Joel: "What was it like, growing up and living in Princeton, West Virginia?

Jack: "Princeton is a schizophrenic town. Living there was the best of times, it was the worst of times, the age of incredulity--and all of that. I loved it, I hated it, but most of the time it was just there, just as it is now and just as it will always be. I can't really complain too much, seeing as how most of the surrounding area was worse off than ours was. It was your standard US small town -- it had its share of white trash, but it also had its share of genuinely good people. As a teenager there you didn't have many options. You could go somewhere and get drunk, you could hop in the low rider and go cruisin' down Mercer Street shouting obscenities at the other 'necks, you could go to the movies, or you could stay home and do nothing.

"A typical West Virginian Thanksgiving consists of getting up, combing your hair with buttered toast, checking to make sure the pigs are fed, eatin' biscuits and gravy and grits for breakfast, piling the 12 kids into the 1973 green Vega station-wagon with the 'Guns is good' bumper-sticker and the little flashing lights around the license plate, and heading over to grandma's. Then we throw cow chips for bullets with the old folks, watch grandma shoot the ceremonial possum, and dig in. Mmmmm, good. Then if we're bored, we'll have a nice family spat over how done the possum is, and that's when Uncle Jim starts drankin'. Then 13-year old Peggie Sue comes in with Jim Bob and her baby Buck and all hell breaks loose.

"...but then again you asked for the good points:

"Somehow I sifted through the muck and found some really good friends there-- who were just as bored of being bored as I was. We had a band. It was short-lived, but it gave us something to do. We'd go to ball games. We never won, but the pizza was good afterwards. Princeton was really laid-back, so that was good. Our entire class didn't care about crap, so we at least had fun.

"I worked this summer in Hickory County for the WV Department of Highways. It was laughable the amount of money they paid me for standing around holding a sign. More than one day the entire crew took a nap for over two hours while the foreman stayed up as a lookout should the supervisor drive by. I gained a lot, though. My knowledge of drag- and dirt-track racing was enhanced tenfold. I must say, though, although the people are uneducated, they are some of the friendliest people I've ever met. They're the kind of people who'd stop, fix your car on the side of the road, and then invite you to dinner. Simple folk, but good ol' boys all the same.

"Working on a road crew is an experience, indeed. You clock in at 8:00, stand around chatting about the good deals of the day on tobacco products (I learned where to get free samples) until about 9:30, then hit the road in a Crew Cab (TM). Then, you take your time and take the long way to the work- site, stopping by Bobby's of course to load up on snacks for the long day ahead. By that time it's 10:30. You get out of the cab and chat some more about car racin' and how Curly Sue and Bubba had a fight and how ol' Johnny Adkins is doin'. It takes about another hour for the equipment to arrive. By that time, you've already done more than the Army has between the hours of 2:30 and 3:30 AM, and you're hungry. Dinnertime. You get yer bucket and dig in. Someone always has tomatoes and onions from their prized gardens and they basically shove it down your throat. You eat for about an hour and a half. Then it's 1:00 and almost quittin' time. (Only three hours away). So, you go to wherever the foreman tells you for about an hour, then stop and take a nap while the tar truck goes and gets more tar. You find a good shade tree, spread out, and sleep a good sleep. You wake up when you hear the 'watchman' yell 'The tar truck's back.' The watchman is the man appointed to watch out in case another D.O.H. crew rides by, so we can get up and act like we're doing something. By that time, it's too late to start anything else, go we go in at about 3:00, and shoot the breeze until 3:15, and then when the first worker is brave enough to get up from the picnic table he's resting at and head for his truck, the whole lot follows. I lived an hour away from the worksite. I usually got home before quitting time.

"My first week or so, I went to the workplace expecting to have to do something. I mean, I always saw the workers standing around, but I figured they were supervising or devising plans or something. But they're not. They are doing exactly what you think they are--nothing. I just kind of fell right in pretty soon, because it's just my nature to adapt to different situations.

"My foreman was just as lazy as the rest of us. He slept, too. The county supervisor was pretty cool, too. He'd expect us to work a little bit, but as long as we weren't damaging equipment or something, he just let us be."

Joel: "How much DID they pay you per day?"

Jack: "$6.30/hr. 1 1/2 times that during overtime, which was frequent. Doesn't seem like much, but for sleeping in the shade half the time it was definitely worth it."

Joel: "Did your mom ever ask you how your day had gone? What did you tell her?"

Jack: "Yep. I said it went great. Worked hard, Mom, very hard. Can I have some money? But, my Dad is the District Engineer for a different district (in the D.O.H.), so he knew all about how hard it is to motivate workers. But, he says that if I worked in HIS district, I'd have to work hard. But if I did, he wouldn't know anyway because his is a cushy management job."

Joel: "Someone, somewhere, must have wondered why roads weren't getting paved..."

Jack: "Oh, yeah. They complain. But that's the fun part. When you get Aunt Mildred and her husband arguin' about how the water drains onto their property --that is the best. But then we have to explain that if she doesn't want water on her property, she'll have to move into a house that isn't sitting in a little valley, 30 feet below the road. They can't fathom that, though.

"It was the West Virginia Department of Highways, notorious for its stand-around, good-for-nothing workers. Haven't you ever seen those workers just standing around on the side of the road? That's us. We preserve their image."

Joel: "Did you have trouble sleeping at night because of all the sleep you got during the day?"

Jack: "No, it enabled me to stay up until about 3:00 every morning."

Joel: "And then you'd go to bed and report to work when? Did you eat breakfast or were the appeal of the snacks that would be waiting for you at the store make you go without breakfast?"

Jack: "I'd report to work at 8:00. I ate a breakfast of cereal. I needed my Wheaties for the rigorous work that was ahead of me."

Joel: "And then snacks at 9:30 and then dinnertime at 11:30 and then naps all afternoon? Did you put on any weight?"

Jack: "Yep. Before the summer, I weighed 145. Now I weigh 172."

Joel: "How were the snacks? What kind of snacks did people buy to keep them going through that long, arduous day?"

Jack: "The snacks were great. Ever heard of Cornnuts?"

Joel: "So you're still fairly slender then and can still attract cow-eyed West Virginia babes?"

Jack: "Fairly. Cow-eyed? I don't like cow-eyed babes, though. My friends on the hall make fun of me when I go home. They joke that I go back to 'knock out some high school chicks'."

Joel: "Did you wear a tank top or what? Did babes whistle at you as they drove by?"

Jack: "Nope. Wore a regular tee-shirt. Oh, yeah. Well, no, actually we whistled at the babes. Some really good-looking girls come out of the backwoods."

Joel: "Did any of them whistle back?"

Jack: "Oh, yes, just about all of them. Actually once me and this girl just went over in the bushes and did the thing right there. No one noticed because we were on a back road."

Joel: "Did any of the guys ever offer to introduce you to their daughters or anything?"

Jack: "Nope. I doubt I'd want to know any of their daughters. But one time, a guy I had to stop on the road said that I should 'take my girlfriend over that there bank' because there wasn't any traffic or anything."

Joel: "What did you say?"

Jack: "I said that I agreed with him totally."

Joel: "Did you ever take something along with you to read? If so, did you get mocked and scorned?"

Jack: "No, I never brought anything to read. I brought a piece of paper with me to write song lyrics down that came into my head. I figured that I usually thought of the best lyrics when I was out on the job, but when I brought the pencil and paper I couldn't think of anything. I got mocked and scorned because when we went to Bobby's, I would pick up the copy of Football Preview and see how the Hokies and Steelers were going to be this year instead of picking up a copy of 'Buxom' or 'Adam's' or 'Players Magazine'. They said I was looking at the wrong magazines."

Joel: "Didn't they ever talk football?"

Jack: "My foreman talked about WVU a lot, and knew that I was going to Tech, so he asked me to hold up a sign at the WVU-Tech game that said 'Hi Doofus -- Road Crew'. His name was Doofus. I don't know what the sign meant, though."

Joel: "Did you ever look at the 'right' magazines?"

Jack: "Only once. They were pretty disgusting. Bruises and hickeys and stretch marks and stuff."

Joel: "Did any of them ever look at the gay magazines?"

Jack: "No way. They were militant against fags. They had some great jokes, though."

Joel: "How long was the average trip to Bobby's? What did you do on rainy days?"

Jack: "About 20 minutes. Had to chat with the natives. Rainy days were the best. We'd get to wear these great yellow suits and sit in the crew cabs and sleep."

Joel: "Where exactly was this again? What roads did you work on?"

Jack: "Hickory County. Most of the roads did not have names, anyway, they just kind of adopted the name of the extended family that lived on each. You should definitely visit Hickory County. It is an experience."

Joel: "Were you the guy that got to hold up the sign?"

Jack: "Yes, I was the Flagman, thank you. Damn good one, too. I perfected the action of turning the sign from Stop to Go to an art. There's more to it than meets the eye."

Joel: "Did you ever have to put the sign out and prevent someone from bulling on through?"

Jack: "Well, the only thing that really bothered me was when I was on some of the roads that only about 5 people lived on. They would drive by for some ungodly reason at least 35 times a day. But it is my job to stop them every time they go by, and they got pissed at that. I had to warn them every one of those 35 times that 'There's some equipment up ahead, so watch out and stay to your left.'"

Joel: "What did you do if they didn't stop?"

Jack: "I'd just let go of the sign and let them run into it and mess up their paint. I loved it."

Joel: "Really? You'd let them run into the sign?"

Jack: "Oh, yeah. I wouldn't be liable if I was doing my job properly. Plus, I love to see a redneck who's mad. At least when I have a lot of D.O.H. good 'ol boys around me to back me up in case things got ugly."

Joel: "Did anyone ever try to hit you?"

Jack: "One time I almost got run over by a big redneck truck."

Joel: "Did you do anything to it? Did it hit the hot tar?"

Jack: "Nothing except laugh at the guy in the truck. They were the epitome of redneck. I threw in a subtly sarcastic comment to them that went way over their heads. And no, we weren't putting down tar that day. We were fixing the berm of the road with the grader and the loader."

Joel: "I would have gotten a silly grin eventually. Which would have gotten me complained about. Did anyone ever complain about you? What would have happened?"

Jack: "Oh, I got a pretty silly grin a lot of the time. You had to. To keep your sanity, you know. No one ever complained. If someone would have complained, the other guys would have covered for me and made fun of the person who complained."

Joel: "While you were slowing trucks were the men actually working?"

Jack: "I stood far enough in front of the equipment so that the people in the trucks couldn't see what was going on. So, I could tell them to wait as long as I wanted to-- from a minute to several hours. That was one way I could stop the good-looking girls-- to tell them they'd have to wait an hour before I could let them go."

Joel: "That's ingenious. Did you ever hold a jerk for a long time?"

Jack: "Yeah. If he had an ego that matched the attitude of his '76 Firebird, I'd say that the road had spontaneously combusted up ahead and that there was no hope of curing the situation for at least an hour. Then, I'd blow their mind with intelligent conversation and then they would spontaneously combust, kind of like the drummer in Spinal Tap."

Joel: "How would you pretend to know when it was time to send them on through?"

Jack: "I would act like I was looking off in the distance for some kind of signal from the powers that be, and they couldn't see where I was looking, so they believed me. I always said 'Have a nice day.' Even if it was after I'd held them up so that they were late for work."

Joel: "I imagine that I'd have played VERY dumb. Vapid stares, huhs, & so forth."

Jack: "Sometimes I did play dumb. Kind of hard to play quite as dumb as they, but yeah, I did. Like they'd ask 'What exactly are they doing to the road?' and I'd shrug and say 'You tell me. I haven't the slightest idea' and kind of laugh. I could just see the confusion and frustration in their eyes."

Joel: "What was the longest interval you ever had between cars?"

Jack: "Three and a half hours. Total Boredom Hell. I think I killed a lot of brain cells that day trying to think of something to think about."

Joel: "You didn't just sit down? Why were there no cars that day?"

Jack: "I didn't sit down because I was the best I could be. If, by some freak chance, a car WOULD've come by, I could be reprimanded for not doing my job properly. I took my job very seriously. There were no cars that day because we were working a section of a road that was far away from anyplace. I mean REALLY far away. I think there were officially 2 houses on the road. And we paved it. Nice to know they have their priorities straight."

Joel: "What you coulda done was sleep, then. Sitting is bad, but sleeping is okay?"

Jack: "Sleeping is okay only if it is the direct result of excruciatingly hard work done on the job site. Sitting is bad, because by sitting you are making the statement 'I'm tired, but not to the point of sleep.' And that means you're not doing your job to your fullest potential."

Joel: "Did you ever get rewards for upholding the public image of the West Virginia highway worker?"

Jack: "Nope. But I got the Sleepyhead Award for falling asleep every afternoon in the crew cab."

Joel: "Why'd you always fall asleep in the cab? Did they ever put things in your pockets?"

Jack: "No. They slapped me on the leg really hard so that I said 'AAAAAAARRRGGHHH'. They got a big kick out of that."

Joel: "And they did this day after day and you kept falling asleep day after day?"

Jack: "Yep. I couldn't help it. The boredom was too much for me..."

Joel: "Did you ever pretend to be asleep?"

Jack: "No way!! I hated it when they slapped me on the leg and hollered something like 'YEEE-HAH' all of a sudden. I felt like killing them all. It was all in fun, though."

Joel: "Did you ever feel bad when you didn't manage to fall asleep?"

Jack: "Bad in what way?"

Joel: "Well, did you feel as though you'd disappoint them if you didn't fall asleep?"

Jack: "Yeah, kind of. I mean, it became kind of like a little tradition within out (our) tight-knit group of blue-collar workers. We had a bond, and I felt like if I didn't fall asleep, then that bond would weaken ever so slightly."

Joel: "What was the most people you ever had asleep at the jobsite at once?"

Jack: "13 is my best guess."

Joel: "And you never thought about going around and robbing all of them?"

Jack: "Why? My loot would consist of Red Man and dirty pictures."

Joel: "So, you could spite them by throwing the stuff away..."

Jack: "You forget: they know where to get free samples. They get them from a nearby hardware/convenience store. They know the owners, so whenever a new shipment comes in, they hit the jackpot."

Joel: "Did you ever wake up with the rain outside and two guys dressed all in yellow sleeping on either side of you and just think 'Life is good?'"

Jack: "Oh, those were the best times. It didn't get any better than that. Those were the moments that I'll look back upon and say 'Those were the days.'"

Joel: "Did the D.O.H. boys LIKE you? I mean, were you accepted? Smart people sometimes do NOT get fully trusted by the rest of the boys."

Jack: "Well, at first I was kind of looked at weird by the good 'ol country boys, but after a while they decided that I wasn't a fag or something just because I could read. They had a good time watching me fall asleep. Actually, I think my falling asleep was the very thing that kept them going from day to day.

"Our guys kind of respected the fact that I knew my multiplication tables. Mentioning computers, I think, would blow their minds."

Joel: "Did they ever let you drive?"

Jack: "I almost made it all the way through the summer without having to drive, but on the last day, they asked me to drive one of the big dump trucks. I was very honored. I think they did it as a going-away present."

Joel: "Did they treat you as a full member of the team or more as a mascot?"

Jack: "Well, kind of in-between. I got out of a lot of hard grunt-work, but I had to do a lot of little menial tasks. That kind of got on my nerves."

Joel: "What kind of little menial tasks?"

Jack: "Menial tasks such as being a broom-holder or a sign putter-outer. Or 'Hey, college boy, get my 'bakker out of my dinner buhket, will ya?'"

Joel: "Ever think about putting dirt in their tobacco?"

Jack: "No way, man. These people were my brothers, my flesh and blood. D.O.H. was my life. We trusted each other -- I wouldn't slip dirt in their tobacco, and they didn't do anything weird to my twinkies.

"Road Crew 7 lives."

Joel: "Did they know your dad had gotten you the job or however it was?"

Jack: "Hey, now. I like to think that he didn't 'get' me the job. I mean, since he was kind of the big boss in the other district, and since he knew the big boss for this district, though, I can't say that with the greatest of confidence. But I slept just as hard as any of the other guys did, so I think I earned my paycheck."

Joel: "Did they ever talk to you about what to do in case anyone shot at you?"

Jack: "Nope. Highway shootings aren't real big in West Virginia like you think they'd be. Sometimes, though, I shudder at the thought of the fact that if they had their guns with them, they might have done just that. God knows they owned enough guns."

Joel: "Where did you all go to the bathroom? I mean, if you had to dump or something."

Jack: "We went over the side of the cliff. An anecdote: once this little round fat guy had to take a dump. So, he went over the side of the hill and pulled his pants down. Little did he know that the loader operator was just about to dump dirt in the very place that the round man was taking a dump. He came extremely close to drowning the man in sod."

Joel: "Did you use leaves or what?"

Jack: "I personally just held it. Number 1 and 2. I couldn't very well just lay down my sign and leave the traffic to barrel into the equipment. Well, I could've, but I thought better of it. I imagine most D.O.H. workers could even tell you the best KIND of leaves to use."

Joel: "Do you miss the guys?"

Jack: "Yeah, I miss 'em. All of 'em--Dempsey, Curtis, Billy Joe Lilly, Libby, Jocko, Gordy, Bobby Joe, and Smitty. They live on, though, deep inside me."

Joel: "Will you work there next summer?"

Jack: "If I don't co-op, I'll do my best to live one more summer of glory there."

Joel: "Did y'all have t-shirts or something made up after the summer was over?"

Jack: "Yes, as a matter of fact, we did. Nice ones, too. We could also choose from an assortment of other products from the W.V. D.O.H. line--jackets, hats, gun racks, that sort of thing."

Joel: "Jockstraps? Crotchless panties?"

Jack: "That, too. The crotchless panties were real purty."

Joel: "Did they have Road Gang #7 on them?"

Jack: "No, they were generic D.O.H. issue."

Joel: "How many men and women were in Road Gang 7?"

Jack: "That's Road Crew 7, thank you. Get it straight. It depended on the day. Sometimes, we'd have about 7. Sometimes, when people from the other crews didn't have anything better to do, we'd have about 25 people on one job site. All doing very important work, of course."

Joel: "Were any of them black? How many were there?"

Jack: "Yes, Libby was half-black. Surprisingly, though, most of them there just treated her as one of the gang. At least in front of her, that is. Also, Paul the Janitor was black. Everybody liked him."

Joel: "Do you write them?"

Jack: "Writing them would be kind of illogical."

Joel: "None of them can read?"

Jack: "Not really."

Joel: "Did the road gang swap wives, things like that?"

Jack: "No, but one time I met a guy who traded his wife for a gun."

Joel: "Tell us more about the gun and wife swap."

Jack: "Well, I don't know much about it except that he traded his wife to his brother for some kind of hunting gun. I am not making this up.

"These are backwoods folks, you remember."

Joel: "Well, if it was a GOOD hunting gun I could understand it."

Jack: "Oh, I'd say it was a good one. West Virginians know guns."

Joel: "And how to shoot 'em."

Jack: "And feudin'."

Joel: "Jack, you're not engaged in any feuds right now, are you?"

Jack: "Naw. Our feud with the Johnsons is long forgotten. We've layed that one to rest. Th' Johnsons are family now."

Joel: "Slept with 'em and got their gals pregnant, didya?"

Jack: "Well, they were good looking. Those were the girls I took over the side of the bank this summer."

Joel: "That was the one time you could put down your slow/stop sign, right? Or did you not put it down even then?"

Jack: "I set it up in the wet tar as it was setting."

Joel: "If I wanted to see the places all this happened, how would I get there?"

Jack: "OK. Go west on route 460 from Blacksburg until you get to where you turn off to go to Rich Creek. Then follow the signs to Peterstown, then find the signs to Short Branch. The D.O.H. building kind of sits down from the road a little, on the left. You can't miss it. It's the only mark of civilization for miles around--except for the two-room shacks that is.

"What'll you see there? Hmmm...well, it depends on the time of day and day of the week. If you go by anywhere from about 8:30 to 4:00, you'll probably see a bunch of vehicles parked in the parking lot--the vast majority of which are trucks. These are the vehicles of the workers. In addition, you'll probably see some piles of gravel and stuff like that towards the back of the lot. At least a couple of white or yellow state vehicles will be parked close to the building."

Joel: "Will they have a commemorative plaque or something outside, to show that you worked there?"

Jack: "They have some really yellowy spreaders out front that yours truly painted, thank you."

Joel: "What's a spreader?"

Jack: "Glad you asked. I haven't the faintest idea, other than it's a thing that hooks on to a truck. We had to paint them in the rain one day.

"By the way, if you care to go in and chat with the mechanics or janitor or office staff, just go in and say that you are a personal enemy of one Wendell "Doofus" Glassman. Doofus was my foreman. Every one of the workers there says the guy's crazy and any day now will flip and jump into the Greenbrier River, thinking he's a fish or something, and drown because he's a little fat, roly-poly red-faced nut who can't float. When that day comes, the Hickory County D.O.H. will celebrate with fireworks and a 21-gun salute to the downfall of the ever-oppressive Doofus Glassman. God rest his soul."

Joel: "Can you get me a job there next summer?"

Jack: "You're about the 300th person that's asked me that since I started working there. The only thing I can say is that my dad doesn't really have any clout in a totally different district, so you'd have to just put an application in. But then again you could work in his district and be stationed in Princeton. If you were serious, I could put in a good word."

Through Time and Space with Joel Furr