Remember When

40 YEARS AGO • AUGUST 3, 1978

LOGGERS DEVELOPED COLORFUL LANGUAGE

By W.L. Olson, Kootenai Logging Specialist

Continued from last week

As the work day shortened and camps became more comfortable, men rode to work in a "crummy," the railroader's slang for the caboose. But the work was still arduous, and with a good "side rod" (boss of a logging crew, a term derived from the push rods on a steam locomotive which drove the wheels) an outfit could make a profit. Wages went to $3, $4 and even $6 a day for a good man. The quality of the food in the camp often determined how long a man stayed on the job or when he "pulled-the-pin" and "counted the ties" to town. (Rail cars were coupled together with a large pin and when a logger pulled-the-pin he cut the car loose from the train, i.e., left the camp.)

The term "gyppo" started early in the railroading days, originally meaning a cut rate railroad construction contractor. After finishing the grading contract and after payoff was made, they often left camp without paying their workers or the company store. Today the term has taken on more respectability and refers to the woods contractors who produce most of the logs for our modern mills.

Modern day logging is changing rapidly, yet some of our old loggers' words still mean the same. "Snoose" (like Copenhagen) is still snooze wherever you are. That powerful cure all, tucked neatly into the lower lip of any self-respecting logger, is said to have poured life into a balky mule or cured the modern Peterbilt log truck of everything from flat tires to chipped paint.

The "hoot owl" shift probably started back when stable duties kept a man busy all night, but today the shift starts before daylight and ends when the heat and low humidity send the crews home for the day.

The "skid road," obviously was a cleared path on which teams skidded logs, and when a logger went to town he often didn't leave the skid road. (There ain't no such thing as a skid row). This section of town contained the cheap flop houses, bars and honky-tonks which flavored the stories the loggers took back to the woods.

The "hooker's" job has changed over the years. The original hooker (not to be confused with the skid road princess who plies her trade on the sidewalks of the big cities) pounded dogs and hooked chains into the logs to be skidded by the bull teams, then he hooked logs on the crotch line loaders on a railroad show. Now the hooker is head chokerman or hooktender on the big cable yarders.

A few of the terms describe the dangers that the logger has learned to live with – the "widow-maker," a loose limb, hung up and waiting to fall on the unwary woodsman or the "sky bound" tree that refuses to fall or hangs up on the way down.

If there are any experts in the field of logger language, Walter McCulloch of Oregon State University has to be one of them. He has identified and published a dictionary with some 4,000 words and phrases that are now in use or have been used in the past to describe something in a way that a logger can understand. The humor that we read into loggerese only added a little levity to an otherwise drab and often miserable existence.