The following is a narrative about a restoration crew heading out to the
Nebraska stat capital
Five days out of New York port of Authority with a crew of oversexed
Frenchmen leaves much for the imagination; oh it wasn't the rhendevous in the
intergalatic refinery yards at midnight in the atlantic richfield/sea land
holding yards( cote' de cote' with Newark Airport) that tested the principals
of sanity.
This is a lovely part of the garden state;of endless rail spurs;with giant
overhead cranes whose lights turn night into day.It wasn't the hour
either......
At midnight its an errie subterrainian world of holding pens for tankers
laden with tractor trailer containers from every part of the globe;
interspursed with  miles of chemical cars on tracks;with thousands of new
cars awaiting shipment.and routing...No ;this was ok as long as I had a
guide..and a roll of tums.
To find your way you need a harbor piliot; who will guide you through and
endless maze of parked containers on a fork lift the size of a small building
all under  the steady drone of the N.Jturnpike traffic overhead;which appears
as lighted rings that  surround the planet you  are standing on .
there is a chemical smell that permeates the fog like  air and nauseates the
stomach. The glare of sodium lights and these endless miles of maze like
bleak landscape makes you want to question the conscious state of mankinds
destiny;

We make our way to a small staging area that holds our two cotainers of
Gommage. equiptment being fitted to trucks. The   french are already there;
all in black leather tight jackets or drivers vests; unshaven smoking yellow
paper gallouises ;as they arrange belongings and equiptment and  finish up
with customs guards who appear like east Berlin check point guards in the
bizarre glare of anti crime light.
 My guys are a motely crew at this hour; many of them are ex legionairs with
checkered backgrouds and tatoos of tours of duty in places like Leopoldville
and Mombassa.
Sweet gentlemen who know how to maintain equiptment if not hot wire a car;
but don't cross them. They are a tight bunch; and so they should be when you
ride 300 ft up in the air you want to know who you are riding with; they
count on each other to be there if something goes wrong; to watch your back ;
to keep cool under fire.  One time on the tribune building we had a
swingstage get caught in a sudden gust of wind off of lake Michigan that held
it out constantly 20 ft off the building on a angle; you couldn't go up or
down until you got back to the wall at 33 stories this can be some ride with
unknown consequences; alot of men would loose it; these guys stayed cool
until I could lassew a rope to them and hawl them back to the wall.

By 6 am we are offf in two rigs bound for Nebraska; via Chicago; the guys
have brought french tapes with them and both trucks keep radio contact with
each other so you can hear the torch songs the other guy is listening to.
  I drive the first leg with Jean Francois behind ;the tapes sound like
Charles Asnovor
and a rolling sqeezebox of  the french accordian
the others sleep or sit up and  smoke their acrid brown tobacco; they all
stink from 3 days in the same clothes and eating garlic laced food.and over
ripe apples.
I drive with the window open most of the way;even while transversing the
tunnels; and rejoice at the site of our first cheap hotel  and hot showers
for everybody.
 We're bound for the great plains and Linclon Nebraska in a convoy  of trucks
reminesant of the praire schooners and their European counterparts who I take
it stank as well.
 After picking up more equiptment in Chicago;we almost do not make it out.
Many of these guys worked the gommage on the Tribune building with me 3 years
ago; so they know some of the town and night ilfe on the seemier side of
Chicago.
One guy(Fabian) was late getting back the morning we were leaving as he had
gotten up mixed up with a bar maid friend who wanted him to stay(jump ship)
and play house with her over on the North side;they had a teary farewell at
Navy pier as Fabain promised to return; and we rolled our eyes after seeing
the script played out a hundred times before in different cities; these guys
are classic heartbreakers..
Proably the most inspirational moment of this whole trip; was to travelling
for hours if not a day in Americas heartland seeing nothing but endless
fields of corn and pastureland and there in the shimmering heat as we mount
the top of a crest of hill... away out off in the distant blue horizon; rises
Goodhues testiment to modernisim;
an early deco masterpiece carved out of limestone and Gustavino tile
glistening in the  sun like a temple of proud success of a people who labored
this soil and cut themselves a future out of  sod and wind to create the
state of Nebraska by the sweat of their brow.

So impressive was this image of architecture that we stopped both trucks and
walked up in the path of a cornfield; and stared speechless at this Jules
Verne like dome shaped( saturn rocket) of the modern movement placed in what
was then the middle of the open plains of the prairee;..the scale of the
building and the vastness of its surrounding  has left us in awe.
We started work this week Au revoir Best Michael