Replies

Used to hit wasp nests with a small coffee can of naphtha. Worked pretty well usually. When I was a roughneck (derrick man at the time) one Saturday morning I was greasing all of the various sheaves on the derrick. I was in my counter-weighted derrick climbing belt and was on the way down from the crown to the catline sheave.

No sooner had I tied off at the sheave and started to attach the the grease gun hose to the grease fitting when a swarm of yellow jackets that had made their home on the inside of a cross girder came after me. I got stung twice in the time it took to unhook my safety chain.

I just dropped as fast as I could and caught a ladder rung about 20 feet down. Of course the other guys on the crew got a big kick out of it, saying they had never seen me move that fast. Ha ha.