Friday, July 8, 2022
Hi, My name is Neal Beck. I worked with Tom many years back, Joe Moser was there at the same time too. I remember always the incident that I could always "hold over" Tom when we were joking around together. I was hired on as a building estimator, and worked in the down town offices. My boss, Landis Kraus, wanted to show me around the fabrication plant on Francis Street (That's were Tom worked out of). It was my first day working at Dominion Bridge and Landis decided I should go out to a work site (I think it was the new water treatment plant that was being built near my home) with Tom, to see what we did in the field as well. Well off we went. As were going along I noticed that we we going the wrong direction. I mentioned it to Tom and he gave me that old " what do you know Rookie" look and kept on driving. Well I guess I thought he knew what he was doing, but I knew there was only 1 road that went over the RR tracks that came into Regina from Saskatoon. Tom tried a few streets that "dead ended" before getting to the tracks so I asked him if he wanted me to show him the way. Well anybody who has worked with Tom will know the kind of look I got! Taking directions from a "Rookie" wasn't high on Tom's priority list!!! After following my lead we got to the site and Tom showed me around the site and introduced me to Alex, one of his site super's. Following our visit we went back to the shop and not a word was said to anyone else BUT you can imagine how I used to keep Tom in place when he tried to give me a hard time about being a Rookie and all! This was an on-going joke between Tom and I for years to come and helped make us best of friends until we went our own ways after the closing of Dominion Bridge Operations in Sakatchewan. Sorry to see you go Tom, but I'm not far behind, and am looking forward to, and just itch'n to, bug you again about that day. LOL!
