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.

When I was working on a job with high voltage (12500 volts), we came across a feature of electricity that has a lot to do with how we use electricity today.

Electricity is produced in two forms.  We use the terms describing these two forms almost every day without realizing how they effect the electric power we receive.

DC power is direct current.  AC power is alternating current.  Generally when we use DC power a battery is involved.  Alternating current means that the current travels back and forth at a certain rate of speed.  One of the more common rates of speed is 60 times a second.

On the job with the high voltage (12500 volts), when we turned on the power to the 12500 volt 60 cycle (60 cycles per second) circuit it blew the fuse.  There was no power load on the circuit when we powered it up.  Upon investigating the cause, we were informed that the fuse had blown because of harmonics.

I was completely buffaloed!  How would harmonics trip a fuse when there was no load.  In fact, for that matter, what was harmonics?  Today I still do not completely understand it.  Since that time I have learned that as the electricity cycled back and forth 60 times a second, a small amount of electricity would lag behind.  The lag was what was referred to as harmonics.

Instead of the power being at a regulated 240 volts some of the lag (harmonics) would be at 2 volts and some even less than that.  It seemed to be in thirds. – a third harmonic, a sixth harmonic, a ninth harmonic (this is where I get lost).

Lately people that know this stuff very well have used the measurable harmonics for control wiring.  Thus we have arrived at the age of electronics, computers, etc.

Some electrical experst understand this stuff and can explain it more thoroughly and correctly.

Perhaps this is the reason I have such a difficulty in using a computer, e-mail, face page, twizzler, etc. etc. etc.

I have done other work besides electrical work.  Both before starting the electrical trade, and in between steady work, I had other jobs.

Being raised on the farm, I have driven 30 different kinds of tractors, two combines, a hay mower, and a hay rake.  I have driven horses, hauled hay, grain, bundles of grain, and shocked grain (Canadians call it “stuked”)

I have milked cows and goats, butchered animals, thinned beets, picked potatoes, picked cotton, worked on a sheep ranch, a cattle ranch and worked in the woods skidding logs with a horse.  I have picked fruit, irrigated beans, worked in a department store as a delivery boy, and worked as a common laborer.

I have worked in North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, California and New York.  I owned my own electrical contracting business for 22 years.  I have also tried to keep up with my wife’s “honey-do” list.

Although I enjoyed farming, electrical work has always been more interesting and challenging.  Now, however, I do very little work that would be classed as “earning a living.”  Though I am the Administrator of my sons’ shop, I am mostly retired, but being retired is pretty tiring.  I think that’s why they call it RE-tired.  Therefore to stave off RE-tired-ment, I try to keep up on my wife’s “honey-do” list.

My advice to everybody is “Don’t Get Old!”

With all that variety of work experience, one common lesson I learned is: Do Not try to tell someone who works in another craft how to do their work!  It will only make enemies.

Find out what you do best and stick with it.

Play it safe.