Sparky Harper has always been good on his feet.

You kind of have to be when you're standing on a steel girder 100 feet up in the air with no fall protection harnesses like the ironworkers have now. Equally so on the dance floor, where there's never been a safety net, and if you're not sure of your steps, you look a bit foolish and everyone knows.

Sparky has always danced exceedingly well, and as recently as last year, at age 99, he was still hoofing it up at the regular clog hops.

"He was out-polka-ing us into his 90s," says daughter Shirley Kossowski, who is a formidable dancer in her own right and maybe the only person I've ever met who's used the word "out-polka-ing," which should definitely be accepted in Scrabble.

"I always knew how to dance," he says, when I ask him if he'd ever had lessons. "Nobody had to teach me."

Polka, clog, square dancing - Sparky's tried it all over the course of his long life.

He calls himself a "high-climber." And, now, at 100 years old, as of his April birthday, he's at the top rung of the first century ladder.

But most of the climbing he did was as an ironworker, helping build schools, bridges and other structures, here and in Toronto. He did jobs for Stelco and Dofasco, and earlier in his career, he did work in the United States.

"We put the peaks on buildings," says Sparky, who came to Ontario from Alberta as a boy, with his parents and their large family - 13 of them stuffed into a truck. He lives in Brantford now but lived most of his life in Hamilton, with spells in towns like Tweed and Wiarton.

"At the legion, when you lived in Wiarton, all the ladies would line up to dance with you," says daughter Lorraine Harper.

His ironworker job often meant getting up high, in the cold and the heat, and it was as perilous as it sounds.

"We used to work in our bare feet to get more grip," Sparky remembers. He saw a man fall to his death once. He also fell. "Actually, I was knocked off," he explains, by a load of lumber that swung into him while he was a couple of storeys up. He broke his ankle and heel.

But, mostly, he got through in one piece, did Sparky.

And it wasn't just the heights. Working with iron is, as the material would suggest, hard.

"He'd come home and you couldn't see his face, it was covered in black," says Shirley.

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"Mom wouldn't let him use our shower," Lorraine adds. He had to clean up outside.

Hard work, but Sparky did it - and in his own way. Did he ever. He used to smoke pipes and cigars, and sometimes he liked to have a few puffs while he fused metals together; so he drilled a hole in his welding mask, that the smoke would fit through. Too funny.

"One of the big wheels came by with a flashlight on my face, and the pipe was sticking out of the shield. He said, 'You OK? I saw a bunch of smoke coming out of your head.'

"I was a jolly fellow."

Sparky, a founding member of Ironworkers Local 736, has walked in every Hamilton Labour Day parade since, well, no one can remember. Until last year. He didn't miss it, but he rode in the float. He has, as you'd expect, outlived all of his ironworker charter mates from back then. But he has not outlived his welcome; not a bit.

The Ironworkers hosted his 100th birthday party last Saturday, April 13, in their beautiful new building on Tradewinds in Ancaster. There was dancing and food and loads of people, including many ironworkers. All there for Sparky; Shirley, Lorraine and son Michael, friends, ironworkers.

James Hannah, Local 736 business manager, tells me Sparky would come out to the regular retiree breakfasts faithfully until last fall. "Things have changed so much since Sparky was an ironworker. Safety's increased tenfold. He wouldn't have known what a harness is. They'd never use a belt. And fewer tools."

"I always enjoyed the work," says Sparky, a diehard Ticat fan. " I loved that job. You liked to be up there, on top of the world, looking down."

jmahoney@thespec.com

905-526-3306