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It was while working at a Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario, Canada that the author met many American contractors who specialized in nuclear contract work within North America.

These men and women jokingly called themselves Nuclear Whores and the website in which they found work was called http://www.roadwhore.com/.

According to the online ‘Urban Dictionary’, a Road Whore is defined as: “A temporary worker from out of town. In engineering and construction, road whores seek out and find massive bonuses, high pay rates, hazardous duty pay, per diem, housing allowances and any form of premium remuneration”.

These new friends taught him the ways of the contractor and he soon began a life as a nuclear contract engineer, moving from project to project around Ontario.

Soon after beginning his life as a nuclear contract worker, the author met and fell in love with a news journalist while doing improvisation at Second City in Toronto.

Three years later they got married. A year after that they gave birth to a son.

Unfortunately their love was short-lived. It ended two years into their marriage while living in Kincardine, Ontario while working under contract at the Bruce Nuclear Facility and she was home with their son.

One day, she packed everything including their son and moved to Oakville leaving the author in Kincardine, all alone.

Like many parents who suddenly find themselves inthis position, the author was surprised when told he was not an equal parent of his 1 year old son, but was what his divorce lawyer referred to as a “Secondary Parent”.

As such, he was not allowed to talk to his son whenever he wanted or to see him whenever he wanted. He had to fight to see his own son, and this took time.Without his boy in his daily life, he couldn’t eat, sleep or work. He was absolutely devastated.

After a few days, he went to his family physician who was immediately concerned for the author’s well‑being. This country doctor suggested a personal remedy of his for overcoming difficult times; he told him to concentrate all his thoughts away from the negativity of the present to the funny, happy stories of his past. He suggested trying to relive these memories, by recollecting them through painting, writing, songs, etc...

So, he wrote.

Each day, he concentrated on one funny, true story from his past. He would think about it for hours at a time, sometimes all day, and then would write it down. It took 42 days for the author’s lawyer to get visitation permission to visit his son in Oakville and in that time he wrote the stories that compile this blog.






Atlas

I was at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station with three guys from my group on a little tour, walking from our office building to the drawing office.

We passed a worker carrying a giant framed map of the world. It was about 5’ x 5’ and probably weighed a lot considering the strain on the guy’s face and the way his muscles were bulging from the weight.

He was wearing construction boots and a hardhat and was probably moving the map to some manager’s office.

As we passed him one of the guys I was with said, “I know that guy….what is his name again??”

I said with a smile, “His name has to be Atlas”.

The other guys pondered this for a few seconds in silence until one of them said, “Really? I thought his name was Fred”.

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