Moving grain and moving transmission work

The alarms begin at 5 in the morning. With the room dark, he crawls out of bed not excited to start the day.

Monday through Friday, grain elevator operator Dalton Doll’s schedule runs the same from the moment he wakes up to the moment he clocks out.

Dragging his feet out the door, he kissed his girlfriend and went on his way.

A large coffee is made by the loud machine in Casey’s each morning. Eighteen minutes, that’s all it took to get from Casey’s to work.

Surrounded by the rumbling of semis and the constant dust in the air he fills a container one by one with over thousands of pounds of grain to get shipped out by boat or truck. Container after container they bang on the sides to keep the grain flowing out, straight into a pit where its moved into a large silo to store.

Six o’clock rolls around and the clean-up starts gathering the equipment to assure it is all locked away for the night. The last sweep of the day right at sun set as the streetlights turn on, the keys are hung in the office and door gets locked.

The ride home was pretty smooth – always after rush hour calms down.

Arriving at home, he sits down in the chair outside to unlace the boots coated in wet moldy grain. He goes in to say “hi” and change into something that smells a little fresher and walked down the street to pick up where he left off with his trucks transmission rebuild.

A long hard process started three weeks ago Dalton and his girlfriend have worked together to take apart and rebuild the transmission all through the night.

As they come to a stopping point, they clean the tools up and go in for the night where they take turns showering and settling in for the night just to wake again and do the same.