Weapons specialist Rico Fardan (Lee Marvin) and horse wrangler Hans Eherengard (Robert Ryan), together with explosives expert Bill Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) and Apache scout Jake Sharp (Woody Strode), a mercenary team of four hired to rescue a kidnapped wife (Claudia Cardinale) from Mexican revolutionary leader turned bandit Jesus Raza (Jack Palance), after several days of tracking Raza across the brutal Mexican desert:
Eherengard: "Broiling all day. Freezing at night. Alkali dust choking your body.
Who lives here long enough to get used to it?"
Fardan: "Men, tempered like steel, a tough breed. Men who've learned how
to endure."
Eherengard: "Like you and Dolworth?"
Fardan: "Oh no - men like Raza."
- The Professionals (film), 1966
Brilliant dialog from writer/director Richard Brooks.
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We've run into some hard men over the years on various heavy construction projects, and always an ironworker. We'll second Fardan's comment regarding men "who've learned how to endure" with a definite "Oh no, not like us"... a two page excerpt from an old July, 1952 issue of National Geographic that we swiped from the high school library back in the day, specifically for the article The Mohawks Scrape the Sky (Robert Conly):
(Internet Images)
"I got to Brooklyn about 1923 or '24; I can't remember which it was. But I'll always
remember my first job here, because it was almost my last... it was a big apartment building
uptown in Manhattan, on Fifth Avenue. I was working on a corner 200, maybe 300, feet up.
My foot slipped, and all of a sudden there was nothing under me but the ground so far away
I could hardly see it... when I felt myself falling, I stuck out my arm, and it caught a beam.
I just hung there, swinging in the wind. When the other men saw me, they began to shout: 'Tom,
what are you going to do?'... there was only one thing that I could do. I got my other hand up on
that beam, and then I chinned myself and got a leg over it and climbed up. I sat there for a
while, to get my breath, and then I went back to work."
- Tom Jacobs, Mohawk Ironworker (from article)
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"Think that you can walk this wall the entire perimeter of the roof of the building?"
We take a look over the four-foot high parapet wall and sheer free fall to the bone shattering concrete sidewalk 220+ feet below.
"Nope!!"
We're poised upon the roof-level of a near completed 22-story high-rise office building overlooking the Northern Virginia/Washington DC skyline. Along with his expertise with high-rise concrete construction, Jeff's a veteran when it comes to structural steel erection and inspection. We've been tasked on and off to assist Jeff on this project and in return receive some greenhorn training. Couldn't have been partnered to a better man for the job. Jeff had officially completed his rookie training years earlier when he was one of the signatories of the final "topping out" beam of the 110-story, 1,451ft Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) located in Chicago, Illinois. At the time of completion officially designated the world's tallest building. You could stack six of our current structure within its height.
Jeff proceeds to step up onto the eighteen-inch width top-of-wall concrete coping and casually "goes for a walk".
"Ok Jeff... OK... we get the idea."
Jeff steps back down onto the roof enjoying his laugh for the day.
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Lookin' up the sheer 1,451ft Sears (Willis) Tower
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"... then ya' just slowly slide the indicator probe across the surface. When you're aligned with a bar the needle will sweep to the approximate bar size and depth as indicated on the meter scale."
So we've received a quick five-minute instruction as to the function of the Pachometer (aka, R-Meter), an electro-magnetic device specifically made for detecting concrete embedded reinforcing steel, and are sent on our way. The task is to investigate the presence of reinforcing steel placement in a recently constructed concrete balcony of a refurbished downtown Washington DC high-rise hotel. The architect and engineer have a bit of concern over the integrity of one particular balcony as there are no generated inspection reports regarding construction. It's also holding up occupancy permit.
We're led up to a twelfth-floor suite by the builders construction manager. The suite interior is ultra elegant - definitely not gonna' be a cheap nights stay. He slides open a large French-style glass panel balcony door...
"Well, there's the balcony. We haven't installed the railings yet. I didn't want to send anybody out there until you guys confirmed the rebar."
The balcony was at the time an unfinished concrete deck, maybe 4-inch thickness - an airy cantilever high above the city street. The view is spectacular. Not a panoramic city skyline. On the contrary, a narrow but towering canyon of brick, granite and glass curtainwall facade. The view extends either direction to near convergence and blue sky multiple city block beyond. At this late morning hour, the downtown boulevard and sidewalks below are a busy congestion of traffic and pedestrians. The opposite street multi-story glass curtainwall adds a reflective, bit dizzying illusion bordering infinity. We're thinkin' that we could definitely set here and have a few beers one evening.
From the doorway sill, we're lookin' at the maybe six foot distant far edge of the unsupported cantilever deck and unprotected 100+ foot free-fall beyond.
"So you guys don't want to send a worker or crew out there but want me to step out?!"
"Uhh... I don't know... That guy I spoke to at your office said that you guys could do it."
"Yea... I know who the f*k ya' spoke to... that's why I'm here."
We took a look at the construction drawings but intuitively knew that all was fine. Inspections occasionally don't get scheduled and reports get misplaced. And a builder that slack is a definite improbability.
Oh well... the worst would be death on impact... the best would be that we land in the padded passenger seat of some hot dolls Porche convertible and are wicked back to her place for "urgent care treatment".
Geronimo...
We crawled over that deck lighter than a cat. All was fine an expected, but leaning out over the edge of that balcony and air below was dicey at best. We finished up just as the construction manager was returning to see how we were making out.
"Just finished... all is fine... you're good to go."
"Great, thank's for commin' out at such short notice... boy are you sweatin."
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The men born and bred in the desert were of indescribable toughness, inheritors of a tradition that included not only the blood of Spaniard, Frenchman, and original Indian, but infusions from the Lipans and Comanches who rode down the war trail in the September moon. They were men of the hot wire and the cold steel who flourished where common mortals dropped. They were ignorant, superstitious, stubborn, half pagan and half religious, suspicious of all change and all life beyond their horizons, uneducated in the sense of absolutely no formal learning but endowed with a magnificent natural intelligence of their own world. There was an old proverb that a man who stayed in the place of his birth often turned sour and did not amount to as much as he might have if he went away. That did not apply to these men. They rarely went away because the desert was all they knew, and it was so harsh and demanding that only the best stayed alive. Staying alive was a personal triumph that far exceeded going away and growing rich.
- From A Mule For The Marquesa (novel), 1964 (Frank O'Rourke)
(aka, The Professionals, after the film adaptation)
