Homonyms

I guess you could say I am German-American.  Mostly.  There was one job I was on where one of the carpenters was African-American.  Totally.  Every so often he would come into the room where I was working and ask what I needed.  I would reply: “I don’t need anything.”

He would reply: “I thought I heard you call me.”

This would happen two or three times a day.  Finally one time he asked my name.  I told him “Adrian.”  He said; “That’s what it is.  My name is Maynard.  When they call you I think they are calling me.”

As he was leaving the room I was working in, he paused at the door, looked back at me for a short time and then he said; “And we don’t look anything alike!”

On the same job, the carpenters were using metal lath.  Metal lath is designed to hold plaster.  It comes in 4×8 sheets.  When they would hold the sheets up to the wall to fasten them, they would call to each other to inform the other worker that the sheet was ready for nailing.

The electrician I was working with was named Mark.  When the carpenters were ready to nail they would say so by calling “mark”, meaning the sheet was properly placed.

They kept my fellow electrician running.

I guess there was a lot of running back and forth on that job.

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Another fellow who was pretty much on the trigger was on the same job as I was from time to time.

One instance I remember about him was when he was standing on the very top rung of a five foot ladder.  Another boy wanted to use the ladder so he was standing by waiting for it.  Eventually he grew tired of waiting for the guy to get finished and asked him; “How long are you going to need that ladder?”

The guy on the ladder very deliberately turned around and counted the steps on the ladder.

“One, Two, Three, Four, Five – about five feet.”

Isn’t the English language amazing?