| Joe Davey - The Bard of the BigDig
By Imelda Murphy and Francis Murphy
By a light of his own making, pile driver Joe Davey works within the tunnels
of the Big Dig. The lens on his welder's helmet permits only the right range
of light to filter through so he can apply his craft.
An intense light and heat is produced once the welding rod in his right
hand touches the base metal. Arc welding is one of Joe's skills, and its
application keeps the tunnels' walls from collapsing in on themselves.
Joe has travelled far from the family farm in Ballymote, Sligo. But his
early loves have followed him. In the darkness of the loft at home or under
the bedcovers illuminated by a torch, Joe nurtured a respect for poetry.
Old magazines containing poetry by Robert Service, Alfred Noyes and Rudyard
Kipling from the turn of the century were left in the loft for him to discover.
His secret readings lit up a respect for the craft of the poet and the spirit
poetry can capture.
Forty- six years ago, Joe then eighteen rode on a borrowed bike to the
train station. He journeyed first to Newcastle later to Toronto then to
New York and finally to Boston labouring in many capacities along the way.
Joe reflects on the harsh reality of rural life in Ireland in his youth.
"When you were the second oldest in a large family, there were only two
places to go, America and heaven. I hope I'm half way to heaven."
Verse
While working with his hands has allowed him to prosper materially, it is
poetry that has helped him spiritually. Joe writes what he calls 'parochial
verse', memorialising his work and his mates. Using a mock 'computerese',
Joe tells how he composes while driving or working. "My BTE has only a storage
capacity of 26 lines," he says with a grin. He waits for a query before
explaining that BTE stands for "between the ears." Along the line, Joe developed
a remarkable ability to work with his hands while his mind shapes words
and phrases into lines of verse.
He disseminates his poetry informally using the pseudonym, Jose de Karpenter.
As he mingles with his mates, he is as likely to be greeted as Jose as he
is Joe.
And the BigDig itself has been chronicled in verse in The Saga of
the Boorish Boar. One stanza describes the challenge that burrowing
under a thriving city has presented to the workers.
Like a bowl of spaghetti with an earthenware lid,
City services snaked in an underground grid.
The water and sewer, the phone and gas
Criss-crossed the easement where the tunnel must pass.
Fiber optics entwined with cable tv
Must be relocated by M.C.C.C.
The reference is to the 29 miles of utility lines and pipes, 5,000
miles of optic cable and 200,000 miles of copper telephone wire that will
have been installed by the completion of the project.
Modern Continental
Joe works for Modern Continental Construction Company-the contractor with
the largest volume of work on the Big Dig. Modern was competing for small-scale
road works when Joe started with the company. Joe credits much of Modern's
success to the leadership of its CEO, Les Marino. "Mr Marino never refers
to hierarchies when he speaks of his employees. No one is above or under
another," Joe says. Mr. Marino speaks in terms of the company operating
from a core planetary gear, with other gears added along side on the same
plane as the company gets bigger and more complex.
The analogy suits Joe whose work and mind turn both in earthly and sublime
rotations.
Joe is currently working on a poem whose focus is the new cable stayed
bridge, with its two inverted "Y' uprights from which an array of cables
splay forth to hold up the traffic lanes. He sees those uprights as a pair
of birds facing each other.
White-coated cable casings
Like long, unfeathered quills.
While flaring from their frontage
Stay the structure's outer sills.
In the shadows of the bridge, Modern is readying ramp-ways that will
feed and unload traffic to and from the bridge. Traffic is currently being
routed and re-routed around the sites where Joe is a working foreman. Recently
a fierce wind kicked up in Boston, and Joe received a call on his radio
from a project manager. A newly hung traffic sign was being battered by
the wind. The fear was that the sign might fall onto passing traffic. Joe
was detailed immediately to add more welds to the structure.
In the bed of his company pick-up, Joe keeps what he needs to respond
quickly to such calls, a portable welder and generator and an assemblage
of rigging gear. He requires no support crew. "I'm self sufficient, and
I do it all," Joe boasts. Over the radio, Joe responds to the manager "That's
CID." That is "consider it done."
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