One of my friends worked as an engineer at a local radio station.  The talk among the electricians I worked with, was that if you could get to the top of the radio tower and replace the bulb you would get paid $25.00.  This was in the early ‘60s and $25.00 was a lot of money!

I asked my friend about it.  He explained that a man came regularly to change all the bulbs whether or not they were burned out, except for the top one.  The top one was only replaced when it was burned out.  He didn’t know how much the station paid, but he thought it was pretty good.

One day he called me up and said some of the bulbs were out on the tower.  He wondered if I would like to try changing them out.  I jumped into my 1948 Ford Flatbed Pick-up and hurried out to the tower site.

When I got there and looked up at the tower I thought it was really high!  I didn’t think I wanted to try it.  My friend hadn’t arrived yet and I didn’t want to leave without talking to him.  I laid down on the bed of my pick-up and studied the thing.  The longer I studied it, watching the clouds drift past the tower, or the tower drift past the clouds (it was hard to tell which), the easier it looked.

When my friend showed up I said O.K. let’s do it.  (Sometimes it’s better to go with your original instinct.)  He informed me that he would call the station and inform them that the power would be cut for a little while.  I asked if that was necessary – couldn’t I jump quickly from the earth to the first rung?  That’s what the experienced fellows do.  He didn’t want to take a chance on me as this was my first time.

I strapped on my gear and proceeded to the first light – about ¼ of the way up.  I tied myself off and took the glass cover off.  It was about the size of a quart jar.  The glass cover was tied to the fixture with a small chain so it would hang there while you changed out the bulb.  What I had not realized was the chain was rusted in two and I almost dropped it.

That totally unnerved me.  I somehow got the bulb changed, the cover back on and I came down.  I informed my friend that I couldn’t do it – don’t pay me as I didn’t get the job done.  That eliminated any ambition to be the light bulb changer on radio towers.

The funniest part about the whole incident was a week later when I received a check in the mail from the station for $5.00; for changing one bulb.

It didn’t change my mind about climbing towers and changing bulbs.

In my days of being a Union Traveler, I have met quite a variety of people.  I’ll have to tell you about “Overtime Harry.”  We have probably all had the opportunity to work overtime.  I think the best I’ve ever seen at it was Overtime Harry.

Overtime Harry was a plumber.  He was quite savvy at manipulating the powers that be on government jobs.  When we completed a job for the government, we were required to run a test on it.  The test would run continuously for 48 hours and all of the trades on the job had to be there.  If you did your portion of the work correctly there would be nothing to do during the test but wait it out.

Harry was very good at being “short” one part to complete the job just prior to the test start.  The test would be delayed while he acquired the part and installed it.  He and his crew would sit down and wait on the job for the part, sometimes it had to be flown in, and collect their wages for waiting for a missing part.  Then the crew would be there for the 48 hour test.  The requirement was that whoever was on the job at the start of the test had to be there at the end of the test.  Since it was difficult for one man to stay awake the whole time, there could be a couple of guys per trade waiting out the test.  The plumbers had their whole crew; thus the reputation of “Overtime Harry.”

Harry was making pretty good money.  Harry had been mailing his checks (very large checks) back to his wife and he was anxious to fly home and see her.  Finally one weekend the whole crew had the weekend off and Harry was going to go home to see his wife.

Come Monday morning Harry was there nursing a hangover, trying to borrow money from fellow workers so he would have something to eat during that week.  We asked him; “Did your wife take all your money and leave you nothing to live on?”

“I never saw my wife.  I didn’t make it home.”

We asked what happened.  It seems Harry stopped at a bar to cash his check before buying a ticket for home.  Some of his working buddies were in the bar and he started buying drinks for everyone.  (He had an unusually large pay check that week.)

About 3 O’clock in the morning Harry passed out.  All his buddies laid him out in an alley and took his money and left.

I have noticed that the more money some people make, the more dishonest they become.

I didn’t see much of Overtime Harry after that, but I didn’t spend much time worrying about him either.

Working away from home never was an enjoyable way to make a living.  But sometimes you have to do whatever is necessary to keep food on the table.  When I found out how difficult it was, I had a carpenter friend of mine help me build a little camper on a small two wheeled trailer.

It had a bed, a camp stove, and a small cupboard.  I brought food from home each week.  Not having a fridge, somethings didn’t keep well.  One week, about Tuesday, I fried up some potatoes, putting a couple of eggs in the middle of the spuds and sat down to a delicious “home cooked” meal.

I was never so sick in my life.  I have no idea what caused it.  It could have been the eggs, the potatoes, the grease in the pan, or my coffee!  (Many years later we bought a real motor home.  It was self contained with a bathroom, generator, refrigerator, and propane stove.  You could park wherever you wanted! – Truly a home on wheels.  What an improvement.)

One year when the family took a vacation, my wife and children met me in Wyoming.  She had the family car and I drove my old beat up pick-up.  When it came time to go home, she and the children took the car back to Northern Montana and a friend and I drove my pick-up to the job.  It took all night.

I got to the shop just in time to go to work.  The foreman and the crew were already out but he had left me a note.  “We serviced your pick-up over the weekend.  The key is on the hook in the office, go to site “so and so.”

I took the key and went looking for the pick-up.  I walked around the whole building twice.  No pick-up.  I thought that perhaps they had not yet gotten it back from the shop where it was serviced.  However I couldn’t call the foreman because my radio was in the pick-up that had been serviced and was currently lost.

I started around the building a third time, this time taking a slightly different path.  All of a sudden I tripped on something and landed flat on my face in the grass.  I looked at what I had tripped over.  It was a small pipe extending out of the ground about ½”.   I realized if I couldn’t raise my feet more than ½” above the ground, I was more tired than I realized.

When I looked up, there was my pick-up right in front of me.  I had passed it twice.  This had been the third time past this particular point.  So I picked myself up and went to work.  I drank a lot of coffee that day.

That night I didn’t bother eating.  I went straight to bed after I got off work.