Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 16, 1992 TAG: 9202180367
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
WE'RE LAZY? TRY A DAY ON THESE SHIFTS
"AMERICAN WORKERS don't work hard enough." "I have long thought that [Americans] lack a work ethic to live by the sweat of their brow." So said two Japanese officials recently. These hard-working folks in our little corner of America could make those officials eat those words - if they had time, that is.\ `A decent day's work for a decent day's pay'Folks who know Bill Forlines say he squeezes more hard work into eight hours than most people do in one workweek.
"They accuse me of it," said Forlines, a carpenter for the city of Salem for 21 years.
"But I was just brought up that way: Give the company you work for a decent day's work for a decent day's wages."
Sixteen-hour workdays have dwindled to eight as Forlines nears his 64th birthday. But the quality of his work hasn't wavered a bit.
At the corner of North Broad and East Main streets in downtown Salem stands a testimony to Forlines' innate hard-work ethic.
It is the city's new Farmer's Market, $100,000 worth of pressure-treated lumber, metal roofing, wooden tables and wrought-iron leg benches.
Forlines built most of it himself.
He has built sheds for Longwood Park and cabinets for city offices. He has hung doors and repaired city signs damaged by vehicles and bad weather.
His latest project: building "about 100" aerobic step benches for the city Parks and Recreation Department.
"Any kind of odd jobs, I do it," Forlines said.
In 21 years, Forlines has missed only six days of work.
He was repairing a storm window for the city and accidentally stepped on it. A piece of glass became embedded in his leg.
He spent six days recuperating from surgery.\ - LESLIE TAYLOR
No regrets despite long, erratic hours
Fred Altizer Jr. was answering his own phone at 8 a.m. one morning last week.
Altizer, administrator for the state Transportation Department's Salem District, was in early because a relatively mild February storm had slicked up the roads.
Snow days are often hectic for the department, and Altizer was in early see what was going on.
A snowstorm is one of many reasons that Altizer's job is not always an eight-hour-a-day proposition.
Some of these extra hours are spent listening to abuse from residents nettled at the department because it is not going to build a road or because it is going to build one.
Altizer is holding down two jobs. In addition to the administrator's job, he is overseeing the Salem resident engineer office - a job he held for years before becoming administrator.
He said a good staff at the Salem residency has "helped me immensely."
Altizer, 43, usually starts his days with a five-mile run in Southwest Roanoke and Roanoke County.
Altizer's father retired from the department as a heavy equipment operator the same month his son joined the department 21 years ago.
Young Altizer grew up in Christiansburg with a vision of what working for the department would be like because of late-night phone calls calling his father to work.
"Many times I've seen him get up in the middle of the night," Altizer said.
He had his warning, Altizer said, but he followed his father into the road-building business with no regrets.\ - BEN BEAGLE
\ `Every day, hard work' a motto he lives by
Every morning at 7, Sandor "Alex" Deli begins a process that will place 1,200 bricks in a wall before the day is over.
Deli, a mason's helper and a hard worker, mixes mortar, sand and water and hauls bricks on a forklift for the masons who lay them in place. He works for Carroll Masonry of Salem from 7 to 4, with a half-hour for lunch and two 10-minute breaks.
"Every day, hard work" is his description of the life of a mason's helper. "I like a day with many corners," he said. Working around a corner is a slower process that requires fewer bricks for the masons.
Deli, a husky 32-year-old native of Hungary, is accustomed to hard labor. Before he moved to Roanoke 2 1/2 years ago, he drove a farm tractor and a backhoe and harvested grain in his native land. His English isn't polished, but he knows what's going on and he's learning.
When he isn't handling bricks for schools, libraries, firehouses and his current job inside the General Electric plant in Salem, Deli makes improvements to his Southeast Roanoke home or cooks Hungarian food. His wife, Katalyn, is a nursing assistant and they have two sons. He often picks up weekend work, repairing roofs or porches.
Brick-laying goes on in wintertime, but the masons and the helpers must go home when it rains or snows or the temperature falls below about 25 degrees. Deli, a helper for more than two years, wants to move up to mason and earn higher wages.\ - GEORGE KEGLEY
\ `It's been hectic,' but it may have saved a school
Who knows. Virginia Heights Elementary School may not even be open today if not for the hard work of Mickey Strayer.
When Strayer began teaching there eight years ago, one parent attended the first PTA meeting she went to. Other PTAs were buying computers, but Virginia Heights had no parental support and, as one of Roanoke's smaller neighborhood schools, was in danger of closing.
So Strayer went on a rampage, organizing fund-raisers, carnivals, volunteer programs, business partnerships and a swimming program. The only problem was, she was divorced, raising two daughters alone, teaching first-graders and trying to have a social life - a juggling act that took "a lot, a lot, a lot" of time.
Strayer worked on weekends and brought her daughters to school at night to work on lesson plans. "It has been hectic," she said.
But the result: a pool of volunteers that grew from a handful to 200 in eight years; PTA-purchased computers; support from parents and the community that may have kept Virginia Heights open when city officials considered closing neighborhood schools years ago.
Good results haven't slowed her, though. As the school's volunteer coordinator, Strayer still works nights and weekends drafting letters to parents and businesses to maintain their support and attract more.
Free time is still rare. But both daughters are teens, making it easier to work 12- to 14-hour days. And she's forced herself to reserve a weekly two- or three-hour escape to watch a movie and relax with her boyfriend.\ - NEAL THOMPSON\ \ Dusk till dawn: `You just keep going until it's done'
CALLAWAY - The weak midwinter sun had dropped behind the mountain, and the sky was turning to navy, when Keith Callaway finally made it to the milk house.
It was nearly 6 p.m. Callaway was opening and closing series of valves, flushing out the milking system with hot soapy water. The tubes gently hissed and pinged while Callaway bustled about the small room, skirting the stainless steel milk tank, rinsing, hosing, twisting knobs.
Callaway's day was nearly through.
He'd just finished milking 80 Guernsey cows, a job that took 2 1/2 hours.
Callaway, 23, has been a farmhand at Cline Brubaker's dairy farm for nine years - he went full time when he got out of Franklin County High School.
Some days, Callaway does the morning milking. That means waking up at 4:45 a.m.
"I stay up late," he boasted. "Ten o'clock. Maybe 11. My friends kid me a lot."
This day, Callaway started at 8 a.m. He cleaned the barn, scraping manure and bedding with a small tractor. Some days, the manure is loaded into a spreader and - even on the coldest days - towed to the fields and hurled over the dirt. It will fertilize crops come planting time.
By 9 a.m., he was feeding cows and calves.
By 10 a.m., Callaway was tinkering with tractor engines, filling hydraulic fluids and changing oils.
Before lunch, he was hauling round bales of hay to a pasture where pregnant heifers grazed.
After an hour-long midday break, he dug into the silage - the pickled, chopped corn stalks - piled on the ground. He had to remove the truck tires that weigh down a tarp over the silage, pull off the heavy tarp, and dig out as much of the feed as he needed for cattle.
Callaway admits he prefers working with crops.
"We'll start next month, if it's dry," he said, his eyes gleaming. "Then we'll work till dark, no matter what time it is. You just keep going until it's done."
By 3:30 p.m., Callaway started milking cows.
By the time he finished, it would be dark outside. Quitting time.\ - ED SHAMY\ \ He does it for his career, the community, the future
When he was growing up, lawyer Clinton S. Morse was taught that "the Protestant work ethic of hard work, perseverance and self-denial was expected of all."
He learned that lesson well. He leaves home at 7:30 in the morning and, after at least 10 hours at the office and evenings of community work, "drags in" about 9 p.m. He's at the office every Saturday and occasionally Sundays as well.
Morse, a partner in the Roanoke law firm of Woods, Rogers & Hazlegrove, is president of Goodwill Industries and a board member of the Roanoke Symphony and the Management Association of Western Virginia.
But as the father of three - Stephen Forrest, Anne and Clint - Morse most enjoys his work with kids. He coaches youth baseball, basketball and soccer teams.
"Our country, our community requires that of everybody," Morse said. He was taught that work for community and career "was required to succeed as an individual and maintain ourselves as a strong nation."
In adulthood, he found two other reasons as well.
He said he doesn't feel satisfied unless he's worked as hard as he can at whatever he's doing. And, Morse said, he wants "to give my children every opportunity to succeed and to teach them the same values."\ - MAG POFF\ \ `I actually believe if I slowed down, I'll die'
Delvis O. "Mac" McCadden gets maybe three - "four at the max" - hours sleep a night and "it's starting to catch up with me."
But, McCadden, USAir district sales manager, thinks he might drop dead if he slowed down.
He paces the floor while talking on the telephone. He has to keep busy, and "it damn sure ain't the money" that keeps him going.
"My metabolism is so high . . . you know some people are high-strung. Maybe that's me," he says.
High-strung or not, Mac's day starts about 5:30 a.m. By 7:30 he has dropped his daughter off at the day-care center and reached his downtown Roanoke office or is headed for a meeting. Seventy percent of his time is on the road - making sales pitches to travel agents, corporate leaders and college officials.
He works numerous civic duties - United Way, Harrison Museum of African American Culture, Crime Line, Chamber of Commerce, Roanoke Library Board, Drug and Alcohol Abuse Council, the Arts Council and Roanoke Symphony - many the result of his job, around his USAir obligations.
Not only that, he does color commentary for Radford University's basketball games and has his own oldies but goodies radio show on Harrisonburg's WBOP.
He sets aside Wednesday and Friday nights for his wife and children except when his son is playing hockey: He tries to make all the games.
Because of his love of sports and his discounts on plane tickets, vacations are scheduled - around the baseball's World Series, basketball's Final Four, football's Super Bowl and a five-day scuba diving trip.
It would be ideal to go home at 5:30 p.m. rather than 10 or 11, but "I actually believe if I slowed down, I'll die."\ - JOANNE POINDEXTER\ \ `I guess the only free time is when I go to sleep . . .'
"I visit neighborhoods. I visit homes. I walk in the streets," he says. "I don't do that because I need my exercise. I do that because the kids need to see me."
And in Roanoke's alternative education program - where students with discipline problems go if they can't function in a regular classroom or where they return to school after being incarcerated - they see him a lot: during the day, when he teaches, but also at night and on holidays and weekends.
"The way I see the job, I can't leave at eight hours and I can't drop it on Friday and pick it up Monday. . . . You gotta be visible if you really wanna make a difference."
Even his appearance is part of his job.
Kids look at George Franklin and see a disheveled man with mismatched ties and a pencil sticking out of uncombed hair.
Franklin says there's a reason for that: kids can relate to him better if they can see a few imperfections in him and point them out. And they do point it out, telling him often that he should comb his hair or buy new ties.
"It's crazy."
His days often end at 9 or 10 at night. Most would end later than that, but he doesn't have a phone. That way, only the real emergencies will stop by and visit instead of calling. Those nights often end at 2 a.m.
"I guess the only real free time is when I go to sleep or when I go to church.
"I haven't had a vacation since '86."