When we were living in Havre, Montana, we bought a brand new mobile home.   (Today’s PC description is “Manufactured Home.”)  The home was delivered to us by a dealer in the Mid-West.  He brought it up to Montana with his pick up.  He was determined to do some fishing in the Rocky Mountains after delivery.

We lived in that home at five different locations and, presently, it sits on our property as a storage unit.  The first location we parked it in was a mobile court.  Previous to taking delivery on the new home, we had lived in a small 27 foot trailer in a very narrow mobile home space.  (The space was so narrow that when our windows and the neighbor’s windows were open at the same time, they nearly touched.)  When we opened our windows on a hot summer day, we could communicate with our neighbors face to face.  It was almost like living in the same dwelling.

We had our dining tables in the same area of our respective homes, with adjoining windows.  It served to put a new meaning on the term “dinner table conversation.”  If our son would murmur during the night, then neighbor husband would call out; “I have to get up at 4 A.M.  Can’t you keep that kid quiet?”

The neighbor and his wife were from Kansas and they were following the harvest.  The couple had a son named Eugene.  Their son was about 4 years old at the time.  The mother was quite impatient with the son, and would call him “YO-Geene.”

One morning Eugene spilled his milk.  The mother gave “YO-Gene” a good lecture saying now she had to clean up the mess.  She complained to her husband; “Aint ya gonna hepp me?”

He replied: “What’cha way-ant me to do?  Hold your hay-and?”

When the family left the mobile court, they did so in a very mobile manner.  They left in the middle of the night without paying their current rent charges.  That’s called a skip.

That experience convinced me that we needed to park our home on private property.  Eventually that private property was our own.

Besides eventually owning my own business, I must have worked for nigh onto 30 different contractors.  While we lived in Glasgow and Havre, Montana there were no electrical supply houses locally.  Supplies had to come from Billings or Great Falls.

One of the contractors would take one of his trucks and drive the 100 miles to Great Falls with his list of supplies once a month.  He would buy his month’s worth of supplies, cash on the barrelhead.  He never had a charge account.  He was the only contractor I ever knew who would do that.

I thought; “Now that’s the way to go.”

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.