Blast to the Past

Looking Out My Old Office Window

A charter this morning brought me back to my ol' stomping grounds in Regina where I used to be a fueller before I got hired on to fly. It was nice to be back and say hi to everyone I used to work with. While sitting in my old chair in the fuel office looking out at the view I seen everyday for 3 years I couldn't help but remember all the good times I had had here. Here is a funny story that came to mind...

It was an early winter evening and I had just returned from fuelling a jet at the main terminal. I was covered in snow and fairly chilled throughout the body as it was ugly outside. As I stepped into the fuel office my partner that I was working with that night was just finishing bundling up and told me he was going to do some snow removal on the apron with our old Bobcat. I said sure, shed the last of my outer layers, grabbed a coffee and sat down to finish up some paper work. I was soon finished the paper stuff and was relaxing in my chair looking out at the blizzard in progress, dimming the lights in the office so I could see through the darkness that had already settle on the airport. I could see the Bobcat working back and forth on the apron moving mounds of snow and cutting a ray of orange light through the heavy snow fall from it's bright beacon on the roof. I noticed all of a suddenly that that was the only bright light out there, all the taxi and apron edge lights where out on the airport, strange, normally Regina doesn't try and conserve power between it's flights or they'd be flicking the lights on and off every ten to twenty minutes.

While I was pondering this strange event, the door to the office opened up, sending a cold breeze past me. Brrr. My partner comes walking in with a funny look on his face and a three foot length of black cord hanging out of his hand.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Umm," he starts, a little worried sounding, "I pulled it up with the Bobcat just near that last apron light, I hope it's nothing important."

"Huh, that's not so good. I noticed all the apron lights are off, is that normal?" I pointed out.

"Crap. I hope that has nothing to do with this, I'd better call airport maintnaince and let them know." He says while quickly reaching for the phone and punching in seven digits. After a brief explanation and a few uh, huh, uh, huhs he puts the receiver back in his cradle and plops into a chair. "Crap."

"Not good?" I question.

"Ahh, looks like it cut off the power supply to the entire fields taxi and apron light. But looks like the runway lights are still working though. Maintenance says they should be able to get the back up power to work."

After sitting and watching for the lights to come back on for about ten minutes, we hear a plane call up Ground on the radio for his taxi. Ground gives him the taxi clearance and ends it with a "But be careful as there isn't any taxiway lights." And he doesn't stop there."It looks like a fueller took out a line for all the power to the lights and maintenance can't get the back up system to work with it out either." I look over at the big guy sitting next to me, his face is starting to turn a shade darker.

"Geez, they could have left that last part out." He says with a red face, "that's kinda embarrassing."

I just start to laugh in my chair and pretty much for the rest of the shift. For every time a plane went to taxi for the next two hours, ground control had to tell the story of why the lights weren't on, and he always ended it with, "a fueller did it." My partner got over the red face pretty quick and started to laugh with me. And that was just one of the funny story's to tell...