As most of us relax on this long holiday weekend set aside to honor our labors throughout the year, we took the opportunity to take a peek at some interesting jobs in our area.
We chose a couple of rare jobs, positions most people never think about or maybe didn't know existed in these parts.
In doing so, we found two people with passion about what they do behind the scenes to make life here better for everybody else.
The naturalist
Bruce Beerbower loves animals, especially the ones that make most people's skin crawl.So he loves to answer people's questions about them. Especially, "What is that?"
Beerbower has answered thousands of those questions as naturalist at Catawba Science Center in Hickory for 27 years.
His goal is to educate people about the creatures that share their world and to get them to explore it on their own.
Beerbower receives visitors, helps plan and interpret exhibits, develops programs, leads nature expeditions and takes regular calls about wildlife.
"I got three calls this morning from people describing a snake they'd seen," he said Wednesday as he talked with visitors.
He sounded mildly frustrated as he described others' paranoia of snakes and their tendency to misidentify them. He's often been called to emergency rooms in the middle of the night to distinguish snakes that bit people, all nonpoisonous.
"I've had many, many thousands of snake calls or snakes brought in. People see a snake, especially if it's got a pattern, and automatically think it's a copperhead. In my almost 28 years here, only 40 snakes at this point have been copperheads."
Beerbower said most of his knowledge didn't come in the classroom. For instance, he didn't used to know that baby copperheads have yellow tails -- used to lure prey that think the tail is prey of their own -- until learning it in his young son's Ranger Rick magazine in the early 1980s. Now he uses that knowledge to convince people they haven't encountered copperheads.
To pull people into the joy of discovery, he answers their questions with questions. "When people bring something in, I won't tell them right away what it is," he said. "I get them thinking. If I don't know, I'll tell them. I learn something new every day."
The elevator repairman
You'd think the last thing Hickory needs is an elevator repairman. It doesn't exactly have a lot of tall buildings.
Reality might surprise you.
Joe Cook, owner of Elevator Repair Service Inc., is the third generation in his family to keep local elevators running smoothly.
Cook's grandfather, J.M., started the business in 1922, having returned home to Hickory after working for a Charlotte elevator company that went bankrupt. Cook's father, Shuford, took it over in the 1960s, and Joe started working for him during summers in high school. He took over from Shuford about 25 years ago.
The business has about 450 clients in 14 counties. Two repairmen help Cook take care of them.
"There's 75 to 100 elevators in just about four blocks of here," Cook said while servicing the Bank of Granite's elevator in downtown Hickory last week. "They're everywhere."
Joe drives from job to job in an unmarked utility truck. His secretary and wife, Sharon, dispatches him by cell phone.
He mostly maintains the machines, many of which are now computerized, dusting their sensitive electronic controls and venting the motor when the weather gets too hot and it stops working.
Cook uses a magnet attached to a long pointer to retrieve keys and other personal items that fall down elevator shafts. He also rescues stranded elevator riders, though he said that's pretty rare. Most elevators stall without anybody on them, he said. Phobics who believe otherwise "watch too much TV."
Well past retirement age, Cook keeps repairing. He says he wants to give clients the service he believes they wouldn't get with a big company. A big company has tried to get him to sell, but he's so far declined. Plus, his daughter works in the medical field and therefore won't take the business over from him.
"I'm the last one of 'em."
Joe Cook
Age - 71
Training - On the job as a teenager. Worked several years with a major Virginia elevator installation company to learn the new models.
How long in job - Since his teens.
Favorite part of job - Troubleshooting and visiting his customers.
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