A Song Bird I Ain’t

I have always enjoyed music.  If I hadn’t taken up electrical work, I might well have been a musician.  But, you can’t do justice to two jobs at the same time.  And I enjoyed the electrical trade.

It has variety (unlike being a washer crammer in a shock absorber factory), interest, feelings of accomplishment, and constant “improvement.”  I also enjoyed the different challenges affiliated with being an electrician.  If I saw something wrong on a job, I just had to fix it.

As a consequence, unless I really had to concentrate on a particular problem or repair, I would sing as I worked.  One day when I thought I was all alone on a job and was enjoying the various challenges and variety, I was singing as I worked.  A voice from behind me said; “Can you sing tenor?”

I was surprised and a little embarrassed and questioned him; “What is tenor?”  He responded; “Ten or twelve blocks away from here.”  I realized that there were some people in the world who did not appreciate my beautiful singing.

Another time I was singing on the job and one of the people that heard me said that I should be on the stage.  I thought; “This sounds better.”  So I asked; “Do you really think so?”  He said: “Yes, the first one out of town.”  So I thought to myself that perhaps my singing was not as good as I thought it was.

One day my sister Kay told me; “Adrian, you should sing solo.”    I replied that I thought I had been doing so.  She said; “I meant – ‘So low no one can hear you.’”

Well, … I can still whistle while I work.

Then the day came when I was working on a job and whistling away.  Two other guys were working in the same room.  One of them also started to whistle as he worked.  I was unable to tell if he thought he could improve my whistling or was trying to harmonize.

Soon we both paused at the same time to catch our breath.  In the silence the third guy piped up and said; “I need to cut back on you guys’ bird seed.”

After that I just concentrated on the electrical work.

Besides, my whistler doesn’t work anymore.

Sorry, Mom.

Show Biz

One of the jobs I worked on in Glasgow, Montana was an old theater in town that had been shut down for quite some time.  We were re-wiring it.  I was working on removing the old copper wiring and putting in new wiring.  I had a pile of old copper wire about 3 feet high and 5 feet across.  I was intending to get the owner’s permission to take it to the local Pacific, Hide and Fur and recycle it for cash.  I was waiting until I had the job completed before I approached the owner.

About the time we were concluding the job I went on vacation.  When I got back one of the other guys told me I had missed a great opportunity.  The owner had told him to go down in the basement and haul that pile of copper wire to Pacific, Hide and Fur.  He told me that they had gotten $60.00 for it.  That was in 1953.

The boss had taken them all to dinner at a nice restaurant.

Rats.  Foiled again.

A number of years later they built a new theater in town.  “The Survant.”  It was built by a California contractor who apparently had no idea of how cold it could get in Glasgow in the winter.

It was built with minimum insulation.  The local heating contractor knew about Montana winters.  He put in a bank of four 200,000 BTU furnaces.  Winter was coming on so they had the furnaces running to keep it warm.  Every once in a while we would hear a big WHUMP!  The whole building would seem to shudder.  We didn’t know if it was an earth quake or someone running into the building.  We looked around for the cause.  Everything seemed to be working fine.  No damages anywhere we could see.

One day the California contractor’s foreman went up stairs to the projection room where the furnaces were located.  Shortly afterward I had to go up stairs to check something or other.  I had my head just about level with the floor and could see the foreman leaning down looking at something on the furnaces.   All of a sudden there came that WHUMP!

Fire came out of the furnace, covered the whole floor almost to where my head was at floor level.

The foreman was dancing around to an unheard tune and to an unknown beat trying to evade the fire.  When it was all under control we determined that furnace system had a faulty control.

One of the units would fail to ignite and gas would spread across the floor.  Another unit would come on and ignite the gas that had come from the first unit.  Hence, the shudder and Whump.

I have notice in recent years that The Survant is no longer in operation.

Sorry.  Nobody got into the movies.

We didn’t even make the news.

My First Tester

When I first started working as an electrician we didn’t need much for tools.  A screwdriver, hammer, hacksaw and pliers comprised a pretty full tool selection.  The pliers, of course, must be able to also cut wire.

I remember the first time I bought a tester.  It was to test voltage as to whether it was 120 or 240 volts.  It had the capability to test voltage up to 550 volts, but we never needed anything that high.

I had wanted one for a long time and boy was I proud of that tool!  We called it a “Wiggy.”  I bought it at Markles in Glasgow, Montana.  I used it for about 60 years and still have it and it works just fine today.  It does have a few battle scars.

When you have more tools you have to remember to pick them all up when you leave a job.  I couldn’t possibly count all the tools I have lost, but somehow I always kept the Wiggy.  Sometimes customers would call me and tell me I had left a tool there.  That was really nice.  One time, when I went back on a job a number of years later, the customers told me that I had left a tool and they had saved it for me.  By that time, of course, I had replaced it.

One job I had was at a motel that had a wooden fence along one side of the parking lot.  When I was picking up my tools I could not find my Wiggy.  I couldn’t imagine where I had left it.  A year later I went back to that same motel and my Wiggy was hanging across the fence.  It had been there through rain, sleet, ice, snow, hot sun, below zero weather, no one had bothered it, it had not disappeared, and it still worked fine.

Attitudes have changed since then.  Years later I was working on the Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, Washington.  I went to a restroom where there were stalls already installed.  (I always carried my tools in my pockets, and had learned years before that when you dropped your trousers the tools would fall out and scatter around the floor.  Some would, at times, even take a bath.)  This time I took my tools out of my pocket and laid them on a shelf outside the stall.

While I was in the stall I heard someone enter and leave rather quickly.  When I exited the stall my tools were gone.  I realized that working men had lost their respect for another man’s tools.