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Creosote is a cold tar used for preserving wood for such things as rail ties and telephone poles. The Effinger and Russell creosote plant, where my father worked for many years, was at 30th and Talleyrand. They moved out of town years ago and I think they eventually went out of business. About all that I remember about the it are logs piled higher than several houses and a great big crane used for lifting them. I remember that there were always a lot of creosote ties lying about our yard. I am not sure what they were there for; but, I know that being around them very much would burn the skin. You didn't have to touch them. Just being around them was enough, especially if they were new. So I wasn't supposed to play around the creosote; but, I would anyway and got several skin burns before I learned my lesson. My father worked at Effinger and Russell for over thirty years. He first came to work for them during the depression when jobs were hard to come by especially for someone with one leg shorter than the other. It was the kind of thing you had to hide back them. My father had polio as a boy; at the time, there was as much fear of polio as there is of aids today, perhaps even more. He found a job at a slaughterhouse knocking cattle in the head; but, a couple of hours of that and he quit. Not being able to face my mother and tell her he had quit his job, he did not come home until he found a new one at Effinger and Russell where he eventually worked his way up to foreman. Then when he was sixty years old, they fired him. Said he was getting too old. I think they wanted to get out of paying him a pension. I didn't get the trip I was looking forward to that year and life got a lot tougher. |
