Kaiser Aluminum Corporation had two plants in the Spokane area.  They were built in the early days of World War II because there was a need for sheet aluminum for aircraft.  Some portions of the facility had been built quite rapidly.

Like a transfer sub-station built right next to the building.  It had been built out of wood.

Eventually the time came when the sub-station needed to be replaced with a steel frame work.  The replacement building work could not be done by shutting down the plant.  This meant working on “live” electricity.  Since aluminum processing, casting, molding, etc requires a large amount of electricity, the amount of “live” electricity was very high.  Very Very High.

There were two men on the crew who had extensive knowledge about working with high voltage.  We paid very close attention to their instructions.  We used a large supply of rubber mats.  When transferring the wires from the old wooden structure supports, we only moved one at a time, and used rubber gloves while doing so.  Take note: these are not the rubber gloves Playtex used to sell for washing dishes by hand.  They are specially manufactured to protect the user in the case of  inadvertent contact with live electricity.

Temporary support poles and beams had been built and supplied for this job.  We would remove one wire from where it was fastened to a post or beam and attach it to the temporary post or beam.  When all the wires fastened to the old post or beam had been removed, the old post or beam was taken out and replaced with a new steel post or beam.  Then, one wire at a time, we would refasten all the wires back onto the new steel post or beam.

For the purpose of this job, they could not use anyone who didn’t or couldn’t listen to instructions.  It was a long, slow job.

Some of the conductors were copper pipes and rods.  As we were changing the structure, we would clean all the copper with muriatic acid.  That function was one I did not understand, as I had learned that copper oxide was a better conductor of electricity than clean copper.  But they sure looked nice, shining brightly in the sun.

No electricians died or were harmed during the course of that job.  The plant was in operation continually.  It seemed to me it would have been more cost effective to have prebuilt the structure, then shut off the power, take the existing structure out, put in the new one, re-attach the wiring to its supports, and then turn the electricity back on.

But then a layman is never aware of all the reasons and is rarely consulted.  “Ours not to reason why, ours just to do and die.”

For quite some time I was tasked to work at the airport.  I had to learn my way around the various “secret” passages.

I would be working in one building wing and have to go to another building wing.  There were some doors that you could use for egress, but they wouldn’t allow ingress.  Other doors were strictly ingress but no egress.  Once I learned where all the hallways, stairways, doorways, etc went, I was able to come and go where and when I wanted quite freely.

The airport was very adamant concerning any extra or unauthorized personnel on the runway.  They didn’t want any of that while the planes were taxiing in and out.  Generally they pretty much ignored me if I acted like I knew where I was and what I was doing.  Looking back I suspect they knew more about me, where I was, and what I was doing than I ever realized.

I did a lot of work in the area of the building’s steam boiler.  As time went along, it became more and more difficult to know which doors to enter and which to exit.

In one of the buildings there was a lounge and a restaurant with cooking facilities.  The back way into the bar was a fairly long straight stairway.  It was possible to look down the stairway, straight into the rear of the bar.

One day when another electrician and I were working on the back side of the bar, we knocked over a bottle of liquid that was bright red.  Hurriedly we tried to mop it up before the bartender came.

Suddenly we heard a scream.  We glanced up the stairs in time to see a woman disappearing through the door.  We continued cleaning up the mess.  Soon a number of security people came to check on us asking who had been hurt.  We had to explain that we had knocked the bottle off the shelf and were cleaning up the contents and the glass.

I was never allowed behind the bar again.  Then again, they never charged us for the lost drink ingredient either.

The airport had a cart that was wheeled off the plane into the kitchen area.  It was plugged into a D.C. power source to keep it hot.  When an airplane was ready to go, they would wheel it out and plug it into the D.C. power on the plane to have hot food to serve.

At one point I had to install a transformer from A.C. to D.C. in the attic space above the kitchen.  I had to brace my knee against the edge of the opening and boost myself up in the attic space.  One of those times when I was boosting myself up, I heard a sharp “pop” in one of my knees.  That knee hurt for many months afterward.

But there wasn’t any telltale red signs to signify anyone got hurt.

The pain gradually went away.

I imagine the airport has changed significantly since those days.

A Government job with union workers is not very efficient at times.  On one job we were assigned to work in pairs.  My partner was a young man who also owned a saloon.  He liked the good pay on a union job, so he would take that work when he could.

He was also an excellent manipulator.

We were given an assignment to make a run of conduit to a junction box in a specified area.  Due to the secrecy of the project, the plans were written out in a very unusual way.  They were written in a code you had to be familiar with in order to read them.

In a day and a half we were nearly done when my partner got in touch with our foreman and explained how it was a mistake to run the conduit the way the plans called for.  He convinced the foreman who told us to take it down and do it over.  We finished the day taking it apart.

Day three we started over doing it the way it had been changed.  By the fourth day the superintendent came by with the foreman.  My partner got them to look at the plans with him.  The superintendent agreed to change the way of running the conduit it to a third way.  By the end of day five (Friday) we were exactly where we had been at the start of day one (Monday)!  All week-end I wondered how long this would go on.

Monday morning my partner did not show up.  The foreman asked me where he was.  I didn’t know.  All I could say was; “He didn’t show up.”  The foreman returned with the superintendent and informed me that my partner had decided to stay home and take care of business at the saloon.

The superintendent told the foreman; “Too bad.  He was a good man.”

Do you sometimes wonder why government work is so expensive?