Jim Hinckley pointed me to this recent obituary in the Kingman (Ariz.) Daily Miner of Burnell “Bill” Freiday, who died on Oct. 12 at age 95.
The obit convincingly shows that Freiday lived a colorful life, with vocations that included these:
[P]ig farmer, squab farmer, wood cutter, movie theater operator, tractor parts inspector, tractor test driver, shrimp boat deckhand, asbestos insulator, circus motorcycle performer, electrician and lineman, Florida National Guard, Army Air Corps, auto mechanic, airplane mechanic, commercial pilot, heavy equipment operator, service station owner and operator, first civilian Kingman airport manager (at its current location), manager of various small manufacturing plants, welder, and founder of Freiday Construction.
Freiday’s construction firm helped develop Interstate 40 and Route 66 in Arizona, Hinckley says. So his involvement with the Mother Road is a substantial one.
But the job Freiday probably will be best-known for is guano mining.
Yes, he helped gather bat poop. This rare video showed Freiday’s operation:
It must’ve been interesting to see the reaction at cocktail parties when Freiday answered the inevitable question: “So what do you do for a living?”
Still, riding that tramway over the Grand Canyon to inspect the cables and working inside its cliffs must have been the thrill (or terror) or a lifetime.
This unusual vocation got Freiday in Life magazine and on the “You Asked For It” and “To Tell the Truth” television programs.
The “bat poop” operation was highlighted in the hard-to-find movie Edge of Eternity. There are lots of scenes that were filmed in Kingman and Oatman.
I had the distinct plesure of knowing Bill personally and he was the smartest man and had more common sense than anynone I have ever known plus he was fun to be around