Bobby bass

STRUCTURAL-STEEL IRONWORKER | 42 | CROWN POINT, IND.

I won't skydive, I won't bungee jump. I don't want to know what falling feels like.

Falling's bad. Do I put myself in harm's way? Sure. But I'm a structural-steel ironworker, and that's my job. Just like when a police officer gets shot, that's part of his job. Or a firefighter loses his life in a fire -- that's part of his job.

I have to make sure I and my men address the safety issues, so you're constantly thinking about what's going on out there. We want to leave our problems at home. When we're here, we don't want to think about the dog or our kids or our wife. 'Cause the first time you start deviating from what you're doing, you're gonna get hurt.

When I was an apprentice, we had what's called a bull tail. It's an inch-and-a-half, four-foot-long choker [on the crane] that we wrap around the beams to hoist them. It's really big. It's got a 25-ton hook on it and it weighs 65 pounds. Well, it fell off the crane, 154 feet, and hit me in the head. Glanced me. Gave me 80 stitches in my forehead, five fractures, 10 stitches in my chin. My whole eye socket got cracked. I was only 19 years old. I was in the hospital for, like, three days. I had my friends sign me out on a Saturday, and I was back on the job site on Wednesday. I still had the stitches and everything. Basically, I didn't want a bad name for myself.

I instruct a structural class, and the first thing I ask new apprentices is how many of them are married. And usually 90 percent are married. Then, I tell them the divorce rate for ironworkers is 87 percent. Reason being is, usually we get an older crowd that want to be ironworkers, and they're already married. So they become ironworkers, and we're in such a hostile environment that it changes you as a person. Quicker to anger. You don't care as much about certain things. And most of the time your better half can't cope with that because you're taking your work home with you. You can't take this hostile environment home 'cause it doesn't click.

If you offered me the same money to go do something else, I'd tell you no. Even if you gave me more money, I would probably say no. People always ask me why I work so many hours for the money. Well, the money's nice, but I want to build America. I build the city of Chicago. I get to see what I do. That's very satisfying.