Springtime at the Comstock

As I said, the Comstock was the first of many hotel casinos to be built that spring and Solari had the fireproofing, lath and plaster, drywall and painting contracts for 99% of these projects. And this meant that I wasn’t going to be able to hide any more. Art now knew that I read plans and he knew that I had been a foreman and a superintendent before. Like it or not, I was going to be given a project to run.

But first I was going to be given a short lesson on panel building. Solari had secured the contract for the exterior panels on the new 24 story Circus Circus hotel and casino. These were similar to the panels that were being installed on the MGM hotel, except for the fact that these were made with a new synthetic and lightweight plaster/Styrofoam combination called Dryvit.

The foreman (Phil) for the Circus Circus project was already busy building these panels at the Solari panel factory; an old and very large aircraft hanger from Stead Air Force Base. It had been dismantled and moved into Reno, where it had been rebuilt as a cabinet shop and then, later, purchased at foreclosure by Mr. Solari. (Did I mention that Al Solari was the chairman of the board of the bank?)

My assignment was to work at the panel plant and then take Phil’s place when the time came for him to leave and install the many panels he had built for the project.

Then, once the Money Tree Casino structure came ‘out of the ground’ I was to begin the building of panels for that project; my project. Fun times ahead!

The Comstock

Winter (1977) settled in and I was still driving to Reno each day and working on various small jobs; usually with Carl as my partner. I would often see him early in the morning as he and Leroy would be getting on the freeway at Hallelujah Junction, on their way into town from Loyalton.

Every once in awhile we would be sent over to the MGM to spend a few days hanging drywall in the tower. And it was in the tower that I first saw the prefabricated exterior panels being used to clad the structure. These were made from structural steel studs (16 gauge and heavier) and covered with lath and plaster on their exterior side. Pierce Lath and Plaster was the contractor and I knew of them from my days in Los Angeles. They had also been a major player in the drywall industry.

Pierce was using portable hoists to haul the panels up the side of the building and then prying and clamping the panels into place and welding them to the edge via structural angles. The hoists, which were very heavy, would be rolled into position on the floor above the location for the panel and then counterweights were added to keep the hoist on the floor. A stabilizer bar was also used to pin the hoist in place while lifting the heavy panels. It was fascinating to watch the ‘dinosaurs’ at work. That was the slang name for the hoists and they did resemble some ancient beasts.

And on another note… one day, as was standing by the man hoist on the ground, I was spotted by Rick Thompson. He had just started to work that day. We talked for awhile and he explained that business had been slow in Bishop and he had heard about the work at the MGM. He was also looking for someplace new to live. Bishop was getting too big! I told him all about where we lived (Janesville) and told him I would bring him a copy of the local newspaper so he could look at the real estate ads.

Rick, if you remember, was from Los Angeles originally and I knew him from there. He had also been my ex-partner’s partner in the contracting business. The same one I had just left. Small world.

When spring came, most of the casinos in town, plus some new ones, had big plans for expansion. The opening of the MGM would occur soon and they all wanted a part of the tourist dollars that would flood the town with the opening of this huge casino.

Of course Solari wanted this expansion work and they set out to estimate and secure all of the work they could. The first one; the Comstock hotel and Casino.

This is the job that changed my career path. The job was being run by Donny; one of Art’s favorite foreman. That didn’t mean he was actually good at what he did, he was simply a favorite. I was sent out to the Comstock to begin dropping hanger wires in the steel deck. You would have to read the blueprints and determine where the ceilings were on the floor below the deck. Then you would mark the deck for a pattern of holes to be punched and wires dropped through them. The wires had a pigtail on them and that would be captured in the concrete when they poured the deck. So you were always working one floor above where the ceilings would be and that required some skill in reading plans. Standing on a shiny steel deck with no ‘landmarks’ around you… no walls, was a good exercise for your brain.

Donny’s crew (and I) had gathered on the deck, ready to begin and Donny asked, “Does anyone know how to read plans?” No one raised their hands. Finally, I did. Donny wasted no time at all, shoving the drawings into my arms and telling everyone to follow me. Oops! I was in charge. Something I did… and didn’t want to do.

I learned later that Donny didn’t know how to read plans at all.

Experience

After a few months of working on nothing but small jobs, there came a day when Art could find nothing for Carl and I to do, so he sent us over to the MGM for a week or two, telling us that he would call for us as soon as there was some of our kind of work.

We parked in the huge parking lot and made our way into the casino, looking for a foreman named ‘Trini’. Trinidad Guerra. A very large and loud foreman. Of course we found him easily; we simply listened for him. After the usual introductions, he put us to work in the big showroom on the first floor. It was all pretty simple stuff and Carl and I were soon doing as much or more than the rest of the crew.

At break time I got a chance to meet a lot of the Solari regulars; those who had always worked for them. And I got a chance to learn more about the company.

C. Solari and Sons, Inc. (Established 1918) was named for Camille Solari, an Italian immigrant who had founded the company as a painting contractor. He had also bought a lot of property in Northern Nevada and his sons had continued that tradition; painting and acquiring.

I remembered that when we had come to Reno in 1967 to build the Broadway store, we had some difficulty finding an apartment to rent and one of our crew suggested that we contact Mr. Solari (Al) as he had plenty of rentals available. He owned over 5,000 apartments and houses to be exact. He found one for us immediately. That had been over ten years ago and now I was working for the same Mr. Solari.

Al Solari was also the Chairman of the Board of First National Bank in Reno. When it came to ‘movers and shakers’ in Nevada, he was one of the biggest.

Back to work…

After a few weeks in the showroom we were moved to the tower for awhile. I certainly knew my way around; after all, I had framed most of it while working for Oahu Interiors. So it was noted by the foreman and reported to Art, that I had some talent. Then I was called to Art’s office one day and he closed the door. He wanted to know what kind of experience I had. I told him. And when I mentioned the fact that I had been a superintendent for Pacific States Plastering, he interrupted me to say, “Don’t think you’re going to get my job!” and he was quite serious about it, glaring at me.

Of course I told him that I wasn’t interested in his job and much preferred working with Carl on any small jobs he might have for us.

And that was what I did for the next few months. Art kept me away from any jobs where I might be called upon for a leadership role. Life was good!Just add the old MGM logo to the ends of the towers in this photo and you have a picture of the hotel in the late 70's... I'm not sure who owns it now.

A Day in Reno

Every once in awhile I will forget which blog I’m posting to and then I have to try and unscramble the results. I see that I have posted the one below this to the wrong blog. Should have gone on Projections. But I’m leaving it…

Anyway, back to my story…

I had just met Art, my new boss and he was going to send me out on a job. And he told me that he would be sending me to small projects at first; nothing major until he knew more about me. I was on trial again.

Art introduced me to Carl Scatena, who was going to be my partner (and judge) for the day. Carl was from Loyalton, California, a small town north of Reno. We already had something in common. We were both from small California towns and earning our livings in Nevada.

I grabbed my tools and followed Carl to some small job; maybe it was an office remodel? Or a patch in a ceiling in some factory? I don’t even remember all of the places we worked for the first few months of my career with C. Solari and Sons. Every morning would find me driving in from Janesville and meeting with Carl and Art, at the office, to see where we would go that day. No job lasted more than a day or two. It was always interesting and I didn’t miss the excitement (and the boredom) of working on a high rise hotel, like the MGM Grand.

Solari’s office was only a few blocks from the MGM and Solari had already started working a crew on the tower portion as well as the casino levels. The foremen for that project would be in Art’s office each morning, making their plans, while Carl and I waited outside for our daily instructions.

(As it turned out, working with Carl produced some of the best working days in my career. Great times!)

A little something about Solari; when I was still working in Los Angeles and working for Modern Drywall Systems, we had secured two out of town Broadway store projects. One was in Sacramento and the other, a twin, was in Reno. And the drywall contractor for the base store project was C. Solari and Sons. We did what were called the fixturing walls and worked directly for Broadway or the store fixture companies. So, I already had a small, indirect, relationship with them and knew something about the history of the company. More about that later.

Basic Instructions

How to Express Condolences

This guy is good! LOL...ROFL and all the rest of the acronyms!

More Changes

The framing crew and I came together pretty well and we were able to exceed our production quotas easily. The younger Hawai’ian members of the crew would disappear around 10 AM as usual, but we never noticed anymore. The studs just flew into place and time passed quickly.

Then we started hearing rumors. True; men on construction sites love to gossip! And the gossip was all about the mistakes being made by the other framing crews and then whole wings of completed drywall being removed because backing strips were absent or in the wrong place. Big layoff’s! We were still the ‘good guy’s’. None of our work had been faulted, but once a contractor gets into the ‘firing’ mode, it is hard to tell the good guy’s from the bad guy’s. And every one is suspect.

It was about this time that Mr. Ernie Jackson decided to bring in some heavyweight supervisors. He recruited them from the Fresno area; people he knew and was comfortable with. And their method of supervision had me ready to find another job. First, they assembled the crew, all 300 plus men. Then they told us that there was going to be all new foremen. But only after an evaluation period. All who were foremen at the current time were no longer in charge…or being paid as foremen. We would be foremen in name only. The exit was being prepared for me, but I decided to stick around for awhile and see what developed.

I seem to remember that we were already framing on the 21^st floor with 3 more to go. So, framing wasn’t a problem area and I was assigned to a drywall crew. Some good things had been said about me and this was going to be my foremen’s ‘test’. I decided to press the issue and said, “No, thanks.” And told them I wanted foreman’s pay now and not at some later date if they wanted me to run a crew. That worked, I got the pay and I was told not to tell anyone else.

I returned to the 11^th floor and began re-installing drywall. We quickly moved up the tower and were soon installing on the 14^th floor.

Success? It was not be. All of the foremen were asked to attend a meeting at Ernie’s house in Sparks. (He had bought a house for his new superintendents) At the meeting, he informed us that it was all over. He was turning the project over to the bonding company and sailing back to Hawai’i. Whoa! That was startling news. He was going to lose the cost of his bond ($250,000) and lose the ability to be bonded ever again.

Well, I didn’t have to agonize over a decision. Should I quit? Ha! The next morning found me at the Carpenter’s Union hall and talking to my new friend, the business agent. He informed me that C. Solari and Son’s, the local drywall contractor, would probably take over the job and finish it for the bonding company, so he was going to see if he could get me hired by them. Sure enough, a phone call later and I had orders to report to Art Engebrittsen the following morning.

Back to Work

Meanwhile, back at the MGM.

As I was saying earlier, I was supposed to be the foreman of the layout crew, but as it worked out, Frenchie didn’t want to go home to Hawai’i. Some problem with a warrant? They continued to pay me foremen’s wages and Frenchie was the boss. OK with me.

And as I also said, I was the only non-Hawai’ian on the crew. Haole. The crew spoke what I learned was called ‘pidgin’. An interesting blend of English, Polynesian and maybe some Tagalog from the Philippines. For me, it was sink or swim, I had to learn what they were saying and it proved to be quite easy. Too easy, in fact I was soon speaking it all of the time. This drew some complaints from those at home.

I also learned something about the Hawai’ian work ethic; which was minimal. Half of our crew would disappear around the time for our first break of the day and we wouldn’t see them again till the next morning. As the foreman in pay only, I wasn’t too concerned. It was Frenchie’s problem and he never seemed to notice their absence.

A little something about Frenchie; he was originally from Philadelphia and he was a French Canadian ‘gangsta’ to boot. It sounds odd now, but he was pretty much typical of drywallers in that day. If you hadn’t been in the ‘joint’ you were considered odd. So I was odd.

Even with just half a crew present and accounted for, we used lots of shortcuts and were soon cutting our allotted layout labor budget in half. Frenchie’s response to this was to slow down. He really didn’t want to get back to Hawai’i too soon.

I was soon frustrated and began to talk to the powers above and asked to be given something with more responsibility. This was soon given to me. I had a framing crew now and a goal of framing all of the walls on a floor within a week. I also had a crew of Hawaiians. OK, the work began…

I Recall

A thought or two that I had yesterday while I was mowing the orchard. I was thinking about the fact that my career suited my personality. I have always enjoyed working alone and that was something I could do in the construction business. Early on, when I was an apprentice and working ‘piece work’ on houses and apartments, I always worked alone because that was how you made the most money. And you quickly learned that having someone nearby who might strike up a conversation would cost you money in the long run. And when you did have to work with someone, the best partner was one that knew what to do without being told.

I can remember many days of working on high rise buildings, installing the panels that made up the skin of those building, and never saying more than a dozen words. You controlled the crane with hand signals and the crew knew what they were doing without being told; if they didn’t… you didn’t want them around. It was far too dangerous.

Working as a foreman or superintendent meant that you didn’t spend a lot of time in conversation. You have very few friends when you’re the boss. And I remember making lots of people upset because I wouldn’t let them work with a partner. I knew that production would increase when people worked alone and I was always right. Part of my job was to make sure that conversations didn’t occur during the workday.

What a grouch!

Driving

Now that I had a job, I had to get used to a long commute. 75 miles, one way. I started the job in the spring of 1977 and so the trip was quite pleasant; certainly better than half that distance on a Los Angeles freeway. Great scenery and no crowds.

I would have to get up early; maybe 4 AM. Then it was a 90 minute drive to the jobsite. I liked to arrive about 6:30 or before, in time for a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito before heading over to the manlift and taking a short ride to the 4^th floor and the gang box where we assembled each morning before heading up into the tower for that day’s project.

When I started the job, the steel frame of the hotel tower was complete up to about the 16^th floor, with 11 more floors to go. Concrete had been poured to about the 12^th floor. We (Oahu Interiors) had begun framing and had completed the framing from the 3^rd floor to the 7^th. And my job, laying out the walls, had progressed to the 10^th floor.

Drywall installation hadn’t started yet as we were waiting for the exterior panels to be installed and that was still a few weeks off. And that also meant that we had a great and unobstructed view of the Truckee Meadows from our vantage point on the 10^th floor.

One of the things we could see from that floor was a huge open pit gravel mine. It had to have been over 300’ deep and was located about a quarter mile from the new hotel tower. And because this pit was so deep, it had to be dewatered 24 hours a day by huge pumps that returned the water to the Truckee River, from where it had escaped.

(At the completion of the hotel project, the pumps were shut off and the pit became a lake, still to be seen in the parking lot.)

And away we go...

I'm going to leave out the high drama of our moving saga and move directly into the world of working...

After moving to Janesville, I did nothing for 2 or 3 months, living off of the profits of our home sale in Southern California. I really felt burned out, and the time off was therapeutic. Finally, it was time to go back to work. But where? The closest large city was Reno NV. There wasn’t much work in Lassen County, or certainly not my kind of work. So I drove to Reno and looked around. What I didn’t know, before I left that morning, was that the MGM Grand Hotel was being built. Of course I saw it as soon as I came over the hill on US 395, up by Sun Valley. It was just a steel structure, maybe 16 stories high at the time, but it already dominated the valley floor.

I went to the Carpenters Union and talked to the Business agent. I had been given his name and a letter of recommendation from the Union that I had left in Los Angeles. I was quickly hired and went to work on the project. Surprisingly, within a few hours I saw a familiar face, Bill Fritchell, formerly a foreman for Solari & Sons Drywall. I had met him 5 or 6 years ago when I was involved with building the Weinstocks stores in Reno and Sacramento. He was now the Superintendent for Oahu Interiors, the company that had just hired me. Right away, he wanted me to become a foreman for him. I told him that I really wasn’t ready for that. I kind of liked my vacation from stress. He insisted, and I finally agreed to run the layout crew. It turned out that the layout was being done by one of the Hawaiians, “Frenchie” and he was supposed to be leaving soon. Someone was needed to replace him. Me.

A little something about Oahu Interiors. Sometime in the 60’s, a drywaller, Ernie Jackson, from the central valley of California, had decided to move to Hawai’i and become a rich contractor. Which he did. And after awhile he decided to branch out and do some work back on the mainland. He had bid on the MGM tower project and was easily the lowest bid. The company I was going to work for eventually, Solari & Sons, had bid on the hotel tower project and couldn’t even come close to the Oahu bid. (Solari was already doing the lower levels, convention center and casino levels. So they had plenty to do without the hotel tower)

Since Ernie Jackson wasn’t sure about the qualifications of the local labor force and he had found that Solari already had most of the good talent employed, he decided to bring a lot of his labor from the islands. That included Frenchie and a dozen others. In fact, the entire layout crew of 6 men was all Hawaiians and I was the only haole.

Continuing the trip…

Sure enough, 30 minutes later I drove into Susanville on a beautiful fall afternoon. The temperature was in the low 70’s and I learned later that the next morning would bring a ‘below freezing’ mark. There were fall colors everywhere, making the little town quite spectacular; at least for this city boy!

I found a motel to stay in, in the downtown area. As I remember it, there were no more than 4 or 5 motels in town, and this one was clean enough. Then I drove around the city, which didn’t take long. After dinner I decided to walk and see the town close up. It was certainly quiet; there was no comparing it to Orange County. And the smell of incense cedar was strong in the air. The local mill was burning wood and an inversion layer had trapped the delightful smell. OK! I was hooked…

The next day I walked around town again, stopping once for breakfast and then looking in the windows of the various real estate offices I passed. According to the ads I saw, the prices of land and houses were fantastically low. Ranch acreage ran from $100 to $500 an acre and houses were down in the $25,000 range.

I finally found a real estate office that was open and went in. Mike Egan Realty and Zella Mae Miles introduced herself as a sales agent. Pretty soon we were joined by another agent, Marla Miller, and after agreeing on some guidelines, off we went to look at houses.

Long story, short… I found the house we would move to in the little village of Janesville. About 13 miles east of Susanville and tucked into the side of the mountains. We were going to live on 8 acres of second growth pines, so we had no view of the Honey Lake Valley below us. Thompson Peak was behind us, to the south. Nothing to look at but the trees. That would do. I made an offer on the property; it was accepted and then it was time to call Laurae and tell her what I had just done.

What does this story have to do with Working? Hang on, more to come...

Where was I?

Oh, yes...Back to my job as a partner with Roger Evans in Tri-Valley Contractors. During the time we worked together, we divided up the jobs between us and then coordinated our labor to get them done. Most were small jobs, room additions and small commercials. We definitely weren't getting rich quick. We paid our suppliers on time and paid our labor well. All things that other contractors neglected to do whenever they had a chance.

Finally, in 1976, I had enough. It was time for a change. A Big Change. I decided to see what kind of life was available for us as a family, beyond the Los Angeles 'sphere of influence'. So I drove north one day; driving on US 395, a very familiar road for me. I stopped at Bishop and looked around. I liked Bishop, but it was going to be a hard sell to the family. It is somewhat bleak looking. In the back of my mind, I knew that Rick Thompson, my partner's former partner, had settled in Bishop. Hmm? Wonder where he lived? I spent the night there and in the morning, I moved on, passing through Bridgeport (Where I really wanted to live!) and then into Nevada; going through Minden/Gardnerville, Carson City. Finally I passed through Reno, still heading north. And this was now a part of the highway I had never seen before, so I paid attention to all of the new sights.

About an hour after leaving Reno, I drove into Long Valley in the Doyle area and I could see a valley and a lake ahead of me with mountains on my left. Interesting. The signs said that Susanville was about 30 minutes away. That would be my stop for the night.

What a memory!

Oops! I did it again. I got my memories out of order. The last post should go sometime after this one...

Just before I left Pacific States Plastering to partner with Roger, I was asked by my boss, Slim Martindale, to go and check out a possible job down at Marina Del Rey. There was a high rise condominium project coming out to bid and it was an odd one. The development company had gone bankrupt before the project could be completed and so each of the 18 floors was in different stages of completion. I had to walk each floor and estimate what it would take to complete them.

It was an eerie sight. Not a soul was in the building and there was no one to operate the man lift elevator on the outside. I had an idea as to how it worked so I got in, closed the doors, examined the controls, pushed the lever and made my way to the top floor. On the 18^th floor, no framing work had been done, though all of the material was present. Stacks of drywall and bundles of studs for the walls. Also present were the tools and debris from the day that the project was shut down. A year or more had passed since the gates had been closed and the workers sent home. The floors without windows had become home to thousands of pigeons and the occasional sea gull. Creepy!

I made my way down, floor after floor, counting what would be necessary to complete the project. By the time I reached the 2^nd and 3^rd floors, I was looking at almost complete units, painted and with carpet and tile installed. Now all I had to do was to come up with a good estimate. I bid it really high as I was afraid that I might have missed something and I wasn’t sure how much of the existing material could be used. After all, it had been sitting in the damp air of the marina for over a year.

With my estimate in hand, my boss called the bankruptcy receivers with our bid. When he was connected, he was asked if he could hold for a minute or two? Sure. And then, an odd thing…he could hear the conversation on the other line; very faintly, but clear. And it was our competition, bidding the job. He heard their price. When he was reconnected, Slim asked if he could call them back in just a minute. Sure. We did a quick re-evaluation of our estimate and then called in with a number just about $5,000 lower than our competition. Surprise! We got the job. And at a price about $100,000 higher than we had estimated. Our competitor had been the original drywall contractor on that same job and was hoping to recoup all of their losses and that explained their very high bid.

Once we began the job we were contacted by almost every subcontractor that had been stiffed by the original developer. All wanted a chance to recover some of their losses. And one of those subcontractors was Regent Mfg. They were the acoustical and texture spray contractors and had done the first 7 floors of the project and wanted to complete the job.

I went over to their office which was nearby and met the owner, an interesting guy! And also present was Larry Adamy. He was renting some office space for his company, Marina Drywall, in Regent’s warehouse. Now I already knew Larry from a time when he worked as a taper for the same company I had begun with. So we had some common ties, including the fact that we both knew Rick Thompson…he had worked along with Larry. (We'll come back to these names later)

OK, back to Regent; as a manufacturer of spray rigs, he had no equal and his machines were the fastest around. At this time, spraying was a very lucrative business to be in and Regent had hired some fast nozzle men to cash in on the boom. A nozzle man, one hose puller and a man on the ground, mixing, could spray 84,000 square feet in just under 4 hours. Not bad

More later…

Career Move

During the middle of the 70’s, I decided to take a risk and go into business with a friend, Roger Evans. I had been doing some work for him, estimating some new jobs and finishing small jobs that he had picked up for himself. My own work had been slow and I was ready for a change when he asked me to partner with him. And, he had a general contractor’s license which allowed us to do almost any kind of work.

He already had one good client, Blue Ribbon Builders, a home remodeling contractor and so we jumped right into that market. I became the estimator and the taper, while Roger was the hanger and the collections department. We bought a spray rig so we could do texture and acoustic ceiling work. We leased Ames tools and finally had enough work to hire someone to help us. More work came along and now we bought a second spray rig; a larger one. We were doing 4 or 5 remodels a week and working long hours. But at the end of the month, we were barely making normal wages, and often times not.

Then I got a call from a taper that I had known a long time ago. He was now an “entrepreneur”, working from a small office in Marina Del Rey. He wanted to know if we were interested in doing some work for him. He had an eager client, Mann Theatres, but he didn’t have a license at the time and he said he would make it worth our while to help him out. We would give him a 10% finder’s fee for the work he passed onto us. All I had to do was to bump the estimate by 10% and if that was agreeable to Mann Theatres, we had a good deal! So off we went…we were in ‘show business’!

Mann Theatres was expanding from their traditional Midwest home and buying up old theatres (Fox Theatres) and converting them to multiplex theaters. Our job was to build the walls that divided one large theatre into 3, 4 or even 6 small ones. And we had to do it in a hurry. Most times the walls were at least 40’ high and required 3 layers of board on each side. The walls would extend through the old and existing ceiling so we had to spend a lot of time, high above the floor, crawling carefully above an old and dirty ceiling while we were hanging the board. Scary!

Lessons

The Baptist project was a great learning experience for me as it refined my supervisory skills. I watched the general contractor in action and learned a lot from him. He rarely lost his temper and never yelled at his crew. Yet he was very much respected. I thought it was because he respected them as well and so I emulated him as best I could. It was a good lesson and later I was told by some of my crew that they felt the worst when they knew that they had failed to meet my expectations. I hadn’t yelled at all, never said a word, but they knew. And they tried to make certain it didn’t happen again.

And I also learned that you could get more done with less people if you could break up your crew into single units and doing solitary tasks. This was something I had actually learned for myself when I was a piece-worker. There was no reason for two people to install a 4x12 sheet of drywall unless it was over 8’ high. And at the same time this created some competition as everyone became quite aware of how fast the others were working.

After the Baptist tower was complete, I moved on to many more projects throughout the Los Angeles area. And working for many more contractors. I had gained a good reputation and was often called to run a project. For awhile I could pick and choose where I wanted to work and for how much. And my “crew” always came along with me.

If I were to go back to Los Angeles now, I could drive for hours as I showed you all of the places I worked during the 14 plus years there. Also, I used to place my name and date on the inside of walls or elevator shafts wherever I worked. A little something for posterity?

It might have been early 1973 when I took a Superintendent’s job with Pacific States Plastering. Now I was stuck in an office for an hour or so each day and learning another side of the construction business. I had been an estimator (trainee) before and that helped in this new position, but as always, I enjoyed the field work more than office work. And now I had 4 or 5 jobs that I could visit each day and enjoy myself.

Now, back to the 70's

And back to the Baptist Home for the Aged.

And right across the street from the construction site was a Baptist church; where we held the weekly progress meetings. The superintendent explained that we were meeting in the church because, “Maybe you $#?#@?}&’s won’t lie to me here when I ask you when you will finished.” Actually, I don’t think anyone was brave enough to lie to him. This project was fast tracked and we were all making money because of it. Even the meetings lasted no more than 15 minutes and then we were told to get out and get back to work!

Another memory; one morning it was noted that the concrete trucks had to make two turns instead of one when backing in to the site. A car was parked (legally) in a space that made a second turn necessary for the big trucks. I was with the superintendent at the time he noticed it, up on the 10^th floor. He used his radio to call the crane operator and a man on the ground. In a few minutes, the crane swung over and the trolley went out to a spot directly over the offending car. The hook was lowered and attached to a sling around the rear of the car. Signals were given and the car slowly moved away from its parked location and out into the street. Hook and sling were removed and the trucks began moving into the yard much faster. Yes, the owner of the car got a ticket for being improperly parked.

Back to the Future

I missed it! I had been watching the downtown University area location where Turner Construction was building something. I had watched the pile driving and the pouring of the footings. I had seen the electricians and plumbers doing their underground work. What kind of building was going up here? I didn’t know and didn’t really care; I was simply interested in the work itself.

A retired construction worker. A sidewalk superintendent. That’s what I am. And I had missed the arrival and the erection of the steel frame. Darn! Back in the day; the steel arriving meant that the job was really on its way. There would soon be form and substance to the project. And so there is and I missed it.

There are still some miscellaneous pieces to be placed, but the substantial frame work is complete. The building has been ‘rattled’ and the decking spread and pinned. Edge angle and support clips will be welded into place pretty soon. Nelson studs will be welded through the deck and into the beams. Once the deck has an edge and all of the mesh and utilities are in place; concrete will be poured.

This is the stage of construction where I was usually called to get a crew on the site and get busy. There would be support clips to weld on the outside edge of the frame. And once the concrete was poured on the floor of the second story, our fireproofers could begin to spray Monokote on the beams and columns that supported that floor. We would follow the concrete on up the building, always just one floor behind.

Obviously I need to pay more attention...

Back to the Baptist Home for the Aged…

Since I wanted this to be a very profitable job, I tried my best to change the way we normally worked. I knew that you could always get more done when working by yourself and so I assigned my crew to tasks that could always be done by just one person. As the foreman and the one doing all of the layout work, I had a special obstacle to overcome. Who would hold the ‘dumb’ end of the tape measure and who would help me snap a chalk line to mark the location of walls? Ordinarily this was the assignment given to an apprentice. I had no apprentice and since I was also the foreman, I was often going to meetings with the superintendent or fixing problems somewhere on the project. If I had someone working with me, they would be idle while I was away. So I had an idea and I asked the plumbing contractor to pour me a large block of lead. With a groove cut in the bottom of it, the block of lead became my ‘apprentice’, holding the end of a chalk line or a tape measure. For all of the overhead work, I would stand on a bucket and sight down a plumb bob line to mark the location of the walls on the concrete ceilings. Then I used a modified spring tension pole lamp to hold the chalk line again while I snapped lines on the ceiling.

My framing crew, all from Argentina and Uruguay, had a great work ethic and would work by themselves without complaining. And with the walls only 8’ high, the drywall crew had no problem working alone either. It wasn’t long before we were on schedule and putting out a floor a week without fail. One week to layout the floor (me). One week to frame the floor (4 framers). One week to hang the drywall (4 rockers). And one week to tape the floor, (3 tapers).

And after I had finished the layout on a floor, usually within 3 days, I would work on the elevator shafts. There were three small shafts and by laying planks across the openings I could do the framing and the hang the drywall by myself. I would have to leave a small opening in the wall where the plank passed through and when I was finished, a flap I had made would fall down over the opening as soon as the plank was pulled out. Later in the job schedule there would be time for me to go back into the shaft, on top of the elevator and ride up and down, patching any holes that were left.

And one day, as I was working while standing on a plank, laid across the opening on the 7th floor, I felt the plank move! I turned and saw a guy walking out to meet me, his hand outstretched to shake mine…giving me his name and asking if I needed anyone? He was looking for work; had his tools draped over his shoulder. It only took me a few seconds to realize that I had a real find here. Here was a guy willing to walk out onto a narrow plank over a hole that was about 80’ deep and ask for work. I hired him right then and told him to take over what I was doing.

I used to tell apprentices this story whenever they complained about how hard it was to find a job. And the first thing I asked them; do you always carry your tools with you when you ask for a job? For that was actually more impressive than just walking out into the shaft. That guy wanted work and was ready to be hired. His tools weren’t out in his car or truck or at home in the garage. He was ready, now.

Memory. The tower crane rose up through the building, occupying a square hole left out of the concrete on each floor that it passed through. And as the crane moved throughout the day, turning, lifting and lowering loads, the metal tubing structure of the crane gave off creaks and groans of stress. I would sometimes stand next to the crane and touch the tubing to feel the vibrating tension contained within it. It would sway back and forth slowly and I tried to imagine how it might feel to be high on top of the crane and operating it. Awesome!

What's Normal?

With New Jersey safely behind me, it was time for some “normal” work. Unfortunately the job market was slow and Modern Drywall had very little work for us and we had to make do with just a few days of work each week. Finally it was time to find a ‘regular’ job and I quickly found one with LA Drywall, a rival company to be sure, but working was always better than not and I was promised my old job back when things got better.

Of course I was no longer a foreman and so there was a pay cut. But that didn’t last long and I was soon a foreman with LA Drywall, making more money and running small projects all around the Los Angeles area. This turned out to be quite profitable in a different sense as I was being introduced to new people in the industry and these contacts would lead to even better jobs in the future.

Recap: I worked for Modern Drywall for about 7 years, or until they went out of business. During that time I worked for other companies during the slow times but always returned to Modern Drywall, my first and favorite employer.

And one of the jobs I ran for LA Drywall was the new Baptist Home for the Aged, a 17 story, poured in place concrete structure, near Vermont Avenue, in the heart of Los Angeles.

This was my first experience with a “flying form” project. A tower crane was erected next to the building and permanent concrete form structures were built on top of the first floor. These forms would be jacked up to the proper height for the following floor and then after the concrete was poured and set, the forms would be lowered and then rolled out to the sides of the building, hanging out of the building where the crane could pick them up. Then ‘flown’ out of the building by the crane, swinging out over the street and then up to the next floor to be reused to form the floor above that.

Jones Brothers was the General Contractor on the job and their superintendent was quite intimidating. Short and bald with a full beard and a commanding presence. I remember him telling me that he wanted a floor completed each week. I agreed and then the first week went by and I didn’t have the framing completed on time. He told me that everyone was allowed one mistake and I had just had mine. There would be no others. His schedule was not to be ignored. I saw proof of that when the electrical contractor’s foreman had to wear boots one day and wade through the wet concrete, trying to get some of his missing electrical connections made.

And since this was a concrete job, the scheduled pour was never delayed for any reason. Twice, this superintendent was placed in a LAPD squad car for disturbing the peace when starting to pour concrete before the 7 AM legal start time in a residential neighborhood. Even with him in the backseat of the police car, the concrete continued to be poured, his workmen coming up to the car and getting their instructions through the window. Good laughs for all of us as the police weren't sure how this should be handled? After all, there were concrete trucks filled and waiting in a long line to be emptied. The crane never stopped moving and basically, everyone ignored all attempts to stop the work. Should we all be arrested?

It's Over

With a couple of men from California hanging the drywall it wasn’t long before the project was back in the black. And then it was time for the tapers (Painters) union to go through the same exercises. The union insisted that we do all of the taping by hand; no machines allowed. Negotiations ensued. A deal was struck and a minimum number of the Ames tools were allowed on the project. We were definitely luckier than the painting contractor on this project. He had to paint a two story department store with 4” brushes; no rollers allowed!

With the coming of spring I was finished with the project and desperate to come home. And to celebrate, I decided to take that final flight home on the new 747 aircraft. The plane was too large to land at Newark Airport at the time so I had to schedule a flight from JFK in New York. And that meant a commuter helicopter ride from Newark to JFK and crossing directly over Manhattan. Now that was fun! We flew in among the skyscrapers and I remember looking down and seeing fire engines and police cars racing through the streets. With the noise from the helicopter engines drowning out any other noise, I could only imagine the sirens…

I remember that you couldn’t really get a grasp of the size of the 747 from inside the terminal; it was only after you walked down the jetway and entered the aircraft that the immensity impacted you. Wow! The plane wasn’t even half full and I had a window seat and a row all to myself. On takeoff, I remember that the blue runway lights kept coming and coming and coming…would we ever get into the air?

Of course the plane lifted off as planned and then it became apparent that the size of the plane was giving us a smoother ride than I had ever experienced before. So smooth that the drinks served in the bar never even showed a ripple. Yes, there was a bar, upstairs. A semi-circular stairway took you up to the lounge. I remember that they had an old-fashioned popcorn machine up there as well. What a way to fly!

5 hours later and I was home. Ready to begin a new project somewhere. But would there be any work in LA? Times were tough once again and we hadn’t been able to secure much in the way of future work.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

After a few more weeks of trying to increase production with my inexperienced crew, it became obvious that I would have to 'import' some labor from California if I wanted to make a profit on this job.

I approached the Carpenter's Business agent with that idea and was quickly turned down. "my men can do anything that you need done!" he replied.

After that encounter I was talking with the local material dealer and he informed me that I would have to bribe the business agent if I needed any favors; telling me exactly how it should be done. I would have to invite Eddie to lunch and I would have to arrive first, bringing a plain envelope with about $500 in it. This I would place on his side of the table. After he arrived, we would speak of nothing important, just chatting and then I would excuse myself...saying I had to return to the jobsite. The envelope would remain.

Well, that worked and when I approached Eddie once again, I was told that could bring 2 men from California...but they could not work directly with his men (no contamination!) and they had to work in the areas of the job where they wouldn't be seen; stock rooms and areas like that.

It was worth it and I sent for two drywall hangers. And when they arrived...what a difference! Drywall was going up on the walls as it should. Fast. Despite the ban on Eddie's men seeing this kind of work, they did see it and were suitably impressed, and they tried to emulate the boys from California. Just what Eddie was afraid of!

All in all, it was worth every penny of the $500.

More about Edison

I said it could get worse...After a few weeks of framing lessons and some 'real' framing, I was ready to start installing some drywall. So I had to order some. I called the local material dealer where I already had an account and asked him to deliver a truckload of drywall.

The next day was cold and snowy but the truck showed up on time...and so did a Laborer's Business Agent. He informed me that I would have to sign an agreement to hire laborers to unload the truck, and the truck, which had a boom lift, was too close to the building, It seemed that the driver was a Teamster and they weren't allowed to be within x number of feet of a construction site. Of course I became indignant and said that unloading drywall was carpenters work anyway...certainly not a laborers. (I was hoping to gain the support of the Carpenters Union) I was ignored and the truck drove away.

I thought it was strange that the Laborer's agent showed up on the same day I ordered the material. I'd never seen him before this. So I waited a few days and called for the material again. And the next day the truck arrived, followed by the Laborer's agent. Same story. I tried it a few more times and then got the connection. Duh! Material house+telephone=Laborer's Agent. And so I called my boss and asked him, what do you want me to do?

It was agreed that we would hire laborers and sure enough, once I did that, all troubles ceased as far as material orders went. The truck, which had a boom that could drop a load of material right in the building, parked a hundred feet away and the laborers would hand carry it, one sheet at a time to the building. All day long.

And I shouldn't forget the payroll problems...we were told that since we were an out of state contractor, we couldn't pay by check. We had to have pay envelopes and fill them with cash each week. A local bank provided that service. (How opportune!) And once a week I would drive into town and pick up the payroll and transport it back to the jobsite. It was scary. I would have about $20,000 in cash, so I would watch my rearview mirror carefully and always took a different route. Let me tell you; New Jersey was a real fun place!

Holiday

After making my presence known to the local Business Agent, I found a place to stay, the Holiday Inn in Edison. What a dump! But it was the best around and it had a restaurant attached, so I stayed.

Most mornings I would make my way over to the restaurant, hoping that the inside door would be open and I wouldn’t have to go outside to get to the restaurant. (Rarely was it open) Once there, a dependably surly waitress would take my order while I kicked the remains of someone’s dinner from the night before out from under my feet in the booth.

I remember one particularly cold morning. The heater in my room had stopped working for some reason and so I quickly dressed and headed down for a cup of hot coffee. As I entered the hallway that led to the restaurant I was suddenly enveloped in a thick fog. A steam pipe had broken and the hot moist air was filling the corridor (instead of my room heater) making it like a sauna.

But a sauna was definitely better than conditions on the jobsite. The general contractor wasn’t interested in supplying expensive propane heat for the project and was doing his best to ignore our pleas for some warmth. We showed him the job specs that stated that he was responsible for the heating of the entire project…not just his job trailer. He ignored us. We finally had to threaten him with a lawsuit to get some heat into the building.

Once I had some heat I was able to start hiring, and although I continued to ask for skilled steel framers, I was given wood butchers instead. I then had to start a very basic, “beginning framer” class for my employees before I could turn them loose to begin working.

A typical carpenter that worked for me here had spent most of his career working on concrete forms and rough framing, while I needed men who could frame with steel (and had the right tools) and work to an accuracy of plus or minus 1/16th of an inch. Most of these carpenters had never noticed that their tape measures had such small increments!

To be honest; most of the men I hired were nice guys and really wanted to learn. My problem was the fact that we hadn’t counted on this problem when we bid the job, so on the job training was eating away at any profits we might hope for.

One of the men, Tony, was nice enough to ask me to come over for dinner one Sunday evening and so I was able to enjoy that time with him and his family. And while I was there, I asked him why he was still paying ‘travelers” dues to the union, since it was obvious that he lived in the town and had been there for a long time. He had grown up there. He explained that Eddie had told him that if he behaved himself he would eventually get a chance to join the local union and stop paying the $10 a month. Tony’s father was a member and that was going to help as well. I told him that what Eddie was doing was illegal and asked why didn’t the members do something about it? He said that if he complained, Eddie would only give him cold and dirty work, if he gave him any work at all. Tony wasn’t interested in working in a box culvert all winter, forming up for concrete. The job he had with us that winter was his reward for being a “good guy”.

Now I knew… it was going to be a long, long winter in New Jersey. Could it get worse? Of course!

Buffum's

I guess it's time for me to continue... My last story was all about the project in Connecticut and I still have years and years of memories.

I believe it was about a year after the finish of the Connecticut job when I received an invitation from my boss to run a similar project in New Jersey. The project was going to be a new Buffum's department store in Edison, New Jersey.

Why not? I had never been to New Jersey before and I knew it was close enough to New York City for me to make a weekend trip there if I wanted to. So I agreed and we began to make plans and load up gang boxes with the equipment needed.

After all was packed and on it's way, I boarded a plane for a long trip to Newark. And when I arrived I found that New Jersey was covered in snow. Great! So the first thing I had to do was to find a hotel and then, second, go to New Brunswick and the Sears store to stock up on winter clothing.

The next day I was dressed for the weather and made an appearance at the local Carpenter's Union hall to register as a "traveler" and to request some men for the job. This was an eye opener for me.

The Business Agent (BA) was a diamond ring wearing tough guy named Eddie. He told me that it would cost me 10 bucks, cash...per month. OK. But then he took my money and slid it into the front pocket of his pants and didn't offer any receipt. I then asked about the availability of skilled metal framers; his eply was, "My men can do... anything." Now I knew what I was facing. And to prove it, he sent me my first man on the job, a millwright. A 65 year old millwright.

Being the first man hired gives this man a certain privilege; he becomes the "shop steward" and must be the last man fired. This was my second experience with corrupt union officials and it would turn out to be the worst. Power always corrupts, but in New Jersey it became an art form.

Part of that art... it turned out that Eddie loved to play pinochle; high dollar pinochle and he needed pocket money for that, so he kept almost 1,500 men on the books as "travelers" and a few hundred men were locals, despite the fact that most of the "travelers" had lived in the area for years. Most of my crew were looking forward to the day when Eddie would allow them to join the local. Let's see, 1,500 x $10 a month...pretty good money!

Memories

This morning I headed out early to get some work done at the Plant Barn. And early meant that it was cold... which brought back memories of many jobs that began in the cold of morning.

The first third of my career was spent in Southern California and if I ever complained about the cold back then; please forgive me! When we moved to Northern California I began a whole new life in construction, one that involved getting dressed in long johns at 4 in the morning, followed by heavy pants, shirts, sweatshirts, thermal boots, etc; all so that I would be prepared for the long cold day atop some high-rise hotel project in downtown Reno. A place where the wind always blew. And my nose always ran...

Funny how memories will pop up. As I've been driving into Chico in the mornings, I pass a construction site at the University. Turner Construction is the General Contractor and I know them well. (Good and bad memories) I watched them driving piles earlier in the year and now they are involved in the footings and all of the underground electrical and plumbing. As I watch the workers while passing the site, I like the fact that I know exactly what each one is doing and why... been there, done that. If I lived closer, I would spend part of my day parked nearby and with a coffee in my hand while I watched the building take shape.

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.