One of the new electrical things I learned after moving to Washington was running electricity into a mobile home.  (That was back in the ‘70s.  Today, the politically correct way of talking about them is to call them “Manufactured Homes.”)  The only mobile home I had looked up in Montana was my own.

I have installed the electrical service for some 300 or more manufactured homes since then.  Oh how the National Electric Code has changed in that time.  For many years now it has changed every 3 years.  Today’s rulings could apply to a shop, a garage, a manufactured home or a stick framed house.

When I first started hooking up the electrical power to manufactured homes I was working alone, so I devised some short cuts and simplified wiring methods so that I could do the job quickly.  In some mobile courts (or manufacture home parks) I have hooked up as many as three in one day.

In the early days, all of the homes were set above ground.  Later a “pit-set” came into practice.  The difference being that a pit-set home was set into the ground so that it was not so high off the ground.  It was fastened to concrete footings and gave a finished appearance of a stick framed house.

For homes that were set without a pit-set, you could find varying degrees of height under the home.  Some of those variations called for interesting if not challenging installations.  For example one of the mobile homes was set so close to the ground that in order to connect the electrical feeder to the home, and make the under-home connections I had to slide in on my back, head first.  For that job I was doing a change over from propane to an electric furnace.

As I worked under the home making the electrical connections I kept bumping my head against something.  I couldn’t figure out what it was and it didn’t seem to be overly bothersome.  The soil was very sandy.  When I completed the connections, I had to scoot myself out feet first.  Once again outside, I stood up and felt my head.  There was a significant lump on the outside of my cap.  It was sand mixed with blood.

I looked under the home and could see a board on the ground where I had been working with nails poking up out of it.  To take off my cap I had to remove the lump from my cap.  Then, of course, I needed to wash my hair.  It was a minor wound that quickly healed.

One of the worst circumstances to work in was if the set up crew had already skirted the manufactured home before I got there to do the electrical.  Add to that, if the access hole is on the opposite end of the home from where the electrical has to be connected to the home, it could call for extensive crawling and cramped working conditions.

You know, the electrical inspectors are aggravated by that practice also.  One of those times the electrical inspector refused to crawl under the home to check my work.  He kneeled down and peeked through the access hatch.  Then he asked me how I had done the work.  Then he passed the job.

Eventually nearly all the inspectors came to know my work.  For many years now they have trusted my word on what I have done…..

While working for a shop in Spokane, I did a lot of work in the old Davenport Hotel and Restaurant.  The chief cook was called Sheff.  I thought that was a rather strange name.  After many days it dawned on me they were saying “Chef.”  (In Havre, Montana none of the cafes rated a “chef” so I wasn’t familiar with hearing it.)

The restaurant seemed to change chefs off and on while I worked there.  Each one had a different name that came after “Chef.”  One of the chefs in the parade had conduct that I didn’t appreciate.  I never knew if he was married or not, but a wife would not have appreciated what took place on the job.

Nevertheless, I was there to work on electrical things, so I tried to ignore everything else.  One of those jobs involved one of his soup pots.  He had a line of them (perhaps 10 or more) against a wall.  The wall was about 4 feet tall.  The last pot in the line was rotating on a heat source.  Except that, on this day, the pot was not rotating.

The only way to get to the pot in the corner that wasn’t operating correctly was to climb up on the stub wall and walk down the line to the corner, then climb down behind it and work on the electric motor.  As I walked down the wall I thought; “I don’t want to slip now and end up in a pot of boiling soup.”

After I got the motor working on the pot turner, I returned the way I had come – walking the top of the wall.  Chef was there waiting for me.  I told him the pot turner was fixed and working.

I also told him; “When I was walking along that wall I accidently kicked a whole lemon in one of the pots of soup.  If you get rich and famous for a new recipe, I want part of the credit.”

Chef was instantly curious, dare I say anxious, and asked; “What lemon?!  What pot?! What soup?!”

I just chuckled at his frustration and walked away.

I don’t think he appreciated my sense of humor.

I had worked in the electrical trade in Glasgow, Montana for four years when work slowed down to the point that I needed to go elsewhere for a job.

We had purchased a new car on payments, and those payments had to be made.  We had a little boy to raise, and for some reason he was always eating.

I went 160 miles west to Havre, Montana to find work and I found it.  On July 4^th I went back to Glasgow to move my family and trailer home to Havre.  I hitched the new Ford to the trailer and moved everything in one trip.

We got a late start, so when evening came we pulled over alongside the road outside of Malta, Montana.  I remember it was the 4^th of July, because during the night someone drove by and threw out a fire cracker that landed by the trailer.  When it went off it woke up the baby.  I heard the car drive away with the occupants laughing.  We survived.

After thirteen years in Havre it was time to move again.  By that time our family had grown to four children.  I found work within the week in Spokane, Washington.  This time it took six trips and an entire year to make the move.

Besides children we had horses, goats, chickens and a second larger mobile home (total of two mobile homes), a structure that connected the two living quarters, my mother in law, her mobile home (that makes three mobile homes), her car, our car, a pick-up, a trailer tower, the original new car we had purchased, a spare parts car for that one, and a horse trailer.

Setting up all of our trailers and etcetera on unimproved land took some time and lots of work.  Nine years later we moved again onto another unimproved land location.  By that time the only items from the previous move we didn’t have were the original car, the parts car and the horse trailer.  Of course we had acquired a number of outbuildings that we didn’t want to leave behind.  And the older children now had their vehicles.

In the forty-three years since our move to Spokane we have built a house on unimproved land, started our own business, and acquired and/or built more outbuildings.  And we have purchased our second new car.

I have now turned the business over to my sons.

The electrical trade has done a fine job of supporting us and our family.  I have informed my family that if and when my wife and I died, and they want to move, they should hire a bull dozer and push everything down into the swamp and cover it over.

Let future generations say; “What happened here?”