What is a Lineman?

Published 4:00 pm Thursday, January 31, 2008

“I am a lineman for the county, and I drive the main road. Searchin’ in the sun for another overload”

The Wichita Lineman

That golden oldie, written by Jimmy Webb, was a pop hit for singer Glenn Campbell decades ago.

Campbell’s crooning rendition conjured images of a lonely, dedicated man perched high atop a pole in the vast Midwest prairie, with just humming wires for company.

North Coast residents got a little more familiar with the lineman profession after December’s damaging storm.

But while the profession may have its lonely moments, a la the Wichita lineman, such field technicians in the Pacific Northwest are just as likely to be found on busy roads and intersections as out in the middle of nowhere, and may use a bucket truck instead of climbing gear to reach the top of a pole.

Mike Meisner is Astoria network operations supervisor for Qwest. In early January he and two other lineman were replacing a damaged communications cable near the intersection of U.S. Highway 101 and Perkins Road in Warrenton.

He said being a lineman involves many different jobs.

“It’s primarily building the infrastructure that keeps our phones working,” he said, gesturing to a man in a bucket truck stringing a heavy cable between two poles. “That cable was knocked down in the storm.”

When they’re not doing storm recovery, linemen also install new equipment and replace utility poles.

In the Northwest, stories of grateful residents baking cookies for linemen crews and otherwise thanking them for getting phones and lights back on were some of the positive highlights of the storm recovery effort.

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