[log in to unmask] wrote:
> Story I heard from my boss at tonight's Christmas party was that their 
> safety harnesses were found on the roof, their safety lines were tied, 
> and the swingstage became unbalanced as or shortly after they climbed 
> onto it, and dumped them overboard.  There was also something about a 
> line having been CUT, but I don't know what kind of line.   We'll see 
> it in the Times tomorrow.
Ralph,

A disconnect from an understanding of safety equipment? As previously an 
employer of a workforce we were extremely safety conscious in particular 
re: rigging. John Weiss, Sr. who was my business partner his brother, 
before I met John, fell from a pipe scaffold some 200' and died. The 
company attitude was that a swing stage was safer than pipe because it 
kept you mindful of the limits of the system when you were using it. As 
much as we would talk safety over and over there was always a problem in 
that we would have mechanics who would simply ignore it. Though it is 
particularly disturbing that the 2 brothers would leave their harnesses 
on the roof in some way it seems like an old story. John himself jumping 
over parapets and walking on cornices without safety equipment did not 
help the enforcement of safety within the company. He was the leader. I 
think he did it in part out of defiance in respect of what had happened 
to his older brother. There were many a time I had to stand on a roof 
and turn away to gird myself for what may happen next. As time went on 
he did start falling off of things though never high enough to kill him. 
But the brain damage was caused by driving into a wall at 90 mph on a 
dirt track. I never was quite able to get across to him the example that 
he made to the workforce. Regardless of that, at the last PTN IPTW I was 
able to give him a lifetime membership in PTN. He was there at the event 
under the false pretense that I was to get an award and that I did not 
know about it. The evening before at the auction he told me that he 
really liked the people that he was meeting. I told him that they were 
his people too, and that he was a member of the community. He said, "I 
am?" So the next day when I gave him the membership I told him that not 
only was he a member of the community but that he would never have to 
pay dues (sorry Ralph you can stop standing near the mailbox for that 
one). He always liked a bargain. I told him that he had to say something 
to the audience. He said, "Be safe. Thank you."

Though John is not yet 80, and he was not that old when I met him, I 
first got to know him for all his stories that he would tell me about 
his adventures in the histo presto business when we were anywhere 
driving. The story about the rock falling off the top of Perry's Victory 
Monument in Putin-Bay where the Portuguese stonemasons had their 
harnesses tied to it the day before I will never forget. It was them 
pushed the stone over by accident they said. That was where John got to 
use the helicopter to reset the 1 ton stone after they pulled it out of 
the basement of the museum.

][<en

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