I worked in a welding shop as a summer job between sophomore and junior years at college. For the princely sum of $5.50 an hour, I cut, bent, ground, drilled, and otherwise manipulated various forms of mild steel into the shapes the welders needed to make the trailers, truck racks, and various other things that were the bulk of their business. On my lunch breaks I taught myself to stick and MIG weld. It was an interesting learning environment; Bob, one of the welders, who drank a six-pack and smoked a joint in his Camaro every day at lunch, would wander back in, look at my work, and say something like “I fuckin hate mawdin aht” and beat my work apart with a hammer. Obnoxious? Yes. Funny as shit? That too. But also a hell of an incentive to learn; within a month I could really weld and he couldn’t knock my stuff apart any more. Right before I quit (to go be a carpenter’s helper for a whopping $8 an hour) I stick-welded a big rectangular pan of 16 gauge sheet steel without making a single hole. The grudging praise of the guys in the shop meant a great deal to me. I bought myself a welder later that summer, and made a lot of sculptures over the ensuing years. I still have it in the garage.
Why does this matter? Well, the shop foreman, Charlie, who was about 90 at the time, had this brilliant piece of advice if ever I had an issue with a piece of uncooperative steel. He’d look at the thing and say “Why don’t you hit that with a hammer?” and walk away.
