Before we left Montana to move to Spokane, my father and mother had established themselves in the Spokane area.  My father had done some preliminary investigation by going down to the Electrical Union Hall to enquire about work and wages.

The Union people told him that electrical work in Spokane was good and that the wages were $6.01 an hour.  My father said; “I don’t know what the 1 cent is for; maybe postage.”

By the time we moved my father had passed away.  When we arrived in Spokane the wages were about 30% higher than they had been in Montana.  Within a week of moving to Spokane, I had been called to work.  Right away I was in on some of the large construction jobs in the Spokane area.  One of the jobs required someone to install light fixtures on a large commercial building.  It was around late October/early November – early winter, so many of the guys were reluctant to do the job.  I gladly volunteered to do it as it was a cinch compared to 40 degrees below zero in Montana.

The other guys stood inside and watched me work.  I believe they thought that at some point I would freeze and they would have to come pry me off the ladder, bring me inside, and thaw me out.  That was never necessary.

However the situation reminded me of a story I heard about construction in New York City.  The office workers were looking out the window watching the construction workers outside in the cold.  They made a sign which the hung in the window for the men outside to read.  It said; “It is 75 degrees in here.”

The workers outside promptly made a sign and put it up for the inside office workers to read.  It said; “$12.00 per hour out here.”

It is pretty common that office workers get a significantly smaller pay rate than construction workers, hot or cold.  Even in the mild temperatures here in Spokane that is true.

On the other hand (there are 5 more fingers), it is also true that office workers work more steady than construction workers.  In Montana we always counted on a slowdown in work in the winter months.

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.