job, she done a very good job.

Lady: So lets see umm, did you live near the mill? Where’d you live? Where’d you grow up?

Dudley: I live where I’m from Virginia, my fam, my family come up here when I was very small and they lived in pigtown and they moved from pigtown out to essex now essex was mainly martins people working at martins or they worked at sparrows point well my father worked at sparrows point but he worked on the railroad down there and he was a conductor on the railroad until he retired and uh when I got outta the navy, my wife was pregnant and I was looking for a job  for whatever I could get and I got hired on at esskay slaughter house, like I said I worked around killing animals all day long you know and well that don’t suit me today when I got off the bus coming home all the dog in the neighborhood would chase me cuz I had that meat smell all over me and they knew when I was coming home cuz the dogs would start barking tryna get my and they wanted to eat my shoes just cuz of all the meat smell over and me and my pants and everything you know so anyway I quit that job somebody told me said ralph go on down bethlem steel and get hired on as a mechanic and I went down bethlem steel and they hired me on as a helper like I told you. Now this is probably a lil gross but imma tell it anyway. When my first day on the job as Im walking from the clock house into the locker rooms I thought it was landmines all over the place and the guys coming out, they were throwing these hockers (clear throat) you know, and its, all over the place and I mean its not very pleasant but they were there that was part of it and you had to walk between as your goin to the locker room so you don’t tread on em you know I call em landmines uh and that impressed me I always think about that when I talk about bethlem steel, they were clearing their lungs out when they left that locker room (clears throat 2x) you know and by time the got up to the parking lot and they got up the road to the first gin joint, there were plenty gin joints on north point road but that, that impressed me, that very much impressed me

Lady: What were some of your favorite bars that you went to?

Dudley: Pardon?

Lady: The bars that you went to any names?

Dudley: Oh yea there was uh mickeys, there was hutmars and last chance well last chance commin out first chance goin back, there was uh green door, the white house, these were all on north point road

Lady: What was mickeys like?

Dudley: Well mickeys was mainly uh a check cashing place, you know you could get your boose there if you didn’t want to drink at the bar I would get my check cashed probably there and I’d stop at hutmires and now that’s later lets see costas, if anybody remembers, costas bought the hutmire boys out and next was the northpoint uh bar now that’s a girly bar now uh I don’t know why It could’ve been a girl bar back then  but you know things change when you get old you know why didn’t that happen anyway I had a hard time getting off north point road When I got home you know my misses was not a happy camper but anway I told you I moved to essex and from essex uh my wife my 1st wife divorced me and my, I married, I asked god in a drunken stooper, I drank all the time I loved to drink, I asked God in my drunken stooper If you send me a blonde hair blue eyed girl I said I’ll quit drinking, well lord and behold he sent me a blonde haired blue eyed girl and that was my first wife blonde hair blue eyes I don’t know how I got hung up on that and uh he sent me this beautiful woman and the chemistry was great and uh she says ralph you can drink all you want just sell your cars oh we moved to hollandtown when we moved to hollandtown there were 250 bars in hollandtown and five breweries, I thought I died and went to bar room heaven. I was delighted, I couldn’t believe my eyes and I had an old dog and we’d take two, three walks a day and we go in one direction and I’d hit the bar and the dog would allow me to have one beer and he’d watched that beer until it started goin down like that and he’d head for the door, its time to go so we go to the next bar and I’d order a beer there, a draft, and he’d watch that draft as it goes down and no sooner did it get bout that far from the bottom he’d start barking, we’d have to leave and what that was his routine you know and then uh I, I  you know I couldn’t do that right my wife, she was so good to me, she uh told  me to do my drinking at home but I couldn’t even do that because I got in the habit of drinking from bethlem steel from the guys that I worked with down there, they were all boosers and them, the ones that did drink they’re all dead now, Henry Heffermen, a fine gentlemen, but he’d always come to work with two half a pints and he’s drink the first half pint the first four hours and he’d drink the second half pint the second four hours and they didn’t, the didn’t do nothing about that cuz he could function he was a functional alcoholic, I was a functional alcoholic, I done my job and I done it well and when I got to hollandtown, getting back to hollandtown, 250 bars I tried my best to go to every bar up there, theres a bar on a corner, bar on that corner and one in the middle, but I could not make it, I burned out before I could get there but its been 35 years since I had a drink

Lady: congratulations

Dudley: Oh you’re welcome, you’re welcome

Lady: uh alright so away from the drinking

Dudley: yes yes

Lady: even though I’m craving a beer right now

Dudley: well here, I still got this mixed drink here

Lady: But uh do you remember the town in sparrows point?

Dudley: I do

Lady: Could you talk a little about that?

Dudley: Well, I, I , was never in the town itself, my friend I worked with, billy botman, god bless his heart he was 400 pounds, well he was three hundred something pounds when he worked in the mills and uh he lived in there and I think there were certain days where they could wash their clothes because of the wind and  from the blast furnaces that would fall out and stuff like that but he lived there, his family lived there and he lived there until the house, building, the town down and I always believed and I’d love to find out or get somebody to do this take a metal detector where there town was cuz there were some people never left that town for years that I believe they buried their money in the cellars in a lot of them houses you because they didn’t have to go no where the didn’t have to do nothing, just stay there and when they tore it down I knew there was money in them cellars of course I never got to find out, but I do remember that town and I remember certain things and like I said billy, my friend billy botman, he was a gentle giant you we, my wife and I we run into him in hollandtown one day and he called everybody hun, he’d say hi hun how are you doin and my wife says that man just called you hun and I says I say dorthy I said look at that man and I says he can call me anything he wants to call me he was huge. I mean you know that’s the way he was he was good, when he died, sparrows point forced him to retire cuz of his weight, he couldn’t get around and he eventually he died in his upstairs house out in essex in Middlesex and I understand a fire department had to get a crane in there to get him out the window upstairs he was so big you know

Dudley; Go head

Lady: One of my last questions, just a quick one, did you have a nickname were you called Picasso or something?

Dudley: They called me dude, Dudley is my last name, they called me dude, dooley, a lot of em  dd called me the friendlier I don’t know if they were sarcastic anyway doodly how about  coming over here how about doing that stuff  on that and they called me dud and the ones would  well and the ones some of them would call me ralphie boy, ralphie baby and then I went by ralphie baby and dud, and doodlie. Yeah I got a little I had we used to wear soft hats before hard hats become mandatory we used to wear soft hats and I had dudley on top the of my soft cap and everytime I would drove it a lot with  it a lot with it this guy would say, hey Dudley how you doing alright, I wander who’s he, I never knew his name. so he would do that, he done that four or five times then I finally got, got enough energy to stop him i said why you ask, where do I know you from he said well you don’t and I said well how do you know my name well its in your hat I said oh aint that something.

Lady:Well before you shows us some of your drawings and your cartoons uhm, a big question, you know the mill is being dismantled as we speak there bui

Dudley: I heard

Lady: you heard today right,

Dudley:I heard

Lady:well what lives on what’s the legacy of the mill for you

Dudley: For me it’ll always be there, it’ll always be there. We drove by there I’m getting a little teary eye on t his. But My wife and I we drove by there uh last wk and wanted down where all the cold mills are the end cold mills they had dismantled it and was it laying down it looked like a dying elfing I said may look at that, but she did not get the moment she did not understand what was hitting me and it just just tore me up to see that fell go down

Lady:what was hitting you

Dudley: Pardon

Lady: What was hitting you that wasn’t’ hitting her

Dudley: Well she didn’t, she just don’t understand the impact that it had on me. I mean I worked in most of the mills down thereover the forty years. You know I worked in helgin line the duo mills, I worked in the skin pass.when things got tough they start pushin, each mill had its own little group, each was it was like little coutries, and one group never go into the other group and thats always amazed me  I worked in electorlitic for a lot of years now the candermill had it’s mechanics, the pickler had its mechanics the skin pass had it’s mechanics, sorting room had it’s mechanics and we like we never met, you we see you talk. And It was 30-40 guys in my unit. Well when things are starting to getting bad, they gathered them all up and put em in one central position, one spot and put buggies, tool buggies out you know like buggies so you could go from one mill to the other mill and save time but that that to me broke that something that was like traditional. Every every mill had it’s own mechanic, it’s own workshop, its own personality. Every every every one of em had it’s own personality. You know but they all would come to me. And ask me to draw this or do this or do that  I seem like I was the like the local newspaper around there but that that was in the good days and things got real real funny and real nasty Im say nasty because seems to me all respect for your mill rights and for your electriicans for any service man down there,seems like they lost that.and to me I,we were looked up you know the labor dept looked up to us you know, it was it was just a good time for me to work down there and I glad I retired in 96 I’m glad, Im not glad cuz I got when,  in its glory day at the end of its glory day, so there you go

Lady: any questions that anyone else before he shows us some of his drawing. You guys cool

Audience:Yes

Lady: alright, do you wana

Dudley:well you can look at em

Lady: well you take em out and tell us what we are looking at .

Dudley: alright

Lady: kill the camera too.