The “ Brickyard “ Summer of
1957
Robert J. Malina
Driven by the need for money to
buy the 1940 Ford coupe of my dreams,
I checked around town for summer jobs as I would turn 16 on July 7. The word was the pay at the brickyard
was by far the best locally, but the work was hard. I showed up at the brickyard yard around
the middle of June when school was out for the summer. The brickyard now called Eastern Brick
was located adjacent to the railroad tracks just about 1/4 mile north of the
Berlin railroad station. The local
name for the brickyard was “ Merwins” I guess that was its name from many years
earlier, The ponds at the brickyard
were our favorite swimming holes when we were children, which we called “ bare
ass beach ” for our lack of the use of bathing attire. The office was a dingy, dusty and faded barn red wooden building just
south of the massive tin covered sheds.
I was met by Mr. MacPherson who asked me what I wanted. I responded that I wanted a job for the
summer. He looked up and down and said “ How much you weigh? I lied by about 10 lbs and said, “140,
Sir“. He was a ruddy faced man with
bright white hair combed straight back …looked a little bit like Spencer
Tracy. He shot back “ You don’t
look tough enough to do this job…it’s hot under the sheds and the work is
tough“. I replied that I was
confident I could do it and would like a chance. He said “Ok, fill out these papers and
show up tomorrow morning at 7:00“.
Day one at the brickyard was an
experience. I was introduced to the
gang by MacPherson and the day started.
They were in the process of building a kiln out of “Green,” “sun-dried only” bricks. The arch was already built when I
arrived and the kiln was about 2/3 done.
The process was that a crew would remove the sun-dried bricks from the
drying racks and stack them on wheelbarrows and wheel them to the side of the
kiln where others took them off, 4 at a time and tossed them up 1 level at a
time to the person at the top who would expertly placed them properly to build
the kiln. I was placed on the
scaffolding about ½ way up. I had
to reach down and catch the 4 bricks coming up at me from the guy below and toss
them to the guy above me. There was
a steady rhythm and pace. There was
a trick to catching the bricks and also tossing them I was shown how and went to
work. It was quite brutal, the
paces was fast, my arms were aching but I hung on and made it through the
day. As a side note here, the
entire crew under the shed were African-Americans…called Negroes back then. Many of them lived in company housing
directly across the tracks from the brickyard. The houses were small without basements
and had cinder blocks on the corners holding them up. The yards were dirt only, no grass, no
landscaping.
I limped home after the first
day and took a hot bath while mother made supper. I ate a huge meal and rubbed myself down
with Absorbine Jr. rubbing alcohol and went to sleep immediately. 6:00a.m. came soon and I headed
out to day 2.
Day 2 went better but my body
ached all over….muscles that I didn’t know I had we hurting in a big way! As the day progressed the pace seemed to
slow..to a more manageable rhythm.
I found out 2 weeks later that I had been put through the “ initiation”
by the crew to see if they could break me down. I had passed the test and they resumed
normal pace. Worked started
at 7:00 a.m. and we had a snack truck; the “Roach Coach” come by at about
9:30. By that time I was famished
and usually devoured a large “Grinder”… called a submarine in some states. Lunch was at 12:00 and we ate again
and this time I ate the lunch my
mother had prepared in my brown bag.
As the days progressed the kiln got larger and larger and then was
finally done. The last step was to
completely cover the kiln’s exterior with wet clay to seal it. This was done in a similar manner with
buckets of wet clay handed up to the last stage guy who slopped it on the
kiln. Once this was done the kiln
was fired off. Natural gas was
piped though the arches into the kiln and had discharge jets all along the
length of the kiln. After a few
hours, the heat under the sheds was extreme. The gas was fired for many days. During
this time the crew moved to the other shed to the north, to build a kiln there,
thereby alternating the work in the sheds back and forth. Note: previous to gas
this process was done with wood fires…Imagine keeping these fires going for a
week.
When the kiln was done firing
and had cooled off, the crew would begin to dissemble the kiln. Starting at the top, the process is
reversed. The mud/clay is chipped
away and the bricks are pulled out and thrown down to a conveyer system that was
placed on a waiting truck. The
loading crew placed the bricks in the bed
layer by layer, each layer separated by some straw thrown down to keep
the brick from cracking during delivery.
The loading job was not as difficult as building a kiln, as the bricks
were now lighter since the water was baked out. I believe the wet bricks out of the mold
were about 6 lbs. and sun-dried about 4 lbs. and to 2 lbs. for a finished
brick. The kiln was disassembled as
the orders from the construction companies came in. The orders were steady as we
disassembled the kiln fairly quickly.
When we reached the bricks near the arch, several experienced guys took
over and very carefully disassembled the arch. The bricks closest to the gas flame were
subjected to extreme heat. These
are called firebricks and have various interesting colors as well as some
swelling at one end. These bricks are prized for building fireplaces and other
decorative work and there were standing orders for these. The last stage was cleaning up the area
of all broken brick and debris to ready for the start of the next build. There was a very short but very muscular
older black man named Billie, who built the arches and did other critical work
on the building. I remember clearly
he was about 5 foot 4 inches and had biceps like softballs. He was friendly and would share his
expertise freely.
After 2-3 weeks I was asked to
help out in the drying area, moving the bricks from there to the kiln building
crews. The same “ initiation”
thing happened here. The guy showing me the ropes here was
named “ Fox”. He was 6 feet
tall and 210 lbs. of solid
muscle. He showed me how to take
the bricks off the drying pallets and load the flat wheelbarrows. I remember him saying that a full load
was well over 500 lbs. The drying
racks rows had 6 inch metal strips as a roadway and you had to stay on the rail
or you went on the dirt to a certain “tip over“. The intersections were particularly
dangerous where the metal bands crossed.
You had to hit the turn perfectly or disaster! Fox loaded one up and took off and
easily crisscrossed the metal roadways and delivered the load perfectly. I loaded up a wheelbarrow with the full
load and could not even lift it off the floor…it was clear I could not do
this! I took off one lot of bricks
and managed to get it to the destination…embarrassed by my small load. I tried adding more each load but could
not seem to control the wheelbarrow if heavily loaded. “Ole Billie” saw my plight and came to
the rescue. He showed my how to
lift the wheelbarrow to the balance point where the weight was nullified. Billie showed me a how a full load was
brought up to the balance point and he pushed it with ONE HAND …even around the
corners. He laughed and said it
took years to do that. He also
instructed me to keep up the speed and the balance would do the work. The hints
helped and I managed to do well but not with a full load…but an “acceptable”
load. I dumped several loads but
that’s the price of learning! My
duties in the drying shed included a stint putting the pallets, containing six
newly formed wet bricks, into the rack after removing them from a conveyer
belt. This amounted to a very
specific shoulder exercise and the guys here looked like they had shoulder pads
on. You had to keep up with the
conveyer or they would fall off the end.
There were specific guys that did this and I only did this for 2-3 days
as a “fill-in“. Once the bricks
were on the pallets and on the drying racks, the children of the workers would
turn the bricks ¼ turn every day to dry them evenly. The short children would do the bottom
racks and taller children would do the upper racks. The kids were very fast, turning them as
they proceeded down the aisles. I am sure the parents got paid for this. I can’t imagine getting away with this
now….child labor laws!
There were non-specific bosses
under the sheds…. the older guys seem to be in charge (informally). Mr. MacPherson would drive around in his
‘52 Chevrolet hardtop and stop here and there, to issue some orders. The word around was, that he had a
bottle of whiskey in the car, and occasionally would be seen taking a nip. His face was always red and glowing as
was his nose.
As the weeks went by I adapted
to the rigorous work and by now was going out a night with the boys and doing
typical teenage things. My weight
was increasing every week and by end of season I was 165 lbs….. a gain of 35
lbs. I cannot remember the names of
many of my co-workers but I remember their faces well. In the brick making building, the
workers were mostly immigrant Italians.
They mixed the sand and clay in exact proportions and ran the process of
pressing the clay mixture into bricks and loading them into the conveyers for
shipment to the drying racks. Two
names stand out “Ricco” and “Bambula”.
Ricco was in his late 50’s and had a permanent stoop from his shoveling
duties. Bambula was a fair skinned
Italian who did various duties and smiled a lot.
The brickyards left a permanent mark on the Berlin city
landscape. After the clay was
extracted, the clay pits filled with water and provided great swimming and
fishing ponds. The drop-off and
straight to about 30-40 feet deep so swimming suits were necessary. Occasionally someone would drown and out
parents would forbid us to swim there, which lasted about one week. There are
remnants of an electric steam shovel
mast located at a pond and easily seen from route 72 bypass. We called it “Steam Shovel Pond” and
used the mast as a diving platform.
One of our playmates did a poor dive off the platform and ended up
paralyzed from a neck injury. On
the opposite side of the road were the Merwin clay pit ponds and today from the
road, you can clearly see the place where we used to swim. Bathing suits would be required
now!
My brickyard experience taught
me several things:
- Do not be afraid to try something
challenging and do not be intimated by
nay Sayers.
- Most people want to get along....give
them a chance and it will work out.
- Working hard physical labor for a living
may be good exercise for a young man, but I wouldn’t want to do it for a career.
I ended up in the computer field after this wake-up call.
Miscellaneous
comments:
The approximate size of a kiln
was 50 feet wide, 30 feet tall and 70 feet deep with arches placed every 10
ft.
The first Friday at work I
noticed all the black workers wore
tightly fitted nylon stockings tied to their heads. I could not figure out what this was
about until noting after the showers at work’s end, they all had slicked-down
hairdo’s like Nat King Cole! Ready
for Friday night party time! The
shower area was provided to remove the layer of clay dust one acquired every
day. The shower was an outside,
crude homemade gravity fed affair but worked well and was effective.
My final “initiation rite” was
sealed after I got my driver’s license and occasionally drove a fellow worker
(during lunch) to the local liquor store about ¾ of a mile away. This fellow apparently needed a little
nip to get through the day and used a hollowed out place in the kiln to hide the
pint of “ red-eye wine (19% alcohol and had quite a kick). After this I was “
in” and “one of the
boys”!
The wedding: Sometime in August there was a dual
wedding of two brothers to two sisters.
I believe it was Geraldine and Betty marrying Junior and Sonny. It was a
big deal at the brickyard and a subject of work chatter for some time. Hmmm…I wonder why I was not
invited?
I sure would like to talk to
Jerry Rice ( ex San Francisco 49er’s wide receiver) and hear about his
experiences working at a brickyard in Mississippi.
MacPherson seemed to run a
small pay day loan system, as occasionally, you would see a worker approach the
boss’s car and come away with some folding money. MacPherson would note it in his book for
collection later. This a was a
forerunner to the now common “ Payday Loan“ businesses that are common in some
parts of town.
Note: Some of the names are
changed to protect the innocent.
A Merwin Brick from Berlin,
Connecticut
June 10, 2008