The Forty Foot Ladder

Sometimes I can’t remember if I came up with the joke first, or if I got the idea from someone else.  Whenever I would come home from work, my wife would ask about me day; “How was your day?  Did you have any trouble?  Did you get hurt?”  (Why would she ask that?)

One day I planned to reply; “It was O.K.  I just fell off of a forty foot ladder.”

After an appropriate amount of screaming and concern I planned to say; “It’s O.K.  I was standing on the bottom rung.”

However that day one of my wife’s old friends was visiting.  When she visits with an old friend everything else is forgotten.  I knew that she wouldn’t be concentrating on what I said, thus she wouldn’t say the words in the right way and the joke would probably fall flat.  But I am persistent.  So I walked in and just blurted out; “I just fell off a forty foot ladder today.”

My wife’s friend said in a very dry way; “Did you bounce?”

I never tried pulling her leg again.

Another person I would never mess with was an old painter.  He was very particular about his work.  He wouldn’t stand for anyone messing it up.  When he finished a hardwood floor he would holler; “Take off your shoes.”

My boss at the time wasn’t as particular.  He wore those rubber overshoes with the buckles, and he would leave the buckles unfastened.  He would walk through mud, snow, rain, heat, whatever, and charge right into a building without a second thought.

One time as he was about to enter a room with a floor the old painter had finished, the painter called out to him; “Are your feet clean?”

The boss retorted; “They should be, I washed them this morning.”

I was headed out the back door to get something out of my pick up and heard a sound up front.  I went to investigate and saw my boss rapidly exiting the building, … with the old painter holding/directing him by the scruff of the neck.

I quickly snuck around the back of the building so that no one would know I had observed the whole event.

When I got back to the shop I told the boss; “I didn’t think to tell you that the painter is rather touchy about his floors.”

The boss said; “He is kind of fussy isn’t he.”

I Wonder What Ever Happened to What’s His Name

You may have noticed that I do not use some given names of people I write about in these blogs.  In some cases it may be because I’ve forgotten the name.  In other cases, I don’t wish to precipitate a desire for anyone to take legal umbrage at my recollections.  It would be pretty difficult to say that more than one person with the same name had the same experience on the job when they were working with me.

You probably remember High Pockets; his story isn’t too far back.  I saw High Pockets one more time.  We were working on raising the roof of a malt shop.  At that time not every place had air-conditioning.  The roof was being raised to allow room for additional insulation and also for extra venting in the attic.  The flow of air would cool off the building below.

Wouldn’t you know it, High Pockets was running the job.  A ladder was set up in the center of the room so we could get in and out of the attic space.  I only had a little wiring to do and I believe that I got it all done in one trip.  When I entered the attic, there were High Pockets and his carpenters.

In an enclosed space, and with three carpenters and one electrician, each supplied with a hammer, the pounding was nearly non-stop.  I say “nearly” non-stop because every once in a while, for some reason or other, all of us would stop at the same time.  The cessation of pounding would cause the owner of the malt shop to walk across the floor, ascend the ladder, and try to ascertain why everyone had stopped working.

That would make High Pockets mad.  He was on his knees with his hammer in his hand like he was going to pop him one.  Each time that happened I worried about the continued life expectancy of the owner.  However, before the owner’s head showed up through the access hatch we would once again resume pounding.

I’m sure the carpenters pounded on a piece of wood just to make a sound, whether it was construction or not.  I know I did.  I thought of it as preserving the owner’s life.  I have no idea what happened to High Pockets.  I never saw him again.

One day my boss and I stopped in at the malt shop for a cup of coffee.  The proprietor/owner hurried over pointing to the tools in the bosses back pocket.  (The boss always carried a few tools in his back pocket.  He never used a tool pouch or a small tool kit.  That’s where I learned the habit, good or bad.)

The malt shop proprietor was concerned lest the tools cause damage to his seating.  The boss reached back and handed the tools to the proprietor handles first; “See, they won’t scratch anything.”

The proprietor said he had just recovered all the seats with leather.

To tell you the truth, I‘m sure some of the bosses tools had the sharp side up…..

High Pockets

….That’s what we called him.  I don’t remember his name, but he probably doesn’t remember the name of the sarcastic electrician he had to put up with either.

He had two carpenters working under him.  They were brothers, who had built and owned a skating rink west of town.  I got along fine with the two brothers.  One of the brothers was notable by his stature and demeanor.  He was short and cheerful.

I guess I should have been a little nicer to High Pockets.  His boss had an odd practice –  he would dole out exactly so many nails to each man every morning.  I guess he thought it was wasteful to drop a nail on the ground and leave it.

Usually when I was wiring on a house, if I needed a nail or two, I would look around on the floor or ground and find plenty.  On this job I could never find a nail when I needed one; and the carpenters were not anxious to give me one.

High Pockets would complain if I visited too long with the two brothers.  I was wasting their time!

One day I came on the job to do some work.  I was only going to be a few minutes, so I grabbed the carpenters’ ladder rather than bring in my own from the pick-up.  High Pockets came over and chided me for using their ladder – I should bring my own!

I was done with what I was doing so I returned the ladder to him without saying anything.  The two brothers were apologetic as they weren’t using the ladder anyway.  It bothered me that 1). He didn’t want me using a ladder that wasn’t in use, and 2). If it was needed I wouldn’t feel backward about getting off of it, and 3). If I needed my ladder and someone was using it, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell them I needed my ladder.  I didn’t care if it was someone 12 feet tall and 350 pounds!

Later on I had to come back to the job again.  I walked up to the cheerful brother and said; “What does an electrician say to a carpenter when he first comes on a job?”

He said; “What?”

I said; “Take me to your ladder.”

Both of the brothers burst out laughing.  What I didn’t realize was that High Pockets was standing around the corner and heard all this.

He didn’t seem to like it and it didn’t improve relations between us at all.