Words of wisdom

Fairfield

Fairfield

Participating member
Location
Bucks County pa USA
I was just thinking today of things said to me when I was a new climber.... man, hate to think what would have happend if I said what was on my mind after some of it. Then again I would have missed out on some of the greatest people I know and am not sure where I would be now or doing. So share some of the best/ funny things that where said to you as a new guy climbing.

What if, what if, what if? What if your daddy stuck his *$!@ in a pond? You might have been a bull frog!

It's not the fall it's the sudden stop. So shut up, keep working and dont suddinly stop!

and my personal fav,

Are you top climber?? Oh, your not? Then get the hell out of the front of the truck and sit in the back, Fing new guys!!!
 
Actually, alot of the crap that I heard when I was first learning was negative.

"You can talk the tree down just fine"

"You wanna go up? ...We ain't got the time for that!"

"Wanna learn? I'll show ya some weekend when I get some free time."

So I watched and learned myself, and now I smoke those guys. They were and maybe still are decent climbers, but it occurred to me along the way that they were afraid to teach or maybe just greedy or afraid to share their skills. The best revenge with people like that is knowledge and experience. The other thing I learned from them is that I will never be like them. Sharing and learning should be second nature, not a commodity.

-Tom
 
One of the sayings that has stuck with me was from Phil Kelley who now works in Atl. with Downey Tree...it also echoes what I think is at the end of every one of James Kilpatrick's posts...but Phil told me...don't worry about going fast, worry about doing it right, speed will come. I think JK's says "speed follows technique", which is pretty much saying the same thing in less words.
 
One of my first jobs on a crew was removing a big oak from a ravine backyard. The rounds of trunk had to be cut into 16ths just to be able to hump them up a hill and around the front to throw up onto a truck. It was also 37 degrees in the shade!
On the third day we were sitting down for a break, out of breath and heat-stressed. This one guy - alcoholic, carny, no teeth, probably not alive anymore - turns to me and says:
"You know what's really pathetic about this? You went to SCHOOL for this crap!"
 
[ QUOTE ]

"You know what's really pathetic about this? You went to SCHOOL for this crap!"

[/ QUOTE ]

haha awesome I love it i ask myself often why I love what i do so much

I got one quote

"you think one handing a chainsaw is dangerous? you drive your car 65 mph everyday to get to work...whats that?"

I still dont one hand because my dad never did
 
I think I'm pretty good with a throw line and it's become the best time saver. A boss saw it and told me to practice on the weekend. Or the foreman who called me a slow climber the first time I was allowed to climb, although he could hardly climb at all. Then there's the climber who had hit all the other ground workers with something was yelling at me to work more under him cause he wouldn't hit me. All this for the lowest hourly rate I'd had in over twenty years.
 
Positive:
"Try to have the whole job planned out in your mind before you leave the ground."

"A good climber has consistency. An inexperienced or bad climber does things differently every time. Consistency equals predictability."

"If you get in a tree that's so big and so gnarly you just have no idea what to do, get out your handsaw. As you start moving and cutting, it'll come together."

"Do all the work you can from any position before moving."

"Unless you have a specific reason, never leave a stub."

This last phrase I have made my own, and I have told my students this from the first day I started teaching them:
"The key to tree work is predictability. You need to accurately predict the outcome of your actions. That takes knowledge, expertise, and experience."

all of these things were told to me by David Guthrie of Vancouver, WA. Man, could that guy climb.
 
On removals,
"If and when you're gonna take a swing, it's gonna be right into where you didnt flush that stub, guranteed."

"Pranks are fair game, nobody messes with the lunches or water cooler."
 
effen' A!!!! on the stubs....man I have left some thinking I was gonna use 'em and stuff always gets hung on them...or if it is just one???

stuff always will get hung up on that ONE stub....;)
 
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