How Many Fuse Boxes

Near the shop I was working out of, there was a small building undergoing de-construction. Demolition – to be straight up about it. I was tasked to strip the wiring out of the building. I was not allowed to touch the Power Company owned wiring. To prevent shock hazard, I took all the fuses out of the fuse box and threw them on the floor. (After all, if the fuses are on the floor they won’t be facilitating electrical shock hazards.)

Proceeding with my assigned task, I was cutting wire out of the runs and proceeding apace. At one point I had to reach over some boxes to get to my objective. As I stretched across the boxes, I cut one wire.

POW!

I blew a hole on the cutting edge of my brand-new pliers. How could that have happened? The fuses were lying on the floor. How could the wires be hot?

I did a careful search and eventually found the second fuse box. One I had not been aware of.

I took those fuses out, assigning them to the floor too. (O.K. So I threw them on the floor like I had the first ones.) I used a few choice words to describe the stupid electricians responsible for feeding two hot panels in one building.

Once again, I was working at cutting and stripping wires from the building. Soon though I was cutting another wire and POW!

Again!

I’m not saying if it was another set of pliers that got a hole in the cutting edge. However, I started to amend the identification of the electrician with a lack of intelligence.

Yes. There were three(!) fuse boxes in that small building.

You can spare yourself some grief (and tool destruction) if you check first.

Out of Gas Again

One of the contractors I worked for supplied me with a company pick-up. Yes, it was a 1945 Ford, but at the time it was only about 12 years old. Since for a time we were wiring a movie theater across the street from the shop, I would leave the pick-up parked at the shop and walk to the theater job.

At times I would get called away from the theater to do random small jobs. I would walk across the street, take the pick-up out, do the small job, return the pick-up to the shop, and walk back across the street to the theater.

There was a small gas station where the contractor had set up an account. We could fill up with gas and the bill would be sent directly to the contractor. We didn’t have to worry about it. Just keeping the rigs filled was all he asked. I would leave the shop, pass the station on my way to whatever small job I was going to – with my mind on the job I was headed for.

I would forget to gas up.

After completing the short call, I would return the pick-up (past the gas station) to the shop and hurry back to the theater. This went on for a couple of days with the gas gauge getting lower and lower.

One day I was working in the theater when my boss came over and asked to use my pick-up as his was being repaired.

I said, “Sure, it’s your pick-up. The keys are hanging in the office.”

When I went in that night he took me to task. He said, “I pay for the gas. I pay for the time it takes to put gas in the pick-up. Why can’t you keep the pick-up filled with gas?”

I apologized and told him I had just forgotten. I asked if he had to walk far. He said, “No, I was just in front of the station when it ran out and I coasted up to the pump. I want you to keep this thing filled with gas!”

A couple of weeks went by, and it happened again. I was at the theater, and he needed my pick-up. I forgot to tell him it was low on gas. That night when I went in, he never said a word. I noticed the next morning the pick-up was full of gas.

A couple of weeks went by and I noticed it was low on gas. This time I didn’t forget. As he filled the tank the attendant told me that my boss was “rather perturbed” with me because I ran my tank too low.

I said, “He told me he was just in front of the station when he ran out and he coasted in.”

The attendant said, “That was the time before. This last time he was clear across town.”

I noticed that my boss never asked to use my pick-up again. I think he gave up on me.

Unity?

The economy began to slow in Glasgow, making it necessary to go elsewhere to find work. In 1956, the business of the contractor I was working for faded out. I took my little family (by now we numbered three) and our mobile home about 160 miles west to Havre, Montana. I went to work for one of the four local electrical contractors there.

For the next thirteen years, I managed to work for all four electrical contractors in Havre. I was also hired to work for one of the electrical contractors in nearby Great Falls. Great Falls, Montana is a mere 100 miles away. I also worked for a contactor out of Helena who was installing wiring for Minute Man Missile silos.

I vividly remember my first day working on a missile site. I was given a hard hat to wear (what in the world is this?). As I climbed the ladder in the first silo, I tipped my head back to look up and the hard hat fell off and landed on a guy below. My foreman looked at the guy and said, “We’re drawing them green now.”

The foreman was a fun guy to work with. One time we were heading back to the temporary headquarters trailer, and he wanted to stop for a beer. We went into a bar where a pretty lady and her little girl (perhaps 6 years old) were also ensconced.

All the men in the bar; construction workers, farmers, cowboys, etc., were gravitating to her. She asked if anyone knew a man (she used a specific name) that she had danced with one time. No one knew him. She observed that he smelled nice, …. And that he was a sheepherder. ….  All the men de-gravitated from her. My foreman said, “Let’s get out of here before a fight starts.”

Arriving back at the work trailer he told all the other guys about this pretty lady that liked the smell of the sheepherder. One of the guys jumped up and started out in a hurry.

“Where are you going.”

“I’m gonna find me some sheep (excretion) around here somewhere!”

One day the local union fined me and my employer. I had transported company tools in my personal vehicle. (What was that about?) Before my hearing I hurried back to Havre and told the business agent what happened.

I told him; “Maybe I better get my Union Card.”

He asked me; “Do you have $50.00?”

I did.

For the next 20 years and a little more, I was a member of the electrical union.