One day when Dink and I had our “partnership” going, he drilled through a 24″ wastewater line that we were relocating over at 5th and West Lynn St. for the new Mopac Highway that was being built. This was in the early 70s.

Rather than tell anyone about breaking the line he put a big piece of tin over it, then parked a machine over the top. The plan was to return in the middle of the night when everyone went to sleep and put a “fix” on it when the flows were low. He enlisted me to meet him there about midnight and help him.

Needless to say the planned fix wasn’t as easy as Dink had made it sound. About 3:00 AM after doing the best we could with the nasty smelly situation, we headed out for home. But Dink, as Dink always did, wanted to stop off at Jim’s and have a cup of coffee.

We walked in that place, the one at 1-35 and Ben White Blvd. on the south side of Austin and took a seat at the counter. Within minutes we looked around and the place had pretty well emptied out of the mostly drunks that had closed down the bars at 2:00 AM.

I guess we each had each become so used to the smell of “chit” that it didn’t occur to us that we may not have been the best of restaurant patrons.

What ever we did to remedy the situation that night must have worked, because it seemed to work until we got a new line ready to go in service and switched the flows over.

Being a Utility Contractor isn’t always filled with joyous moments.

But someone has to do it.