Blue Chips

Blue Chips is a volume of short stories about the lives, loves, hates, fears, dangers and experiences of construction workers. It deals with a part of American life seldom portrayed. It is about people who work with their hands and struggle against the harsh realities of weather, earth and materials. Blue Chips depicts their minds and bodies at work and play, making these workers come alive in all their sweaty dimensions. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Herbert Applebaum is a construction man who has been building for thirty years. He is also an anthropologist, with a Ph.D., and three previous books on construc¬ tion and the anthropology of work. This is his first venture into fiction, which he describes as the ultimate reality, more accurate than the ab¬ stractions of social science. His approach is naturalistic, in the tradition of London, Dreiser and Sinclair. CONTENTS Mudslide 7 Shutting the Falls 20 Now We Got Women 42 Southern Discomfort 67 Cave-In 91 Love Canal Story 104 Break-Up 126