Alright! Welcome Mr. North to the porch! On behalf of those of us
who are fortunate enough to have a computer and a few Galootish tools,
but are unfortunate in that we don't know offhand what the practice of
"gandy dancing" entails;
   What is gandy dancing? Oh yeah, and what's a black gang?
Humbly,
Wes
   p.s. I checked no reference material before posting this question.

> Between then and now I worked a variety of  jobs:   the black gang in the
> Merchant Marine; gandy dancing in Alaska;