G. Fox

It's seems to be the best I can do. I've searched everywhere for a picture of the old G. Fox store in Waterbury, CT. This is an image of the Naugatuck Valley Mall after demolition. I think the Fox store was on the left hand side of the image.

The Planning Stage

I was busy stacking firewood with Laurae this afternoon and then we tackled the run-away tomato plant in the patio area. Gone! We picked some late falling walnuts and now it’s getting colder and cloudier every minute. Could be raining soon and a fire would be nice.

So what am I getting at? Well, I was reading my granddaughters blog the other day and she was bemoaning the fact that life wasn’t following her plan; or she didn’t have a plan that looked anything at all like her life. And so I was thinking about that as I picked through the walnuts and stacked the firewood. How did we get to this place in our lives? Why are we in Orland in the year 2006? Is this what we planned? Those were good questions and it started me thinking about my own life plans, back when I was ready to leave my parent’s house.

Some of those plans are already recounted earlier in this blog and so if you have read it, I don’t have to tell you that my plans were; shall we say, tenuous?

As a child I wanted to be a veterinarian, a cowboy, a fireman and a host of others. But none of those dreams made it past my freshman year of high school. That was when I realized that I had to be SERIOUS about my career. If I didn’t get it at first, my career counselor made it very clear at our second meeting. But getting it and doing it were two very different things. And I left high school without a plan.

Then there was a semester of Junior College…which I hated! It was boring and my classes were boring; life was boring. So I joined the Navy because I was bored. What kind of a plan is that?

After the Navy, I had some vague plans. Go back to school and make something of myself. I was admitted to Cal Poly and then proceeded to party; wasting a semester of life preparation. No plan there.

To make a long story short, our life has been short of well executed plans. They may have been well thought out and brilliantly detailed, but when things happened in our lives, we made corrections in our course and sailed on; oblivious to our destination or even a need for one. Not the wisest way to travel! But it seemed to fit us…

Luckily, we humans are blessed with much resilience and a natural optimism. We may fail at something and see our dreams evaporate, but we generally pick ourselves up and motor on, building a new dream as we go. Then we tell ourselves that this new dream is better anyway; much better than the last one.

I think I see a theme here; plans aren’t made…plans happen.

Postcard

Here's an old postcard view of that corner. The Broadway store is on the right and in the room behind the window on the 3rd floor is the column I was describing...

And here's a long view of the same corner...looking west. Notice the absence of traffic!

Picture this

As I continue this story called “Working”, I want to be able to post some photos as I go along. I don’t have a lot of those from the early years and the ones I do have are mostly Polaroid’s; remember those? And since posting photos means that I will have to browse through the boxes of photos we have and then scan them, this project may take awhile. Have you ever been successful at quickly browsing through old photographs? The hours fly by and I’m still looking at the first box!

Back to the story…I’ll look at the photos later.

One of the remodel projects that I was involved in was on the 3rd floor of the Broadway store on the corner of Hollywood and Vine; that most famous of intersections. It was pretty much a normal job for us, except for the location. Everyday, as we went down the street to buy lunch, we found the corner crowded with tourists, all taking pictures of the street sign. In fact, all four corners had a crowd. And a lot of them would step out into traffic to get that perfect shot!

The story I remember most about this store remodel was an incident that didn’t happen to me at all; it happened to a plumber.

One day, I was using a High Velocity powder actuated tool to fasten some steel to a concrete column and before I pulled the trigger, the plumber stopped me…and told me why he had been off the job recently. He had been doing the same thing I was about to do, except when he pulled the trigger, the pin drove into the concrete and then hit a buried piece of roof drain piping. The shape of the pipe made the pin turn and come back out, point first. This is called “Fish hooking” and there was an armored plate at the end of the gun to catch those rare instances. But in this case, it missed the plate and entered his stomach, cutting him up very badly. He had spent the last few weeks in the hospital and had just come back to work. Then he showed me his scar…very sobering!

Yes, I pulled the trigger…but it was with some reluctance. I had always depended on that armor plate and thought it was fool proof.

Saks

Sorry for the interruption in the narrative. I was waiting for some inspiration and it just never materialized, so I had to go and find it.

Let’s see…I left the reader in Connecticut when I last posted.

Spring eventually came to New England, but not before we had a chance to experience the 5th season; mud. It comes between winter and spring and has nothing to recommend it.

And with spring came the end of the job. The G. Fox store of Waterbury Connecticut opened on time and with great celebration while we shipped our tools home and took the final flight west.

Sad…but the store was demolished a few years ago. Alex sent me a newspaper clipping of the event. Of course the clipping made mention of the asbestos contamination in the building; a hazard we weren’t aware of when we were building it.

Once we were back in Southern California we got back into the usual routine of taking on projects of all sizes. Some would take less than a week and those were always my favorite kind. I was able to travel all over the greater Los Angeles area and never knew where the next project would land me. We worked as far south as San Diego and as far east as Palm Springs. And since we seemed to have found a niche in department store remodeling, we would sometimes have to take on jobs late at night, remodeling complete departments overnight so that they could open the next day without any loss of revenue.

Saks 5th Avenue store in Beverly Hills was one that we spent a few nights in. We would arrive about 9, just as the last shoppers were leaving and then we were locked in by the security guards. The guards would return at 5:30 in the morning to let us out. In that short time we would have completed the demolition of an existing department and rebuilt it with a brand new look…except for the paint. That happened the next night.

Of course we had to spend some time looking at all of the merchandise and wondering why anyone would spend that kind of money on some of the items. $5,000 for a dress? That was an amount that could serve as a year’s salary!

After the storm

After that brief detour, my story returns to Connecticut.

The blizzard took place in the middle of winter and there was still plenty of cold weather for us to endure. And we saw what a New England winter would do to production figures. Our crew came to work each day in heavy insulated overalls with heavy jackets or sweatshirts on top of that. Most wore hardhats with insulated liners in them. This was fine gear to wear if you were going to be standing around in the cold, but it was our intention to get these people moving!

That was easier said than done. The work ethic was simply not part of the culture here and so it was like pulling teeth to get them to shed a jacket and work a little harder to stay warm. Alex and I dressed completely different from our crew, wearing jeans and thermal tops and nothing more than that. And our small crew of French Canadians dressed similarly. Even our shoes (insulated boots) were different. The crew wore heavy sno-packs and shuffled about in them. Speed was not an option with those kind of boots.

It wasn’t really that cold inside the building as we had insisted that the temperature had to be at least 40 degrees if they wanted us to start taping. So there were heaters (salamanders) everywhere and the roar from them was deafening. Plus, the kerosene fumes grew heavy in the air as the temperature climbed towards 45 or 50 degrees. It was actually quite pleasant to take a break outside, where the temperature might be 10 or 15 degrees…but the air was crisp clean and it was blissfully quiet.

With our Canucks leading the way, we finally had some drywall ready to tape and that was when Eddie joined us from California. He had volunteered for the job and he was good friend as well, so we welcomed him to our small “home” by the lake. Within a few days a box of taping tools arrived from California and we unpacked them on the job. What a surprise that was! As we took the tools out of the box, we noticed that we had a large crowd of observers watching us. One carpenter asked, “What in the heck are those things?” That was when we knew we were in trouble. Apparently, the tapers in this area never used these kinds of tools. We found out that they used hand tools exclusively and there was a Painter’s Union ban on the use of taping tools like “boxes” and “bazookas”. Oops!

Playing in the mud

I was driving into Chico the other morning, early, when I glanced over at the new bridge under construction on Highway 32. They were getting ready to pour concrete on the deck and I was suddenly reminded of the many times that I was on a similar deck, though much higher in the air, and working fast to stay ahead of the “mud”.  

No, I never worked on a bridge, but I knew exactly what each person in that crew was doing. On a highway bridge or on a deck 30 stories in the air, the process is the same. I guess I will always be sentimental about that part of my career in construction. When I was working with my tools on, I was excited about each day at work. There was a very real danger in what we did and just sensing that made every day special. (I guess you had to be there…)

Memory: We were late in getting our hanger wires in place for the 3rd floor ceilings on the Broadway store project in San Bernardino. The pour was scheduled for 7 in the morning and so that meant we had to be up on the deck and working by 4 AM. We had to layout the location for the wire drop by measuring from the tops of each column, barely visible through the rebar maze that covered the deck. After the layout was complete and double checked, we had to punch holes in the steel deck in a 3’ x 4’ pattern. We would then thread 12’ lengths of #8 wire down through the holes and tie off the ends on a piece of rebar. We only had moonlight to work under and it was eerie, walking on top of the rebar, looking for the holes to drop a wire into. Somewhere across the deck, in the dark, you could hear the “bang!” as the deck punch was driven down into the steel. Don’t trip! Especially near the edge…

By 6:30 we could hear the concrete pump being setup below and then the concrete crew was up on the deck with us as they laid their “slick line” across the rebar. And sure enough, at 7 AM sharp, the pump would roar into life and concrete would come pulsing up the line and out onto the deck. Now we had to hurry to stay ahead of the pour, sometimes just a few feet away from us.

By 7:30 we were through and headed down the ladder, eager for a break. Above us, we could hear the scrape and rattle as they lifted the mesh and vibrated the “mud” into place. I loved it!

Blizzard

The weeks passed and we settled into a routine where Alex would fly home one weekend and then I would fly home the next. Twice a month. The flights were fun and we had 4 days at home. Warm and sunny Southern California. Then it was back to the reality of ice and snow in New England.

One weekend, while Alex was away, a Nor’easter blew in; a real blizzard! It started Friday night and snowed all day Saturday and Sunday. I sat in our little hotel room and watched in amazement as the snow fell; higher and higher. I had plenty of food in our kitchenette and the power stayed on. Alas, the phone went out. Not a bad thing really, as the phone was outside and attached to a pole supporting the overhang. And to use the phone, you had to walk to the manager’s house and ask them to connect the phone to an outside line. Then walk back…through the snow.

Monday morning came and I was up early to dig out my car and get on the road. So I dug and I dug, piling up great mounds of snow on each side of the car. It was shortly after I finished that I realized that I hadn’t heard any snowplows coming down our road. In fact it was silent, very silent…except for my hard breathing! Well, I had a car that I could now sit in but without a road to drive it on. I raced back into the room and began calling our workers houses, to let them know that I would be late. The first one I talked to had to laugh, uproariously. Did I really believe that people were going to work today? Well, I did believe that, but I was wrong.

Now I had a day off and nowhere to go. So I decided to walk to the corner store and use the payphone to let Alex know about my predicament. I started off and immediately ran into a problem. The snow had drifted higher as I got closer to the road and pretty soon I was looking at ten to twelve foot high drifts of powder snow. I struggled on, finding my way slowly. It was a beautiful sunny day and the blue sky and white snow made the struggle less painful. After about an hour, I had made it to the corner gas station, probably a quarter mile distant from our room. I spotted the top of the telephone booth and climbed a steep hill of snow to get to it. Luckily the door was still open and the booth was sitting a well of snow, so I slid down into it.

The phone even worked and I was soon telling Alex of my adventures. And describing my current location; a phone booth in an ocean of snow.

Life at the lake

We soon settled into a routine of sorts on the job. We would hold classes for an hour or two every morning, teaching the local carpenters all about steel studs. Then came a long day as we struggled not to criticize their failings as they tried to put to use their new skills? These were "wood butchers" through and through and it was like teaching them a foreign language. A language they were not interested in learning.

When 4:30 rolled around, we were always ready to drive out of town and into rural Connecticut, where we could unwind. After taking showers in our little apartment, we would head over to Duval's restaurant in Bantam. "Pop" Duval was the bartender as well as proprietor of this small bar and restaurant. A couple of Scotches or maybe a Schaeffer's brew would get us into the mood for dinner. Salad and spaghetti with a side order of a dozen steamers was always a favorite. $1 a dozen for fresh steamed clams. The whole dinner, $2.50. A Maine lobster dinner ran $5. (And there is no comparison in size between a Maine lobster and a Pacific Crayfish.) After dinner, we would rejoin Pop in the bar for a glass of sherry and Pop would entertain us with short and pithy stories of the local area. He didn't know he was entertaining us; he always talked this way.

About 10, we would head back to our room, the studded snow tires rumbling on the icy roads. A dark sky and a million stars to see in that frozen time...

It would start all over again the next morning. Sort of like "Groundhog Day". Except that movie hadn't been made yet.

We were getting desperate for good labor, our schedule was off by weeks now and not days and then we heard that some French Canadians were in town and they knew drywall. We searched them out and after a few minutes of interviews, where they said a few key words, words that indicated that they really did know the trade, we hired them. All of them. I think it was about 8 altogether and all related. Jacque and Nazaire were cousins and spoke English. That's all we needed.

It turned out well, they weren't the best in the world, but they wanted to work and that put them far ahead of the locals. And the locals hated them for it. All trades in the Northeast seemed to be divided up by ethnic origins and there was no place for these foreigners, these Canucks.

At break time or lunch, the Italians and the Irish would find their respective places on a stack of sheetrock, making sure there was no room for us or the Canadians.

So we would find another stack and then have to sit and try to figure out what was being said to us or about us by half a dozen of our new French speaking friends. Nazaire would usually remember to translate for us if there had been a particularly funny joke told.

Slowly, we made progress.

Moving

The G. Fox store was larger than the normal size for department stores at that time; 3 stories tall and perhaps 90,000 square feet per floor. This was the kind of project that would normally take us about 4 months to complete. But this wasn’t going to be normal…

First, we had weather to contend with. It was winter time in New England and we had ice and snow to contend with; something that Southern Californians knew very little about. But we learned.

After the first week had passed, we had a crew of sorts and we were holding daily lessons for our carpenters on how to frame with steel studs. And judging from the results, we were not looking forward to the drywall application “lessons”. Despite our repeated requests to the local business agent, no drywall talent was to be found.

Also, at the end of that first week, we decided to move to a more comfortable location. Our little motel room was starting to feel like a jail cell for the two of us. So we went for a drive, to see what accommodations might be available.

And about 30 minutes out of Waterbury, we found the town of Morris and Bantam Lake. We liked the looks of this small town and we found a motel/inn that had monthly rentals of 2 bedroom apartments. We could have a kitchen and a living room! Almost like normal life… we moved that day.

On the following Monday, we mentioned our new address during a coffee break with the crew. Hilarity ensued. They thought we were crazy to be driving all of that way to work! (30 minutes) Being Californians, we didn’t get it? We might drive for 30 minutes just to go to the store. What was so funny? As it turned out, this move only confirmed what the locals already believed about the “crazy Californians”.

G. Fox

The Pacific Telephone project was certainly not the norm. If there is any such thing as a “normal” construction project? And with that said, my memory serves up the story of the G. Fox Department Store in Waterbury, Connecticut.

Our boss, Marshall, had received a request to bid on the construction of a new department store for the May Co. The store was to be the flagship store of a New England department store chain they had recently purchased.

After figuring in all sorts of additional costs; air transportation, moving and housing, vehicle rentals, etc, etc; the bid was prepared and surprise! We had a job in Connecticut. I was asked if I wanted to go and I quickly agreed.

Before making the trip, we had to prepare boxes of equipment to ship. Power cords, screw guns and welders. All of these things were packed into wooden boxes and sent off.

(It should be noted that we wouldn’t think of doing that today. We would have bought all of our equipment locally.)

Soon it was time for us to pack our suitcases and take a long non-stop flight to Hartford. And once a month we would take that same flight as we returned home for a long weekend.

I remember that we flew on American Airlines, a luxurious 727. The plane rarely had more than 50 passengers and I remember a time when there were less than 20 people on a plane that held over 100.  

After arriving in Waterbury, we found a motel to stay in and then went to check in with the local Carpenters Union. This was an eye-opener. We had never seen a Union like this one! The local office was run by a Business Agent named “Eddie”. And he ran it like it was his own personal kingdom. I suppose it was.

We knew we were in some trouble when we asked him if he had some men available that were skilled in drywall and metal framing. He looked at us and didn’t say a word for a minute. Then he slowly stated, “My men can do anything.” Oh?

We asked for three men to start with, and with the knowledge that the first man hired would become the “Steward” and would be the last man fired. And when they arrived at the jobsite the next morning, our Steward turned out to be a 65 year old Millwright. The other two carpenters were just that…carpenters. None of the three had ever seen a metal stud or installed drywall. It was going to be a long job!

Reasons

The project continued like clockwork. Floor after floor was completed without a hitch. That was the strange part. Most construction projects were (and are) contentious. Change orders are requested and then denied. The project slows down at each of these change order stumbling blocks and then it has to accelerate to get back on schedule. But not this project. Every change order request was approved immediately and the project never faltered.

After a couple of months, I learned why this project was so different. I overheard a couple of conversations and put two and two together. All of the costs for this project would be submitted to the Public Utilities Commission in a request for a rate increase. That rate increase would more than pay for any costs incurred in building the new switching station. The costs were going to become evidence that Pacific Telephone was diligent in their efforts to be a responsible utility and to constantly look for ways to better serve their customers. So, the more this project cost…the better! And everyone was in on the game. Except for the PUC, of course. (Who knows? Maybe they were as well.)

Moving

It wasn’t long before we were ready to move up to the second floor and so I called the scaffold company and told them to build another set of rolling scaffolds on that floor, just like the ones on the first floor. We were leaving the ones on the first floor until the tapers finished their work.

But, before we moved, I had to come up with an idea as to how I would finish the inside of the Vertical Cable Room. “Room” was probably not the best word to use, as it was actually a shaft that ran for 300 feet horizontally against the outside wall and was only 3 feet wide, though 28 feet tall on each floor. Framing this shaft was easy, as it could be done from outside the shaft space. But getting a crew up to the 20 foot height while inside the shaft was going to be difficult. We came up with the idea of rolling a scaffold alongside the wall and then using outriggers and a plank that extended through the studs and into the shaft. Being very careful, we started installing the drywall at the top and worked our way down, 4 feet at a time. It was slow but it worked perfectly.

We began our work on the second floor and I quickly discovered a new problem, “burnout”. The second floor looked exactly like the first floor; those crew members that had worked so hard to fireproof those first beams were now faced with doing the same repetitive, boring work again. Nothing had changed. Where was the challenge?

I should add that the construction industry attracts personality types that love change! A steady job holds little appeal. Oh, they like a steady paycheck; they just want to work at lot of different of places to earn it. I’ve had people quit because they felt like they had been on a job far too long; 3 months. I certainly understood it. I’m one of those “types” as well.

To stop production loss, I had to start rotating the crew; those working on the scaffolds would come down and work on the walls for a week and vice versa. And I had to ask our superintendent to start rotating crews from other projects as well. That worked and production rose again.

Getting Up in the World

After about 3 months, the first of the steel frame made its appearance above ground and we were able to start in a small way. But before we started, I was told that the contract we had signed was for “Time and Material”. The general contractor would pay for all costs, plus our profit. And that special arrangement had been made with a scaffold contractor to supply us with any scaffold we desired, all for one price.

At the time we started, the general contractor had a workforce of over 200 men, 134 carpenters and the rest were laborers; the most carpenters I had ever seen on one job. And although we started with a small crew, maybe half a dozen men; the GC told me that he was going to “give me” two laborers and that I could have them do anything I needed. Not to worry…they would remain on his payroll. He indicated that having a clean worksite was more important than a few dollars for labor and he was glad to spend it! To top off his generosity, he gave me the keys to a forklift and said it was mine to use. He had rented it for the duration of the job anyway and it was just sitting there. Better that I should use it than for it to get rusty.

We started our work in the lower levels, building fireproof cable runs, while the iron workers kept adding to the height of the building. My two laborers were there every day, brooms in hand, just waiting for one of us to drop a piece of scrap metal or drywall. And they were diligent. At the end of the day there was no evidence of our having been there except for the completed work.

After a couple of weeks, the second floor was decked over and the concrete was poured. A special Robertson decking was being used that allowed for cable runs beneath the floors and these required a great deal of fireproofing. Our plan was to use rolling scaffolds, linked together in groups of four and in enough quantity to do half of the floor space at one time. And since the working height was over 20’, these scaffolds were huge. It would take about 8 men, including the two laborers, to move them about the floor.

Now I had a use for “my” forklift! I would take full units of framing material and lift them to the top of the scaffold. And do the same with the drywall when we were ready to install it.

My crew increased till I had about 36 men working on top of the scaffolds. My job was to drive the forklift and supply them with material. That way I could monitor progress quite easily. And since I was right there, I could answer any questions that the crew had concerning what kind of fireproofing was needed for their portion of the work that day. Of course I couldn’t help but organize some competition and pretty soon the scaffold teams had names and were doing their best to outdo one another.  

Flash!

Probably not in calendar order…but after receiving my utility bill, I remembered this project.

It was in the mid 1970’s and I had just taken a foreman’s job with R&B Plastering. I knew their superintendent from a previous job and he had called me one night, offering me a $1 over foreman’s scale and a large bonus if I would take on a project that they had just secured. Sure! I liked the money and I was told that the project would last close to a year.

I was told to meet with the owner of R&B at the jobsite and that he would tell me more about it. Bob LaVerne was his name and “flash” was his style. He drove a bright red Cadillac El Dorado convertible, dressed in flashy leisure suits and had long and wavy silver hair. Even his teeth were flashy…all perfectly white and dazzling! (He was also the Commodore of the Long Beach Yacht Club…another story.)

We introduced each other and then took a look at the project. It was a switching station for Pacific Telephone, in Long Beach. It was going to be a concrete and steel building with 3 floors underground and 4 above ground. When we met, we were standing on the edge of a large excavation, probably 60 feet deep. Far below us there were hundreds of carpenters and huge piles of timber shoring, formply and 2x4’s. And this was when I first got a hint that it was going to be a “different” kind of job. An assistant superintendent for the general contractor interrupted our meeting with the project manager, to ask if he should order a forklift to be lowered into the hole so that the carpenters could more easily move all of the stacks of wood? No. The project manager told him to call the union hall and order more carpenters instead. Order 24 more. Whoa! That was different…and where were they all going to stand? The excavation looked like it was already filled with more people than it should have to be safe.

OK, it was obvious that the project wasn’t going to ready for drywall for quite awhile. The project would have to be above ground level before we could start and even then it would be slow going as our job was to provide fireproofing for all of the steel by wrapping it in 3 and 4 layers of drywall; a uniquely expensive method of fireproofing. I was told that the phone company had selected this method because it didn’t create as much dust as other fireproofing schemes.

Bob LaVerne also told me that the estimate called for over a million square feet of drywall…a number that staggered my imagination at the time. Especially when it was only on 4 floors of this building. Quick figuring; a journeyman could install about 900 square feet of drywall a day. That was over 1100 man-days just in drywall work, not including all of the framing, taping and general labor. Perhaps 4,000 man-days all together? (More later…)

Legal?

I suppose I could say something here about immigrants, legal and otherwise. They do have a place in the story of my life.

In the late 1960’s, we had a large project to do in Waterbury, Connecticut and we were having a terrible time finding competent help…then someone suggested that we explore the idea of hiring some French Canadians. We did and they were great workers! Yes, they were union members as well, but the other carpenters wouldn’t have anything to do with them. At lunchtime, we would sit on a stack of drywall with our Canuck crew, while the rest of the crew ate elsewhere…with their backs to us.

In the early to mid 1970’s, we saw a lot of immigrants coming into the drywall trade. Argentine immigrants with a few Uruguayans thrown in. And by 1973 I had a framing crew that was 80% Argentinean. Why? Because they worked the hardest and they were smart! I had no idea as to whether or not they were legal. It simply didn’t occur to me to care. They happened to be my friends and my fellow workers. Sure, I was the foreman, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t their friend as well. I remember that most of them were 7th Day Adventists and the only problem I had with that was the fact that they couldn’t work overtime on Friday nights. They had interesting surnames, Müller, Buchhammer…Germanic names and quite common in Argentina. And most were college graduates, but without the US credentials to get them jobs in their normal professions. Francisco Müller, a good and dear friend, was a Mechanical engineer in Uruguay. In Los Angeles he was a drywaller.

In the late 1970’s, it changed again as the immigrants were now coming from Mexico and they were desperate for work. The contractors obliged by lowering the piece work rate until the union workers left. Then it was a race to the bottom as the contractors tried to see how cheaply they could hire the labor. In the tracts it was common to come to work in the morning and find “Claim sheets” nailed up in every house in the tract. Claim sheets used to be used to secure a house for yourself when you knew you were about to finish one house and needed to start another in the middle of the next day. You would find a house and nail up one sheet on the wall with your name on it. Now, every house had a claim sheet overnight.

Most of the pieceworkers just moved on to hourly work and without much regret. Piecework wasn’t the most desirable work and if someone else wanted to fight with the contractors over money…more power to them. Legal? Illegal? In the construction trades you were only known and respected by your skills. As it should be.

And then we're through...

One last story from the May Company remodel...One day as we were working in the Women's Shoe department, we had a chance to see a master thief at work. We were set up to work on a low scaffold at the back of the department. From our vantage point, about 6' off of the ground, we could see the entire department. Suddenly, Dick Celmer, my partner, nudges me and whispers..."Hey, look at the lady in the raincoat over there." We both watched as she talked to a salesclerk, while at the same time she was dropping boxes of shoes into her bag. She kept the clerks attention elsewhere while her hands were flying along the shelf. She and the clerk were almost shoulder to shoulder, but the clerk was only looking where the thief wanted her to. It was amazing to watch! Then she spotted us...and she quickly broke off her conversation and headed for the escalators. We jumped off of the scaffold and tried to follow but it was useless.

Another Day Downtown

On another hard day of work at the May Co. remodel, we were asked to remove an existing wall and prepare the area in the Gift department for remodeling. That seemed simple enough and so we went down to the Hardware department and “borrowed” some hammers to use in our task; they were almost large enough to qualify as sledge hammers.

We then attacked the designated wall. Old plaster and dust flew. As the wall came down, we were expecting to see the outer wall of the building; that was what the plans told us to expect, but what we saw was another plaster wall and a door. Surprise!

After clearing away some of the debris, the May Co. representative was called and while we waited for his arrival, we decided to open the door and see what was there. The door had a frosted glass pane in it and it was obvious that some sort of light could be seen behind it. The door had been nailed closed before it had been covered over so it took some effort for us to open it.

Once opened, we saw the light source; this was an old exit stairway and there were windows to the outside in it. These stairs hadn’t been used in many years and somewhere in the stairway, a window must have been open or broken, because city pigeons had obviously been living in it…for a very long time! On the stairs there was a mountain of pigeon poop that followed the trail of the sprinkler line above. The pigeons had been roosting and nesting here in comfort for who knows how long.

Avoiding the obvious, we explored a little bit of the stairs and found the broken window on the floor above us. And we discovered that at each landing and above each door there were old-fashioned gas lamp fixtures. There was no trace of electrical power, so this stairway had to have been abandoned quite early in the history of the building.

After the May Co. representative arrived, he determined that a crew of cleaning people should tackle the mess and the pigeons were to be chased out permanently. Then we were to seal up the stairway once more.

Plans were then revised and eventually we built a new wall in the Gift department. Now I have to wonder if that hidden stairway still exists, or did some future remodeling expose it to scrutiny again?

Hard Work! Or Hardly Working?

The remodel of the May Company store was an altogether unique project. Our boss had secured the contract for the work on a “time and material” basis. This was great for us…and bad for the accountants at the May Company.

A typical day began this way; we would arrive at the downtown store about 6:45 and after knocking on the entry door, a security guard would let us in and we would make our way up the silent escalators to the 4th floor where our gang box was located, right behind the China department. Here we would make coffee in a nice coffee maker (From Housewares), using only the best coffee. (From the Gourmet department) Coffee was always served in the finest china cups! We would even use the saucers… After coffee, we would browse the Hardware department for any tools or supplies we might need for the day ahead.

Odd, but the May Company encouraged us to use any of their products. But…nothing was to be taken from the store. Stealing was forbidden.

Officially, we began our day at 7 AM. Well, let’s say that our pay began at 7. We didn’t actually go to work until 8 because that was when the May Company representative showed up and we weren’t allowed to do anything unless he was present. (We had insisted on an early starting time because it was so difficult to find parking nearby unless you arrived early.)

Once the May Company representative had given us a task for the day, we would set out to do it. And everything he ever gave us to do could be done in an hour or two. But he insisted that we take our time and do it “right”. Which we did. No matter how long it took.

I should point out that this project was also a place for the injured to get a little bit of rest. Since our company had other, more difficult projects, someone was always getting hurt. And as long as they could walk…they were sent to the May Company to recuperate. I was sent there because I had hurt my back. And there I joined other convalescing workers.

OK, I enjoyed it. But in my defense, I must point out that within two weeks I was calling my foreman and begging to be put on a “real” job!

Hamburger

There were many memorable projects during my years of working in Los Angeles and not all of them were filled with the thrill of doing something dangerous. Sometimes they were funny…

One of those times was when we were involved in the remodeling of the May Company Department Store in downtown Los Angeles. This store was located in what was called the Hamburger's Building. (Nothing to do with beef sandwiches…) Hamburger was the surname of the man who had built the structure in the early 1900’s. It was a 7 story building, with a steel framework and wooden plank floors. The exterior walls were of stone and terra cotta, while the interior walls were made of plaster. And since the building was already 60+ years old, it had been remodeled many times.

One day, we were working on the ground floor and back in a stock room area. We were building some new walls around the elevator and to do that work, we had to stop the elevator from being used that morning and open the doors to the hoist way.
Now elevator hoist ways are probably the very last things to be cleaned in a building and this one was no exception. A very thin film of oil from the elevator cables covered the walls of the shaft and over the years, a lacy covering of dust had attached itself to the walls. Imagine a shaft that was about twelve feet square and about one hundred feet tall, all covered with “dust bunnies”.

I remember standing near the open door to the hoist way when our foreman decided to do a little bit of welding. He struck the “stinger” to a piece of steel and the sparks flew. And some of those sparks rolled across the floor and into the shaft. There was a loud “whoosh!” A blaze of light followed as the hoist way erupted into flames. Then, just as suddenly, the flames were gone and only a small haze of smoke remained. We had just cleaned the entire elevator shaft of its 60 year accumulation of dirt and dust and had done it in less than a minute!

We waited expectantly for someone, anyone…to come running to see what had happened. But nothing happened. No sirens, no panic…apparently it had happened so fast that no one besides ourselves had any idea that we had just come within seconds of burning down a historic building. And we certainly didn’t tell anyone!

More on the Wall

The wall continues…

It seemed to take forever to frame the wall and there were many memorable moments during the process. A few of them; because of the positioning of the cables, we found that the higher we went, the harder it was to keep the Sky Climber from pressing hard against the wall. To move up or down, you had to reach out and push the climber away from the wall. And there were obstacles, such as pipe and conduit joints to push away from. I remember descending one day and suddenly noticing that my partner’s end of the climber was falling quicker than my end. “Hey! stop that…” I called out in a panic. But it was an illusion. My end was actually stopped because I had allowed it to be caught on a pipe joint and now I had about 5 feet of slack cable lying on the plank. I quickly reversed the motor before the plank slipped off of the joint. Or the time that I caught the control lever in my safety belt and when I turned, the climber motor turned on, dropping us a foot or so. Terrifying, when you’re 80 feet in the air!

Finally the wall was completely framed and I remember that we stood across the room from it and were awed by what we had done. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take a picture of it because of security restrictions. You may remember from a previous posting that I once worked for STL and all work on their sites was considered “Secret”. Too bad, it would have made a great picture!

Now it was time to put drywall on those studs and so we began, at the bottom of course, and each day we would climb higher up the wall. And since we couldn’t carry more than one sheet of drywall at a time on the Sky Climber, we had to use a rope and pulley to get the sheets up the wall. We used a C-clamp with large plates welded to it to hold the sheet and one, or more usually two people to pull on the rope. We did have one journeyman that could stand flat footed and pull a 4’ x 10’ sheet up, hand over hand, one hand at a time. He was awesome to watch!

And what was the purpose of the wall? We were told that the Shake Test Facility had two security classifications. One side of the wall was “Top Secret” while the other side was simply “Secret” and so a wall was needed…of course. And what did they do that was so secret? They would take a missile, the whole thing, into the room and shake it. I can only suppose that they then counted the things that fell off of it?

Shaking!

Last night, during our Bible study time at church, we got into a discussion of our fears. And someone revealed a fear of heights. Of course I could relate to that! And so I will continue with my stories…

Although the Broadway stores were our “bread and butter” projects, we would bid on and sometimes secure other, even larger, projects. One of those was the “Shake Test Facility” at the Space Technology Laboratories site in Redondo Beach. (STL – now TRW) This building was unique in that its interior space consisted of two rooms, with one wall – 140’ high and about 300’ long- to divide them. Our job was to build that wall. And since Alex knew of my fears of height; he asked me if I wanted to work on the wall. I decided to confront my fears and told him to include me.

Of course they don’t make studs that are 140’ long so there was a structural steel framework for us to build upon. We were building many pieces of a wall between those supports and once it was complete, it would appear to be seamless.

Because of jobsite conditions, using a scaffold was out of the question and so it was decided that we would use “Sky Climbers” as our working platform. A Sky Climber consists of a long and narrow (20’ x 2’) aluminum plank with an electric hoist motor at each end. These motors would grip a cable that was hung from the roof and then “climb” that cable.

To begin, we had to secure the cables to the roof structure and that meant a ride up to the roof trusses. A portable construction elevator took us up. There, between the bottom supports of huge roof trusses, was a complete sheet metal factory built on wooden planks. A temporary floor for the contractor that was installing the air conditioning ductwork. We had to snake the cables in between the planks and secure them to the structure. The scary part? Removing a plank and seeing the concrete floor, 140’ below you.

With the cables secured, we began to climb the wall, 10’ at a time. Build a 20’ length of wall; climb again. It took a little coordination to make sure that the climbing motors at each end operated at the same time and that the plank remained level as it rose. And we had to make certain that all of our power cords were free from entanglements as we climbed. This was often overlooked and we tore apart many cords through the weeks.

I didn’t have too much of a problem with the heights until about the 40’ level. That’s only the height of a 4-story building and we were going to build a wall that equaled the height of a 14-story building! That fact suddenly stuck in my consciousness and wouldn’t go away. And as the days passed I noticed that my legs now ached after a day at work. What was that all about? Then I saw why; I was trying (desperately!) to grasp that plank with my toes. Toes that were separated from the plank by heavy work boots. Yes, we had a safety belt that was attached to a safety rope by a safety brake…all safe, right? Since none of us had ever tested any of this equipment, it really didn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling!

The weeks passed slowly and the wall began to take shape; A silver grid framework of studs between red steel beams. And I found that the aches and pains in my legs eased as I saw the wall growing. Pride in what we were doing helped quite a bit. And I found that others were affected by heights as well. I remember that an older, more experienced, journeyman volunteered to work with me one day when my partner (Babe) was absent. Everything was going along fine until he spotted a bird flying by – beneath him. “Get me down!” he said. Strangely, the fact that he was bothered by the height strengthened me.  

1969

A year or so later (1969) we were back in Arizona to build a second Broadway store, not in Phoenix, but in the more exclusive city of Scottsdale. At that time, Scottsdale was a distinct city of its own and not a suburb of Phoenix. A trip to Glendale required traveling through unpopulated land…only farms and desert.

And this time we had an opportunity to bring our families along with us for the duration of the job. Since we had built so many of these stores and since we had an experienced crew waiting to work for us again…it was going to be a great summer! An easy job and time to explore Arizona.

I had prepared for this by buying a Ford 12 passenger van. For our family of 5. This was a great vehicle for us with room for the baby and the girls each had a seat of their own. And every weekend found us traveling to some new place in Arizona. We made all of the usual tourist excursions; Tombstone, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Jerome, Saguaro National Forest, Prescott, Flagstaff, Tuzigoot National Monument, etc, etc.

Of course there was work as well…but now it was a contest to see how fast we could build one of these stores. We knew how to do it; we just wanted to do it faster. This time we had some of the experienced help from the Phoenix job and that helped us to trim a few days off of the schedule, despite the Arizona summer heat.

Notable moments: We watched the lunar landing while sitting around the pool at our summer home (apartment) in Phoenix. We would run in to look at the television and then back out to see the moon itself.

Hot August? Nights

Our first Broadway store adventure in the Phoenix area had us driving to and from there every single weekend. We would gather at Alex’s house on Sunday evenings and then, late at night…drive east to the desert. Friday afternoons we would reverse the process and end up in Encino late that night, to be greeted by our families.

The jobsite, a remote location at the time…was visited regularly by the Arizona Highway Patrol in their efforts to generate a little revenue by making out-of-state-workers buy Arizona license plates. Sure enough, we were caught during our second week there. We sported dual plates for the rest of the time we were in Arizona.

And I do remember a hot night as we headed across the border into Arizona and Alex mentioned that the needle on the temperature gauge seemed to be climbing? Sure enough, it climbed to boiling and beyond and suddenly we were stranded in the desert…with a broken water pump at 2 in the morning. Dark and hot.

But as luck would have it…we had some ice left in our coolers and so we began to put that into the radiator in our attempt to cool things down enough to get us back to civilization in Blythe, maybe an hour back down the highway? (Blythe = civilization? That’s an oxymoron!)

We had to do the cooling process slowly, as we didn’t want to crack the block by adding a lot of cold water all at once. One ice cube at a time was placed in the radiator opening. It would drop; there would be a loud “hiss!” and then a little cloud of steam would emerge and drift off into the desert.

Finally, the temperature was low enough to begin our backwards trip and we made it to Blythe as the sun began to turn the horizon into a silver band. An all-night service station was able to help and called the right people to secure us a new water pump at this early hour.

The sun was up and blazing when we finally pulled into the parking lot at the project site. Luckily, our crew had made themselves busy in our absence and so we didn’t fall too far behind.

Going to the dogs...

I should point out that Alex, Babe and I spent most weeks in Phoenix without the company of our families. It was on our second Arizona project (Scottsdale), a year later, that we were able to enjoy the most time with them.

With lots of free time in the evening, we would explore the Phoenix area for things to do. And one thing we enjoyed was going to the greyhound races north of town. (In these years, Phoenix actually had “city limits” and the race track was north on the Black Canyon road. The Black Canyon freeway was quite short and ended at the edge of town.) At the track, we could sit in air conditioned comfort and watch all of the action through large plate glass windows. We didn’t bet a lot of money, having learned some sort of lessons from our time in Las Vegas. But a $2 dollar bet on each race would just about guarantee that you would pay $20 for the evening’s entertainment.

And when we weren’t betting on the dogs, we might go to the Stockyards restaurant, a premier eating establishment located in the Cattleman’s Association building. Coincidentally, the building was located in the middle of the stockyards. And on a hot summer night…the fragrance was overpowering. But once you walked through the doors, all was elegance. Candles, fine linens and a piano being played softly while you dined. The food was as good as the ambiance and we would try to have enough money to eat there once a week.

One of our favorites? “Calf Fries” or “Rocky Mountain Oysters” I wonder if they are still on the menu?

Arizona

After more than a few mistakes, I realized that estimating was not the job for me. They weren’t terrible mistakes, such as forgetting to add in the price of the materials or something equally disastrous. It was just that I really liked my boss, Marshall. And it bothered me that my mistakes were taking money from his wallet. It became far too personal and so, after some discussion, I returned to working with my “real” tools.

This was where I felt comfortable. I discovered that I had a real talent for reading blueprints and understanding how something could be built. I could actually see the finished product in my mind and knew how to achieve it. I loved it!

I was now the foreman on all sorts of jobs, making decisions and planning daily operations, though when Alex was on the job, I deferred to him every time. We worked well together and the man who was once my nemesis was a best friend.

The Broadway stores continued to be built in far away places and we continued to do the work on them. We went to Phoenix one year and Marshall arranged for our families to join us for a portion of the time we were on the job. He rented apartments for us and we had a great summer, touring Arizona on the weekends. The weekdays were another story…a hot story!

Summer temperatures in Phoenix would climb to 110° and higher, making the windowless jobsite on West Camelback Road into an oven. And we began the work day at 3 in the morning, so as to avoid the worst of the heat in the afternoon. The afternoons were spent in the pool.

Some odd things about Phoenix in those days…swimming pools were equipped with spray nozzles set into the edge of the pool. In the evenings, a pump sprayed the pool water out into the air to cool the water off. And Phoenix homeowners built dikes around their lawns. Neighborhoods were assigned a day to flood irrigate their lawns, turning the neighborhood into a vast lake. You didn’t have to look; you could tell by the increased humidity that your neighbors had begun to flood their lawns.

Bid Day

Estimating was time consuming and very stressful. Yet I did like it. I enjoyed the “reading” of the plans and specifications and I once compared it to being a personal challenge from the architect…my job was to find all of the “work” contained in the plans and the architects job was to make the job appear to be simplicity itself. And when I missed something…the architect won. At the same time, if I were to find all of the work, then my price would be too high and our competitors would win. You had to find everything you could and then price the work to be as competitive as possible. That was where the stress was.

And bid day was terrifying. That was where all of your talents were going to be on display when you finally revealed your price to the general contractors. Worst scenario: Your price is $100,000 lower than anyone else’s price. 2nd worst scenario: Your price is $100,000 higher than anyone else’s price.

It wasn’t very ethical, but our job was also to find out, if possible, what our competitors bid amount was going to be. You did this by cultivating friends among the general contractors and they just might let you know what numbers they had heard through the grapevine.

Here is how it worked; bid time would be at 2 PM. No bids accepted after that time. Sometimes you have to give sealed bids in person, which was a logistical nightmare. But most times you were doing this all by phone and you would start by calling a “friendly contractor” about 12:30 or 1 PM, with your bid price and ask if, just perhaps, some other numbers had been heard? Usually the answer was negative but you got a promise to hear back from them. About 1:30 you would start calling all of the friendly contractors and try to determine where your $ number was in relation to others. Of course all of your competitors were doing the same thing and so finding that number was difficult. If you were lucky, you might hear that a bid had been received for $100,000. Your price was currently at $110,000. You have to make a decision. Can you do the job for less than the low number? And still make money? If the answer is yes, you have to call all of the other contractors and change your bid number to, let’s say…$95,000. And then hope that the competition doesn’t find out right away. The clock was both your enemy and your friend. You would make that price change at the last possible minute, maybe 1:58 and hope you had time to call everyone.

Excitement? You bet

Estimating

After finishing the Bakersfield Broadway store, we were told that there were going to be a lot more of these stores to build and that we had a good chance of securing the contracts on them. But, one Broadway store was taking just a little over 6 weeks to complete and that left a lot of time in a year for more projects for us…or for time off if we couldn’t get any contracts. So I was called back in to the office to do more estimating. It was assumed that since I was now a journeyman, I was more knowledgeable about production values.

I would begin each day by reading the “Green Sheet”, a trade newspaper that listed every job that was being planned. The statistics for each job included the location, the bid date, the trades that bids were needed for, the estimated value and a list of general contractors that were requesting sub-bids.

We were trying to avoid the small jobs, as the margins were usually just as small as the contract price. We looked for jobs in the mid-range of $250,000 to $1,000,000. And a rule of thumb was that our trade, drywall, would make up about 10% of the estimated contract price…so the numbers above would translate to $25,000 to $100,000 in drywall work for us.

After reading the Green Sheet, I would make up a list of contractors to visit and grab my map book. I would have to go to the contractor’s office to see the plans and spend as much time as necessary in their plan rooms while I estimated our work scope. Often, I would find some competitor had already arrived and was using the only available set of plans. That meant that I had to drive on to the next contractor’s office and hopefully find a set of plans that wasn’t being used.

I might spend a whole day driving around the Los Angeles area and see just one set of plans. Very frustrating!

And after I finished my estimate, I had to come up with a bid price, or prices. A high price, a low price, a “field” price and a “walk away” low price. That would be the lowest price we could use and only used when we were desperate for work. If someone (our competition) beat that price…we walked away.

On bid day we had to have all of our job knowledge ready at hand when we began to call in our bids. The general contractors would often ask about just what it was that you had included in your price…and your answer was sometimes the key to getting a job. “Yes, we included the drywall in the elevator machine room.” might be the right answer to give, even if you had no idea as to where the machine room was!

Making Money

Just a few more words on piece work…

As I said earlier, piece work was what you did when times were tough and hourly work couldn’t be found. Yet, I always found an excuse to do some piece work all through my career. If I needed some money for something special, I would look for a house or some apartments to work on at night or on the weekends.

But, piece work was a career choice for many drywallers. For those who were fast and strong, “Lids” were the best way to make a lot of money in a hurry. “Lids” were ceilings, and that was all that a “Lid crew” would do. Of course it required a partner and a silent type of teamwork. I did it for awhile with my piece work partner, Lloyd “Babe” Jones. But we had a few things going against us…for one; I was tall and Babe was short. That meant that our “Horses” were of different heights and they always had to be placed correctly in the room before we stepped up on them. The stack of board was usually in one larger room and we would each grab our end, place it against our shoulders and then run to the room where our “Horses” stood; jumping up on to it and rotating the board onto our heads as we stood. The “Horse” had to be at a height where all you had to do was raise up on your toes to put your head (and the board) against the ceiling joists. With your head pressing the board up tightly, you would reach in your nail pouch and grab a handful of nails. Bang. Bang. That was the desired rhythm; one hit to set the nail and one more to drive it home. And don’t stop till the board had at least a dozen nails in it. Then you could relax and get off of your toes before continuing the nailing rhythm. Fast.

OK, now imagine that same scenario when the horses are in the wrong position. I’m standing on Babe’s horse and he is on mine. Painful!  

“Sidewalls” were one of the other choices in piece work. This only required a partner for a few minutes and after that you were free to work by yourself.

Babe and I would often do sidewalls, teaming up just long enough to get the longer sheets of drywall in place. In those days, houses were stocked with the longest sheets available for the longer walls in the house. That meant that sometimes the first half a dozen sheets would be 4’x16’. I could hang 4’x12’ sheets by myself; a 16’ or 14’ sheet was another matter. So we would help each other with the “big” sheets and then the house was all ours to complete – and to be paid for.

Piece work was all about speed; speed in moving the material, cutting it, and nailing it. And although I was never fast enough to make a lot of money, I learned a lot from it. The most important thing I learned was that I shouldn’t make a career of it! But…I did enjoy the solitude of doing sidewalls. No one depended on me to go faster. I knew where every piece of drywall was; when I cut a piece off, I knew exactly what size it was and where it was going to fit later on.

Like my friend and mentor, Alex, I thought that every journeyman should have to do piecework for a time. It taught you good work habits and you learned to move the materials quickly and safely. And you had to do good, clean work. A good lesson. Most contractors would take money out of your paycheck for any board that was damaged by your negligence. In fact, most houses were stocked with exactly the right amount of board to complete them, and if you needed one more sheet…you paid for it.

Rain and Money

The rain we have been seeing for the past few months reminded me that some of the memories of my career should include the fact that weather, especially rain, definitely affected my paycheck…something that “office types” or “suits” didn’t have to worry about. When it rained like it has recently, the contractor couldn’t get decent soil compaction test results and so they couldn’t pour concrete. Without concrete in place, building stopped. High rises or homes, it was all the same.

You quickly learned to value a job that would take you through the late winter and early spring months. And when you were out of work, you joined a large group of construction workers that were also looking for work.

I only used my unemployment benefits one time. And I hated it. I know it doesn’t make sense…the benefits are there for you to use! They belong to you. You had worked for them. But it was a cultural thing. Unemployment was to be avoided. And so I would go searching for piece work in the housing market. And since there were so many out of work, the price being paid dropped to a level where you wondered why you should bother? Some times you could make more money from unemployment and avoid the hassle of deadbeat contractors and long hours.  

I remember finding a small tract of homes in the Carson area; there weren’t more than about 20 houses and only a few drywallers had found the tract, so it could last for a few weeks. They were paying 1-7/8 cents a foot. That was about 85 cents a sheet for a 4x12 sheet of drywall. More math: I could install about 1700 square feet a day in those particular houses. That adds up to about $32 dollars. And I had to work from 6:30 to 6 to get it done. You had to leave when you couldn’t see to nail. Hourly wages at the time were about $6 an hour; if you could get a job.

(Alex had told me that in the “old days”, when getting a job was tough, he had followed the drywall supply trucks from the supply yard to the jobs, hoping to talk his way into a job. And that had worked for me. I had spotted a truck full of drywall and followed it to the tract in Carson.)

Bakersfield

Our next Broadway store project was also out of town, but not very far…it was in Bakersfield, about 2 hours away from the San Fernando Valley. That made it far enough away that we only stayed overnight one or two nights each week. The rest of the time we would drive back and forth, over the mountain.

And this was a very odd store, not at all like the others we had been building. For one, none of the walls would go all the way to the ceiling. They all stopped short of the ceiling by about a foot. This was a design that some engineer had come up with because of the fact that the building was on a major earthquake fault. The building itself sat on Teflon bearings and could shift up to a foot in any direction.

This unique design prompted a lot of head scratching by Alex and I, as the architect hadn’t really thought through all of the design problems. In fact, we did a lot of the designing in our heads as we drove in early in the morning, each day, hurtling down the “Grapevine” and into the dense fog of the valley. (Note that this was long before Interstate 5 was built…Highway 99 was the only way to get to Bakersfield)

And on the nights when we did stay over, we would usually eat at the Wool Growers restaurant, a local Basque eatery. The food was great and there was lots of it. Steak, lamb, beans, pasta and salad. Plus bottles of red wine, (no labels on the bottles) and water glasses substituted for wine glasses.

Another note on Highway 99; since it was the major north/south artery, truck traffic was hazardous at times, especially where the highway descended into the valley through the “Grapevine”. Early in the morning, the smell of burning brake linings and tires was quite common, as most trucks wanted to cross the mountains while it was cool. Many times we encountered trucks that had lost their brakes and were racing down the last few miles of that twisting downhill road, hoping to reach the flats safely. We just tried to stay out of the way…

A Family

After our return from Las Vegas, we heard rumors that there were going to be a lot more of the Broadway stores to work on very soon and they were scattered all throughout the western United States. But in the meantime, we began working on the more commonplace jobs; apartments, stores and office buildings.

And I had to return to the routine of going to apprenticeship classes on Saturdays. I only had about 4 months left to serve and they would fly by quickly. Finally, an invitation to a graduation dinner was received and we showed up to get that important piece of paper that made me a Journeyman…to my surprise, there were dozens more graduating apprentices at the dinner than there had been in class? It turned out that some apprentices had “connections” and I didn’t.

Now that I was a journeyman, I could take my foreman’s wages without any problem at all. Those who had been upset at my role as an apprentice/foreman now had nothing to complain about. And the extra money was great…we had become a family with the arrival of Denise! And that extra money meant that we could start looking into renting a house and get out of the cramped apartment.  

Las Vegas - 60's Style

As I remember it, our second week in Las Vegas was a financial success. We began the week by putting some dollars aside, stuffing them into a drawer in the dresser. Not to be touched till Friday morning when we packed our dirty clothes for the trip home that afternoon.

The weeks went by and we soon found that we were being recognized in some of the casinos. And attitudes changed. We discovered that once casino employees found out that you were “regulars” and not tourists, they treated you very nicely. Smiles and greetings became commonplace.

Finally, after eight long weeks, we finished up our work. We had made money for the company, a lot of money! And we had a new goal; to do a complete Broadway store in just 6 weeks. We thought we could do it…

And to celebrate our completion, Marshall (our boss) came to Las Vegas and took us all out to dinner. I remember that we seemed to eat forever that night, as Marshall asked the chef to simply give us his “best”. No menu for us! And I saw the bill for that dinner…close to $125!

Fever

After our first day on the job, we moved into our Las Vegas apartment. After unpacking, we decided to see what Las Vegas was all about and we drove downtown and visited the Mint casino. They had a 32 ounce steak dinner for just $3 and that attracted us to their top floor restaurant. We did a little gambling and far too much drinking, but Alex steered us back to reality by reminding us that we needed to get up at 5 the next morning.

And the next morning we began to assemble a crew from the candidates sent out by the local union. We were in luck, as the new Aladdin hotel had just been finished and now there were a few carpenters available that knew one end of a steel stud from the other. (Yes, there is a “right end” and “wrong end” to a steel stud.)

The days went by quickly. Since we knew the Broadway store layout so well, we were able to concentrate on teaching carpenters how to frame with steel studs and that kept us busy. And every night we could be found downtown at the Mint or the Fremont. Trying to win a fortune at the roulette wheel.

We had brought money (cash) with us and we had tried budgeting, but to no avail. The gambling was just too attractive and by Thursday we were out of money and had to have some emergency cash wired to us. What were we thinking? It was a sobering trip home on Friday afternoon. Hungry and thirsty. Well, not quite…between the three of us, we came up with enough loose change to buy a 6-pack for the drive home. (This was in the 1960’s…we didn’t have credit cards then. Honest!)

Out of Town

Our first out of town job began late on a Sunday evening. Babe and I met Alex at his house in Encino and transferred our suitcases to the company truck. (No matter where we were driving to, it was always Alex’s plan to arrive in the morning of our planned start date.) After saying goodbye to our families, we set off for Las Vegas. Early in the morning we finally saw the glow of lights on the eastern horizon that indicated we were getting close. When we pulled into town, the dawn was complete and we went looking for a place to eat breakfast.

Las Vegas, more than 40 years ago, was very different…it was a small town. The “Strip” was minor in scale and the main attractions were downtown, on Fremont Street. But we saw a sign advertising breakfast for $1 at a “Strip” hotel and we stopped…We must have looked like real hicks, staring at all of the lights and glitter, even at this early hour. Our truck, loaded down with equipment, ladders and suitcases, must have looked equally “hickish”.

After breakfast, we found the local Carpenter’s Union hall and met the Business Agent. He was quite glad to see us, as the local economy was going through a “bust” cycle and he had lots of men out of work. And when we inquired about apartment rentals, he was quite happy to drive us around and help us locate a place near the jobsite. He also took the time to show us the housing development projects that had been shut down by the collapse of the local economy. We drove by block after block of half finished houses and apartments, weeds growing in the sidewalks and windows boarded up.

We found a likely place to rent and thanked the Business Agent; telling him we would probably ask for some men the next morning, but first we had to check in at the jobsite and make certain that they were ready for us to begin.

The Broadway store sat all by itself on a large parcel of desert acreage. The closest building was at least a mile away. Who would drive all of the way out here to shop?

We checked in with the Broadway representative on the job and located where we were supposed to start our work. Then it was time to unload the truck and get ready for the work day. We would spend the first day verifying all of the measurements within a department and snapping chalk lines onto the floor where the walls would go.

By 9, it was getting quite warm and by noon it was hot! Broadway stores had no windows and air circulation depended on open doors and fans; lots of fans! The first floor did have 4 large door openings, which helped, but in the weeks ahead, when we moved to the second and third floors, the heat grew intense.

Las Vegas

Just when I thought I was home free…almost a journeyman; I was caught by the new apprenticeship committee of our Carpenters Local Union. They had decided that a school would be a nice thing for all apprentices to attend. And although I was within 9 months of becoming a journeyman, they figured that I could do a little time in school…on Saturday mornings…in downtown Los Angeles.

I went, quite reluctantly. After all, I was already being paid journeyman’s wages and I was directing work as if I were a foreman. What could they teach me?

As it turned out, I was right. The class taught us very little. The instructor was a crony, a friend of a friend who knew someone else…and the job paid well. So the “instructor” babysat about a dozen of us for 6 hours every other Saturday, unless we could talk him into letting us go early. Which we always did.

(Strangely enough, despite this poor beginning, in later years I ended up becoming very involved with the apprenticeship training program; even becoming an instructor myself. More about that later.)

During the week I was usually working on a Broadway store somewhere. Modern Drywall Systems had found a small gold mine in the department store construction business. There was hardly a Broadway store in the Los Angeles basin that we hadn’t built or remodeled.

And then it was time for some traveling…The Broadway-Hale people were expanding their horizons and asked us to come along. I think the first out of town job was in Las Vegas; a new store on Tropicana Blvd.

Alex asked Babe and me to go with him and I was eager to see someplace new and do something a little bit different, so I quickly agreed.

History

After a few months, the Fallbrook Square project was history and just in time…as Alex called us back to work. It seemed that our work with the store fixture companies at the May Co. store had impressed them and they were interested in having us bid on some Broadway stores.

We would be third tier subcontractors on these jobs. The owner, Broadway-Hale would have a contract with a general contractor to build the shell of a building. Then, Broadway-Hale would contract with store fixture companies to build the walls in the sales areas. And we would bid to the fixture companies. We would also bid for the work that the general contractor was going to do, but we rarely secured any of that work. And that meant at one time or another, there were two drywall companies working on the same job, but involved in two different scopes of work.

A note on how this all worked…A fixture company would design and build everything needed to create a “department”. Let’s say it’s the Shoe Department; they would build the whole thing, walls, soffits and curtain walls, hangers and shelving. And they would assemble it in their plant, just to verify that it would all fit. Then they would cut it all up into manageable pieces and send it to the jobsite, where we would have assembled the walls that they would attach the pieces to. Simple! Except it had to fit…exactly! The store fixture companies expected us to work to 1/32” of an inch accuracy and that was something that the majority of drywall contractors were unable to do…so we rarely had any competition for the work.

And since the drywall and metal framing industry was relatively new, there were very few rules as to how to build anything. Engineers didn’t have a lot of knowledge about load-carrying abilities and architects knew even less about it. Building inspectors? They knew nothing at all and so they always left us alone. But, we were encouraged to come up with good ideas to present to the engineers, and so we did.

Once again I was able to spend a lot of time reading plans and doing layout, something that Alex now trusted me to do…but at the same time, Alex never let off the pressure to do it faster!

More Beer!

Fallbrook Square was not the normal job. And neither was the pay. So we took advantage of it for as long as we could. Even hoping that Alex wouldn’t call us back until we had gathered up every dollar we could from this project.

Day after day, we would hang drywall for 3.5 cents a foot and day after day, Ralph would moan and groan about how we were robbing him. Yet, each afternoon, we would all gather in the general contractor’s office for beer…and Ralph would always buy.

5 days a week, Ralph would come by the job about 2 and bring us more nails. That’s when we would say, “Ralph. It’s getting close to 3…have you bought the beer yet?” “No…not yet.” “Well, you better hurry; we’re almost through here…”

Even though we were making good money, it was sometimes difficult to get the money from Ralph. He would always have an excuse; “Sorry…I forgot my checkbook, it’s back at the office.” We would eventually have to confront him at his home, in the evenings, most weeks…or we would have to threaten to quit. Since we were the only crew he had, it was a pretty effective threat as long as labor was hard to find.

It should be mentioned that since we were piece-working, we had no union protection and if Ralph decided not to pay us, there wasn’t much we could do…and we both knew that. And at the same time we were making big bucks, we weren’t receiving any of the other union benefits and so we had to keep an eye on the status of our health benefits.

Eventually, to regain those benefits, we had to get back to hourly work. And for a lot of journeyman, young and fast journeyman, this became a normal pattern for their employment. They would work hourly just long enough to get their health insurance paid about 6 months in advance and then they would quit and go piece-working for cash. Back and forth they would go…

More Money!

We hadn’t finished the Sears ceilings when Ralph came to us with an emergency. He needed the demising walls completed in the newly framed stores and he needed it done right away. It was time to re-negotiate our prices. We finally agreed on 3.5 cents per square foot and Ralph was extremely upset with that price.

Don’t think we were being cruel to Ralph…Ralph already had a bad reputation as one who would lower the prices quite quickly when the labor market ran in the other direction. And we had heard from a confidential source that Ralph had secured the job with more than enough in his contract price to pay us what we wanted. With Ralph, the hard bargaining was all sort of a drama that he actually seemed to enjoy.

The demising walls (walls separating stores) were about 100 feet long and 20 feet high. We could hang 3 rows high (up to 12’) without using a scaffold and that is where the money was made! We were hanging over 100 sheets a day at a price of $1.68 a sheet. This was at a time when journeyman wages were about $45 a day. We were making close to $90 without straining! On a good day; $100. And we had empty stores for as far as we could see, all in need of our services.