I have met so many people and known their names over the years, sometimes it is difficult to remember who belongs to which story by which name.

Two carpenters I met were a team and I worked with them on several jobs.  (I rarely mention names in this blog, but this story depends on providing at least one name.)  One of the carpenters was Adrian Dahl.  I don’t remember the other man’s name.  However, when I worked with them on a job, they would refer to each other by their last names.

One of my younger brothers also worked at carpentry work from time to time.  He always referred to his wife as “Doll.”  When he would say: “Hey Doll, come here” it sounded very much like one of the carpenters calling his work partner.

One day when I was working on a job with these two guys, my wife came by the job to talk to me.  This was a rare occurrence.  She came to the entryway and spoke to one of the carpenters, saying she needed to talk to Adrian.

The carpenter turned and called out; “Adrian, there’s a lady here to see you.”  Apparently I was out of earshot and never heard him call.  Adrian Dahl appeared and my wife blurted out; “You’re not my husband!”

They said, “You want the electrician” and came and fetched me.

Sometime later my wife and I were at a dance and Adrian Dahl was there also.  He asked my wife to dance.  She hesitated and he grinned and said; “Well, we’re practically married.”

He had a little place outside of town.   I used to go out there and do some work for him.  We always enjoyed the joke.

Case number 2

My brother Marke and his wife Pat also lived in the same town as we did.  Marke worked in the County Road shop running large equipment.  The man in charge of the road maintenance shop was a good friend of ours name Wilber.  His head mechanic was his brother Howard who was also a good friend.  Furthermore the shop I was working for was located directly across the street from the County Shop.  One of the electricians in our shop was named Mark.

One day my sister in law Pat called the county shop to speak to my brother Marke.  She wanted him to pick up some items before he came home.  She asked to speak to Marke.

Marke was out on a piece of equipment.  Maybe it was Wilbur, or maybe it was Howard, pulling a joke.  Or maybe it was someone else in the County shop; but whoever it was called the electrician Mark who happened to be working in the County shop to answer the call.

Mark: “Hello.”

Pat: “On your way home would you______, …. Is this Marke?

Mark: “Yes.”

Pat: “Mark would you pick up (item)_______, …Are you sure this is Marke?”

Mark: “Yes, this is Mark.”

Pat: “Marke T?”

Mark: “No, Mark K.”

Pat: “I want to talk to Mark T.”

Mark: “He’s out on the road running a piece of equipment.”

I don’t know how they settled it.

Neither Marke nor Pat recall the occasion; but I do, since I was associated with both Mark(e)s.

It is well marked in my memory.

The more people you work with, the more chance you have of discovering interesting things about them.

In the Union, I often worked with “Travelers.”  When they traveled to the jobs I was working on, there were a lot of differences displayed.  There were different personalities, different habits, different ways of getting the work done, and different terms for tools and material.

One of the men I remember had a sarcastic sense of humor.  As a consequence, he kept us laughing all the time.  For instance, there was a time when the conversation turned to people that were always “hard up.”  Some employers “never had any money.”  Or, “they never made any money” on a job.

What they really meant was that they didn’t make “as much profit as they intended” on a job.  If an employer had bid a job to make $10,000 profit and wound up only making $9,900 profit, he would say that he had lost $100 on that job.

Our humorist put it in perspective when he told us; “I lost a lot of money last week.  The price of grain went sky high, and I didn’t have a grain.”

One of the shops I worked for also sold and installed appliances.  There was a new apprentice that was working with me.  We were to deliver a washer and a dryer and carry them up a long flight of stairs to an apartment.

As I drove us to the job, I was pleased that I was the one driving as my apprentice had already had a few too many that morning.  We were supplied with a two wheeled dolly to move the appliances up the stairs.  With one of us on the top at the dolly handle, and one of us on the bottom assisting in the lifting we should have had no problem.

The dryer wasn’t bad.  It was light.  However an automatic washer is a heavy machine.

I ended up carrying the dolly, the washer, and the apprentice up that long flight of stairs.  My back ached for many days.

When I told this to the boss later on, I found out the apprentice was my cousin.  We had grown up in different states and, at the time of the appliance move, I hadn’t seen him in many years and didn’t recognize him.

I never saw him again.

In my many years of working with different people, on different crews, in town and out, I found a high proportion of men that enjoyed working out of town.  They liked the idea of not having to be home every night and away from the observation of their wives.  And, likewise, there were many women – waitresses, clerks, etc. – who recognized that quality about them.

One café we used to go to eat in was located in central Montana.  It had some young wmen working as waitresses.  At that time Marty Robbins had a popular hit on the radio called “Devil Woman.”  Every time I walked into that café, whether with a group of men or alone, one particular waitress would drop coins in the juke box and play that tune.

I never learned her name.  I can’t tell you what she looked like.  But she scared me.  I was very cautious around women like that, knowing how men and women acted.  The tune always reminds me of that circumstance.  It was a danger that many ignored.

Another danger that is part of our work environment is the danger of enclosed spaces.  I have talked about pole climbing, ladder work, flying, and electrical shock.  Underground work is also a dangerous area for electricians.  The news will sometimes carry a story about a worker in a ditch that gets buried by “slough off.”  There is also a very real danger associated with working under buildings in crawl spaces.

One job I was given was to do some electrical work in an existing store.  It was an older building, at the time unoccupied, with very little space between the floor and the earth.  When the building was constructed a crawlway had been left along each side and across the front of foundation in the front of the store.  I was sent to the job by myself.

For access to places in the middle of the floor, I had to crawl between the floor joists.  To actually access the crawl area, you had to use a trap door back by the ally.  I was doing some installations at the front of the store.  To get the wiring to that spot, you had to drill a hole down through the floor and run wiring under the store, either alongside or across the floor joists to the back of the store where the service panel was located.

I would crawl from one end of the building to the other, working over my head, as I ran the wiring from one end to the other.  Some places I couldn’t crawl through.  I had to wriggle through.  I was working alone and crawling around under that floor when I started to think about my situation.

I started to wonder what I would do if an earthquake occurred while I was underneath that floor and all alone on the job.  Right there I nearly psyched myself out.

Lesson learned.  Always have an emergency escape plan and always have someone near in case of an emergency.