Manholes are holes, usually with a cover, through which a person may enter a sewer, boiler, drain, or similar structure. They seem to be called manholes because you really couldn't call them womanholes, could you? Moreover, for centuries man was the generic term for humankind, like chicken was for roosters and hens. So you have words like postman, salesman, fireman etc.The politically correct term "personholes" sounds a bit unsteady even if in 1990, the city of Sacramento in California officially renamed all its manholes "maintenance holes," out of concern for something called gender equality, which is a unique American institution designed to castrate men. For the centuries that manholes have been around, it was men who entered them, to do the dirty work of cleaning.
As a little boy, in the early morning, I used to enjoy going outside into the gallery at 1 Scott Bushe Street in Corbeau Town, and watch the city corporation workers cleaning the drains with their long-handled brooms and shovels.Regardless of their job, they talked and joked a lot and were always smiling. Some of them had short, rectangular pieces of metal which they used in pairs, one in each hand, scraping the ground noisily to collect dirt and scraps of anything loose and deposit the contents into the truck that slowly followed them around.I wonder what has happened to them? In my memory they seemed to be there every morning, cleaning up the same places. Where have they gone?Manholes are access points to entire new worlds below the surface of a city. During the Hungarian revolution in 1956, it is claimed that Hungarian freedom fighters used the Budapest city sewers to advantage, popping up from the manholes to fight Rus-sian soldiers and disappearing back down into them when cornered.
Many scenes from the Broadway musical production, Phantom of the Opera, the longest running show in Broadway's history and considered the most successful entertainment project in history, take place in an underground sewer, dolled up to look like a ghostly catacomb. Unfortunately, some of its sickly-sweet songs have become obligatory hearing at Trinidadian marriages.There are a number of third-rate Hollywood movies that take place in sewers, the best known is probably the forgettable Alligator. Some would say Hollywood itself is a sewer.Most people really do not care about manholes, it's the manhole covers that we see. Trini manhole covers are famous. Trini cars have fallen into manholes when their covers mysteriously disappear after torrential rainfalls. Trini manhole covers rise and fall with governments.Like road-paving, traffic lights, Udecott and WASA, they seem to be unique to Patrick's National Movement philosophy of keeping people confused or vex. They are always there but frequently hidden. They are always right where you have to drive, usually by your left front wheel.
Coming out onto the Diego Martin Main Road, it's always quite exciting to have to respond to the sudden evasions at speed that drivers make over the median into your face, to avoid hidden manhole covers.The question of why manhole covers are typically round was made famous by Microsoft when the company began asking it as a job-interview question. Originally meant as a psychological assessment of how one approaches a question with more than one correct answer, the usual answer given is that the hole below the cover is round because a cylinder is the strongest shape against the compression of the earth around it.Also, the term manhole implies a passage big enough for a man, and a human being climbing down a ladder is roughly circular in cross-section. So a cylindrical pipe is the natural shape for manholes. The covers are simply the shape needed to cover up a cylinder.
There are other answers. A round manhole cover cannot fall through its circular opening, whereas a square manhole cover may fall in if it were inserted diagonally in the hole. Similarly, it is easier to dig a circular hole and thus the cover is also circular.The one I love best is that a round manhole cover can be more easily moved by being rolled. You can see Trini enjoying that wuk.Manholes are not without their dangers. In 2004, a woman was electrocuted after stepping on a metal manhole cover, while walking her dog in New York City. A manhole cover fell on my left big toe when I was about six years old. Everybody said good, yuh too fass.I was trying to lift up the cover to see what was underneath and of course I did not have one of those wonderful manhole picks or hooks that the city corporation workers use to lift up the manhole cover. You can still check the covers for the "pick holes," in which a hook handle is inserted to lift them.No one did anything for my toe. In those days you took your blows and moved on. Today they would do a CT scan and a dengue test.My toe still hurts when it rains.