It was in the 1960s and I was working on a government job in Montana.  There were many separate trades working on the same job at the same time.  All of us had our own tool box to carry the tools we needed for the job.

The Carpenters had their saws, levels, squares – all of different sizes and configurations – and hammers of all sorts.  The Plumbers would have drills, threaders, vices, pipe wrenches, welding apparatus, etc.  The Electricians would have drills, hammers, screwdrivers, levels, etc.  And of course the sizes and shapes of the tools determined the size of your tool box.  The tool boxes sometimes became quite large.

One day a few of the men took all the tools out of one of the guys’ tool box and screwed it to the floor, then put all the tools back in.  When the apprentice, a strapping young man, came to get the tool box, he ripped the handle off.

On this job we had to carry our tools up a short ladder, through a trapdoor, and into a small room.  One day we were all – Carpenters, Plumbers, Sheet metal Workers, and I – taking lunch in this small room with our tool boxes when the Johnson Controls man showed up.

The Johnson Controls man took care of the temperature and air controls.  For his controls work he needed a small tubing bender, a tubing cutter/reamer, a couple of screwdrivers and a few small wrenches.

We were all sitting around with all our large work equipment and large tool boxes, when the Johnson Controls guy came in carrying a small tool box about 8 inches cubed.  We all burst out laughing at the sight of that little tool box.

He looked at us and said; “I have always heard it said, the smarter the man the smaller the tool box.”

Now days, everyone has battery operated power tools which eliminate a need for so many tools; but I don’t think we will ever catch up to the Johnson Controls man.

One shop I was working for received a contract to wire 5 new homes being constructed by one builder.  There was one floor plan for all five homes.  To get a variety they would turn the plans around in all directions.  The homes were situated all in one row.  I was called to do the wiring on these homes.

After completing one house, the plans were no longer needed because the floor plan didn’t change.  Because of this I was able to wire all 5 homes quite rapidly.  The last house wasn’t sheet-rocked when I brought in the plans to our office and said they were all roughed in.

The foreman looked at the plans and asked if I had wired the door bells.  I asked; “Are they on the plans?”

They weren’t.

I hadn’t done them.

The foreman made a call and then told me that the customer did want door bells.  I rushed back to the site and started putting in door bells.  The last of the five was easy since it wasn’t sheet-rocked yet.  The first house had already been painted.  I had been feeling pretty proud of myself for getting those 5 houses wired so quickly, but it took me another week to get all the door bells in.

What a mistake!  If I had just had enough sense to make a phone inquiry at the first house I’m sure I would have set some kind of record.

Years later door bell manufacturers came up with door bells that needed no wiring.  The chimes were plugged into an outlet and the door bell button used a battery to send a radio signal to the chimes.

I have noticed that very few manufactured homes have door bells wired in.  Some enterprising person could make a living installing wireless door bells in manufactured homes.

Normally when I installed a door bell system, I would run a wire from the front door to the basement; from the back door to the basement; and from the chimes to the basement.  I would set the door bell transformer in the basement and then wire it all together.  On one occasion I was in the basement doing the door bell connections.  I would touch the low voltage wires together and ring the chimes to locate which was the front and which was the back control.

The home owner came over to see how I did that.  He said; “Don’t tape them up.  Some day I’m going to pull a trick on my wife.”

Oh boy!  I would hate to be in his shoes when his wife discovered what he was doing.

When I was working electrical work in conjunction with the Hill County (Montana) road crew, there were a couple of men (brothers) on that crew who came from Arabia.  They were tough hard working men.  One of the brothers worked with my brother, Marke.  In the late winter and early spring when there were ice blockages in the culverts and drainages the guy from Arabia would crawl out into the ice waters to clear the blockages by hand.

I visited with this guy quite a lot.  He often informed me of the many things we had in our country that were invented in Arabia.  One of the items that intrigued me was our alphabet.

Another man that worked with us a lot was an ex-German soldier.  Since this was soon after WWII ended he was always subdued when it came to discussions about the war.  Conversation always drifted into an economic discussion about who lost more.  We concluded no one actually won anything in the long run.  I remember his references to a chisel.  He always called it a “shissel.”

There was also a painter in Montana that, for his time, was pretty much an entrepreneur.  He would buy a vacant farm house and move it into town.  We would re-wire the house when it was set, and he would re-sell it.

When he moved the house onto a town lot, he would take out the electric water heater and replace it with a gas water heater.  I got one of the electric ones and I still have it.  It was designed with an internal “dry well” that was used to heat the water.  I thought it was a good idea because the heater element would never burn out.  Those types of water heaters are rare in this country.

There are also other types of workmates; the kind who are difficult and hard to work with.  One example is a group of brothers.  I’m not sure now if there were two or three of them when I first ran into them.

They would travel together to wherever they could find work.  The Union boys called them Travelers.  In one instance one of the brothers had a small piece of wire fall off of a cabinet and land on his shoulder.  He was so badly injured that he had to be transported to the local hospital.  While he was gone I was given his assignment to complete.  He had been making connections in a large junction box.

We had been given explicit and careful instructions on how it was to be made up.  The wires to be landed had to be the exact correct length and could not be spliced.  When I started to complete this guy’s work I found out he had been hooking up the wires backward.  Some of the wires were too long and could be shortened.  But there were several that were too short to go where they needed to go.

After looking it over I called the Forman over and asked his advice on how to proceed.  He authorized me to go ahead and splice what I needed to, but to “Splice as few as you can.”

I was never told if that technique passed inspection.  Years later I came across those brothers again in the Spokane valley.  They had nearly ruined a contractor there.

There is a saying that; “It takes all kinds.”

I think we could do without some kinds.