Dinosaurs

Once we had a trailer load of panels in our storage space next to the building, we would inspect them to see if they needed any repairs after their journey across Donner Pass. And we always had some damage. The most irritating damage was having the panels ‘smoked’. The owner of the building had decided on a white synthetic plaster finish and all it took to ruin the looks of them was diesel exhaust blowing across the panel surface for 100 miles or more. A poorly tuned diesel at that. The first truckload was delivered without being tarped and they had large black streaks on them, plus some additional damage from the binders that held them in place. I had to insist on tarps from then on, but that persistent smoke could still find its way onto the load; turning the outer panels a light gray in color.

After the repairs were complete, we had to find a way to move the huge panels from the trailer and over to a spot on the ground below where they were to be installed. We had a large forklift and some portable stop signs and we would try and halt traffic just long enough to move down L Street and place the panel, resting upright, against the building. Halting traffic without a permit was frowned upon by the authorities and getting a permit each time we needed 5 minutes of hauling time was more trouble than it was worth.

Up on the 6^th floor were our hoisting machines. Nicknamed ‘dinosaurs’, they had a short boom section coupled to a 220 volt 2 phase motor and some reduction gears that would allow it to hoist about 3,000 pounds. Each ‘dinosaur’ had wheels and counterweights to allow for heavy lifting. Plus, a section of pipe that we would raise to the deck above us, clamping the ‘dinosaur’ in place.

And since the ‘dinosaur’ couldn’t always be directly above the panel to be lifted, we used ‘snatch blocks’ to reroute the hoisting cable to a spot where it would work best. It was all improvisation and sometimes the cable was running at 45° to the ground and then back again, depending on what kind of obstructions we had to deal with. No one had ever done this before and so every time we successfully lifted a panel and welded it in place, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I almost forgot to mention the trees; the City of Sacramento was quite proud of it’s designation as a Tree City and the building permit stipulated that NO tree was to be removed or damaged during the construction of the building. Unfortunately, some existing trees were growing right over the building. This meant that sometimes we had to arrive on the jobsite at 6 in the morning while it was still dark. When the sun rose at 7, the offending branch was usually gone and the dumpster was full and covered.

Back in Sacramento…

Progress on the 777 L Street job was slow at first. The first 5 floors were made for parking and so the building was very ordinary at that point; rectangular. But once the building rose past the 6^th floor, there were all sorts of setbacks and jutting balconies to be framed. And by the time the building topped out with a heliport on the 17^th floor, it had a much smaller footprint at that level. To help the crew, and me, I decided to build a model of the building. I bought the heavy card stock and glue and an X-Acto knife. I spent my evenings at the ‘company apartment’ cutting and gluing until I had it completed. Now I could share my ‘vision’ with the crew. (Imagine how easily it can be done today with BIM)

It didn’t take long for the panel plant in Reno to build the panels that would enclose the lower parking levels. They were quite ordinary in appearance and wouldn’t take us long to install; except for one thing - I mentioned the building footprint; well, at ground level, the building took up all of the available working and storage space on three sides. The west side was a short and private alleyway and at most we could put one trailer load of panels in there. And only if the truck driver was good enough to snake a 40’ flat in there…backing it in from a very busy L Street.

A memory; I was standing on the 6^th floor and looking east up L Street. As far as I could see, (a long way!) cars were stopped in the west bound lanes. There was no traffic in the east bound lanes. Horns were blaring. And directly below me was our truck, jackknifed across all four lanes and up onto the sidewalk as the driver fought to slip the trailer through that narrow 12’ opening.

BIM -

Building Information Modeling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Progress.

When I started in the construction business, 'blue line' drawings were new and the standard was still an architectural drawing made with white lines on a dark blue background. And you had to have a certain skill to be able to make sense of those drawings. Spatial relationships. And not everyone was capable of it.

Luckily for me, I was able to make sense of them and interpreting these drawings became my career.

Then came CAD, computer aided drawings that could quickly be changed and reprinted. But they were still just lines on a piece of paper.

But BIM... a revolution! I only wish I was there to take part in it.

Where was I?

Let's see...I have finished the Steakhouse story and I've probably told you enough about Saint Mary's Hospital. I worked in Reno for 11 years and so there are plenty of 'monuments' of mine around that town. Maybe it's time for me to remember the out of town work...not necessarily in chronological order.

As I wrote earlier, C. Solari and Sons was heavily into the prefabricated panel business. And when there weren't enough casino hotels to build panels for, the estimators would look for business elsewhere. We had a huge panel plant and needed to keep it busy.

One day I was asked if I wanted to run some work out of town; Sacramento to be exact. The estimators had picked up a new project, a 17 story building in the heart of downtown Sacramento. 777 'L' Street, right across the street from the bus terminal and within sight of the Capitol.

It sounded like a good career move and there was talk of opening a branch office in Sacramento. I signed on for the job.

The first thing to do was to scout the area for a temporary office and a 'yard' to hold any equipment or panels. We found a plastering contractor that was going out of business, retiring, and they had the perfect setup for us on 'C' Street, right behind the levee. Then I found an apartment and I was ready to do business.

I went to the local Carpenter's Union and signed up with them, explaining that I would probably need a dozen men that could weld and work with structural steel.

Then it was time to look at the jobsite. I had driven by a few times and had even stopped once to introduce myself. Now it was time to examine the structure and see how well it was being built in order for us to weld panels onto the frame. It had to be square and plumb for it's full height and ironworkers, the ones bolting it all together,worked to different tolerances. We had to be accurate to within 1/4". Ironworkers worked to within 1". This could lead to some tension on the jobsite.

I had hired 3 men and so the first thing we did was to survey the work that had been done by the ironworkers; using a laser to see how plumb the steel was. Oops! it wasn't plumb at all, and since the steel had been bolted up all of the way to the 7th floor, it was going to be a fight to get the ironworkers to fix it.

After some tense negotiations, we all agreed on what was to be done and I agreed to furnish laser measurements for the ironworkers to follow from that point on.

More later...

Back in the Steak House

It was probably one of the most frustrating projects I had ever been involved with. Once you were up in the restaurant ceiling, it took so long to get back down, you would simply stay up there as long as possible. Right through lunch. It was also painful; metal lath has a very sharp cutting edge to it and could even slice through leather gloves if you weren’t careful. Bandaids were essential. We also had to create some of our own tools to get the job done. We welded long handles on to our wire tying nippers so that we could reach the work from some impossible locations. And dirty! Remember, this was above a restaurant ceiling where there had been a grease fire. Plus, the cold rolled steel channel we used for framing was coated with a sticky black paint that would spray paint fragments whenever it was cut or bent. At the end of the day, our faces were liberally sprinkled with the sticky black flecks. What fun!

And once we had finished the long horizontal run of ductwork, we actually stood up where the duct turned 180°, becoming vertical and went up the mechanical shaft to the first floor. It was a large shaft, about 15’ square and once we put a light in it, we saw that it was filled with all of those pipes that we had been fighting for the past week. But…there was room for us to build a scaffold of sorts. We were going to build a scaffold on top of a plaster ceiling that was suspended over a stairwell. Brilliant!

And so we did. Bringing long planks up through the maze of pipes and then nailing it all together. Below, on the stairs, we built props to hold the ceiling up while we worked above. At the same time, the plasterers were following us through the ceiling as they applied plaster to all of that lath we had put in place for them. This meant, when we crawled back down, we were crawling through wet plaster that they had spilled. Plasterers are not the neatest of craftsmen.

End of the story? Of course we finished the project; we always did. But it was a struggle that we all remembered for a long time.

Steak, anyone?

Taking a break from the Saint Mary’s project…for some reason, I was reminded of the small project we did at Harrah’s Steak House. The Steak House was one of Reno’s premier restaurants and located in the basement of the old Virginia Street casino. We got a call one morning telling us that a crew was needed, immediately, at the restaurant. It turned out that a grease fire had burned out the old ductwork above the ceiling. A sheet metal contractor had been working 24 hours a day to rebuild the grease duct that ran from the basement kitchens to the first floor and exiting high above the alleyway. It was going to be our job to enclose the new duct with metal framing and a thick layer of gypsum plaster over lath. And maintain a 2” air clearance around the ductwork at all times. None of our framing could touch it. To top it off, all of the work was to be done above the existing ceiling and it had to be done in a hurry. All casino work is done in a hurry.

So up we went. Two of us above the ceiling, lying on pipes and framing, while a third was cutting the material that we called for. And since we had to weld a lot of the framing in place, we had to keep a fire extinguisher with us which just added to the crowding we were experiencing. All of this was done while were wearing ‘leathers’ to try and keep the burns to a minimum. It would sometimes take us almost 30 minutes to crawl from our entry point to where we were working. Once in awhile, we would try a shortcut, only to find the way blocked by equipment or piping and then we would have to retrace our steps (crawling) to start all over again. After about a week, we had progressed about 30 feet and we could see our destination off in the gloom; a vertical shaft that rose about 20 feet into total darkness on the first floor.

Saint Mary's Redux

The pace was glacial, but we were building a hospital and it was to be expected. When you walk down the corridor of a hospital, you can’t see the enormous amount of work that is concealed by the ceilings and walls. Piping and ductwork so thick that it’s a wonder it could ever be built. But, slowly, it always is.

And at the same time we were building the hospital interior, we had other crews building the exterior walls at our panel factory up on the hill above the Washoe County fairgrounds. Once these wall sections were completed, they would be transported to the jobsite and lifted into place by our good friends at A&KW Crane Service. We would align these panels and then weld them to the steel framework of the building.

We decided to work a long weekend when it came time to set the panels and we were hoping to complete the two elevations that made up the sides of the patient room addition. The mechanical areas were more complicated and would be done at a later date.

We barricaded the street and set the crane where it could reach the building easily and then we brought the panels down to the jobsite. One after the other, the trailer loads of panels arrived and were quickly emptied. We were setting an average of one panel every 10 minutes; we were flying! And since the crane operator could see the work area, signaling was kept to a minimum. The ground crew would set the chokers and the tag lines and as soon as Lonnie saw he was clear, he would hoist and swing the panel up against the building, usually within a foot or so of where it belonged. Someone would use a pry bar to force the panel into place. A dozen Vise Grips would clamp the panel to the building. A welding hood was snapped down and the sparks would fly. Then, a hand signal to let Lonnie know to drop the ‘headache ball’ down a few inches. The chokers and tag lines were released and the crane swung away to get the next panel. I remember being up on the roof and marveling at how we were working together, as a team. Very few words were ever spoken; everyone knew what to do without being told. It was a long weekend, but oh, so satisfying!

Flight Plans

The Saint Mary’s hospital project was pretty much typical for hospital construction; all steel and all very heavy gauges. We had to weld everything together. Once the fireproofing was complete, the mechanical trades moved in with their large and heavy ductwork and piping. And once they had filled the overhead spaces, it was our turn to construct the walls. Easier said then done, as we could barely see the deck above, let alone put our framing in place. It was slow going and every day we cursed the planners that had scheduled our framing as one of the last activities on the flow charts.

There were days when a crew of 3 might be able to build 10 feet of wall in 8 hours. We frequently had to abandon our scaffolds and climb up onto the ductwork itself to do our work. And we had to wear welding ‘leathers’ to avoid being burned by all of the hot sparks that would shower us in those confined spaces. There was nothing quite like being far above the ground, up in the attic space, in the basement, wearing a leather jacket during a hot Reno summer. It was quite easy to keep the weight off!

But, rank has some privileges and once in awhile, someone from another trade would have a question and I would climb down and we would go out to the trailer to review the plans. And invariably, as soon as I spread the plans out on the table, the emergency helicopter would come in for a landing or power up for a takeoff. The only space available for locating our construction trailer was right next to the helipad and that meant that I had to quickly run around the trailer and shut all of the windows before all of my plans and notes took flight as well. What fun!

Hospital Time

As Saint Mary's continued to grow, the projects became larger and more technical. But always interesting and the best part was the fact that it wasn't downtown among the gamblers! After doing a couple of years of casino work, it was great to be away from that atmosphere.

Finally it was decided that Saint Mary's needed a whole new addition; one that would easily double the size of the current hospital. And we had plenty to do in the old hospital while they dug the dug the basement level and then poured the walls. Shortly after that they began putting steel in place and that was when we began to set up for the fireproofing. But first we had to drop all of the hanger wires through the steel deck. These would be needed for the future ceilings. This wasn't my favorite job; using a 4' long and very heavy steel deck punch, you would punch holes in the deck in a 3'x4' grid pattern. And it had to be a grid that reflected the architects plans for the floor below you. Bam! Bam! Bam! All day long, or until your arms tired, Then it was time to thread the long hanger wires through the holes you had made & tie them to a piece of rebar.

With all of the hangers in place and concrete poured onto the deck, the fireproofers began to spray the beams and columns. A wet and dirty job. It wasn't going to be very tall, just 5 floors and a helipad on the roof. Fireproofing would be done in a month.

And it was decided by those in charge, that I should have a trailer/office to run my portion of the work from. Good! Except they found a cheap substitute for a real construction trailer, one that been knocking around jobs for the past 20 or 30 years and it showed. Well, I fixed it up the best I could and settled in for the long haul. About a year. No, make that 2.

Oops! Not!

Another memory of a project at Saint Mary’s hospital; I was told that a special operating room needed to be remodeled and this one was going to be different. Because of the special and necessary equipment in the room, we would have to do all of the work behind a polyethylene barrier while the room continued to be in use. For surgery. We had to prepare by making certain that we had all of the material needed, as well as the manpower. All the rest of the ongoing projects would be halted until we had finished this one.

The demolition of the existing walls was quickly finished and then the plumbers had to pipe in all of the medical gas before we could start. And when we did, I was quite surprised to see that the operating table, the patient and the surgical team were only a few feet away from us, on the other side of the clear poly wall. Yikes!

So we did our work quietly on one side of this thin wall while the surgeons did theirs on the other. And neither of us said, "Oops!"

Paper Trail

I didn’t spend all of my Reno years working on casinos. That kind of work was sporadic at best and the Reno construction market had lots of other projects to offer. One of these was the on-going remodel of Saint Mary’s Hospital. Over the years, I would be sent to Saint Mary’s for any little job that came along; a day, a week, or rarely, months at a time. You had to be able to give the contractor, Q & D Construction, a detailed cost estimate before the work began and since I was a former estimator, I could do that. This way our office didn’t have to be bothered with sending someone out to estimate a $500 job; I could do it and then actually do the construction itself. The customer loved it and we never had any of our billings questioned.

And during this time, the hospital administration was quietly buying up houses in the neighborhood around the hospital; preparing for eventual expansions. Quite often we would have to work on one of the old houses as they converted it to temporary office space. And I remember one in particular, a very old house that was being converted into a ‘blood bank’.

I was working in the stairs that went into the basement and as I chopped off the old plaster ceiling, I noticed that the backside of the old wooden lath was covered with newspaper. Very old newspaper. I had heard that this was common in the ‘old days’, a primitive form of insulation.

I carefully peeled the newspaper off of the lath, a tricky job. And I ended up with a couple of fairly large pieces of newsprint from the local paper, printed in 1916. In fact, I still have them today.

I thought I had done quite well, retrieving a little bit of history, but two carpenters had been told to reinforce the joists in the attic and they had found boxes of treasure hidden between the joists. Yes, money had been found. Which went to the hospital administrators and was never talked about again. And no one thanked the carpenters.

El Dorado

All good things must come to an end and pretty soon it was time to open the new hotel, convention center and casino. But not till we survived another disaster. The hotel tower had been built directly over the convention center and on the day of the grand opening, the plumbers opened the main water line to the hotel rooms. They had used a temporary line to test all of the plumbing in the tower, but now it was going to be the real deal; city water pressure.

I was in the convention center, admiring my work, now that all of the lights were on. The walls were freshly painted and the carpet layers were finishing up a few seams on the vast expanse of carpet. Suddenly there was a roar and water began to pour down through the ceiling, about twenty feet above us. I used my radio to call for help. The plumbers responded, but not until a large portion of the ceiling was destroyed. It turned out that one fitting on a 1-1/2” copper line had never been soldered. And that fitting was on the 16^th floor, with an open shaft all of the way down to the convention center.

Crews were soon vacuuming up the water while I took a 20’ length of cold rolled channel and began poking holes in the ceiling wherever it was sagging. Plenty of ceiling tile was already on the floor but we had remove all of the wet, or even damp ceiling before we could begin reconstruction. And the grand opening was scheduled for 8 that evening. It was now 10 in the morning. Yikes!

Of course we did it…money is no object when it’s time to open a casino.

Another Easy Day

The El Dorado project was a great stress reliever. I only had to show up each day, climb up onto my scaffold and install ceiling tiles all day, minus a few breaks of course. And in the initial stages of this remodel, we would gather for coffee out on the existing second floor pool area. One morning we had an unexpected visitor ‘drop in’ on us while we were enjoying our break. Gary, a lather apprentice had been up on the ledge of the 7^th floor, installing a safety cable. He had a roll of steel cable and was walking backwards and unrolling it as he went. Of course he walked right off the end of the building.

But…he grabbed the cable tightly as he fell and his momentum swung him out over the intersection and then around the corner and that’s where he dropped onto the pool deck in front of about 50 surprised workers! His hands were a mess, but he was alive and well enough to go back to work immediately. Probably because his uncle, who was a foreman, came down and chewed him out for doing such a dumb stunt!

Later on, Gary became a great foreman in own right, but as an apprentice, he was a lot of fun to have around; you never knew what he might do next!

A short story from the Sahara project; Gary was sitting on the top of the building and signaling for the crane operator, Dennis. We were unloading panels from a trailer and stacking them on the ground, a simple operation. And since Dennis couldn’t see the trailer from his perch in the cab of the tower crane, Gary was to relay signals from the ground. I could hear the whole operation on my radio and suddenly Dennis was swearing; not his usual style at all. It turned out that Gary had turned away from what was happening below just after giving Dennis a ‘hoist’ signal. The panel had started up and had become caught under a large advertising sign. The sign was not going to move from its spot, so the crane began to tilt; quickly. Things like that make tower crane operators nervous and very cranky! Gary, oblivious to it all, was watching clouds or something similar.

We got it all sorted out and sent the panel back to be repaired and we bought Dennis a few beers after work that day. Actually, all he wanted and Gary paid.

Moving on

OK. Short version of the tour bus drive-through job…we did finish the project and it never did fall down. As far as I know, it still exists today, a grimy smoke stained ceiling that few tourists ever look at as they exit their buses. The casino beckons!

That is pretty much the same story with all of the casino building projects. When we were finished with all of our hard work, the customers saw only the mirrors and the flashing lights. Just as it was planned.

As usual, whenever I finished a project, there would be a few weeks where I would go to someone else’s project and work for them. My boss would continue to pay me my foreman’s wages and so I had an incentive to work just a little bit harder. And after the Harrah’s project, I was sent over to the new ElDorado hotel and casino.

This project was actually an existing hotel remodel; adding a 16 story hotel tower and a large convention center. As usual; the work went on right over the top of the customers. The existing casino and hotel never shut down for a minute.

Since most of the drywall and lathing crew positions were already filled, I was asked if I wanted to work on the acoustical ceilings in the convention center? Sure. I had already learned enough about that trade to make it appear as if I were not a rank amateur. I could fake it for a day or two until I learned more about it. And so I climbed up on the scaffold and began. It was fairly high, about 20’ up, but we had large platforms to work on and only had to move these scaffolds once a day.

Putting together a concealed spline acoustical ceiling was a great way to relax after the stress filled days of running a big project and I looked forward to doing this mindless work. For awhile.

Curves Ahead

Elevator work finished, I was back at the new tour bus drive-through at Harrah’s Sports Book. The project consisted of our building a plaster ceiling that did not touch any of the walls and consisted of a series of up and down arches for the length of the ceiling. (300’) Imagine a section through the waves on the ocean. Arch up. Arch down. And as it progressed through the building it was supposed to lose about 3’ in height. A sloping arched and wavy ceiling.

The first problem we ran into was the fact that we had to suspend this heavy ceiling from wires that would be shot into the hardened concrete, not embedded in the poured concrete; the preferred method. This ceiling was directly beneath the parking garage and the contractor for that project was not the same as the one we were working for. And he wasn’t going to allow us to embed any wires.

The second problem was the fact that the parking garage was built as a post-tensioned slab. These slabs are quite strong, but they vibrate easily because of the tension built into them. Traffic going up and down the ramps of the garage was going to cause our ceiling to vibrate as well. And since this ceiling was all cement plaster, it was tremendously heavy. Wires could be vibrated right out of the concrete. Once one wire failed, the rest would go quickly. I had nightmare visions of the ceiling crashing down onto half a dozen tour buses.

We decided to double the amount of wires as a safeguard. We had no engineering to tell us whether or not that would work, it just seemed to make sense. So, while one crew spent days shooting eye pins into the concrete and tying the wires to them, I had another crew bending the ¾’ ‘black iron into the radius shape we would use for the arches. Miles and miles of curved iron. And all bent with a roller that slowly formed the arch as you rolled the iron back and forth in its jaws. I worked with both crews, wherever I was needed.

Boring. Weeks went by as we tied hundreds of wires to the pins and formed a ton of steel into curved shapes.

Then we had to build 3 scaffolds that would be used for us, the framers and lathers, and then used by the plasterers and finally the painters. The drive-through was about 40’ wide, so we tied 4 scaffolds together for the first low section of the arch. Then a taller set of 4 scaffolds were tied together for the top of the arch, followed by another 4 low ones. And all 12 were tied into one huge scaffold. Moving it took the combined efforts of about a dozen men.

The end...almost

Following my harrowing inspection of the elevator shaft, there came a time to actually do the work I had calculated and so I found a couple of guys in the crew that would work fast and neat. There wasn’t a lot of room behind the barricades on each floor; just enough room for the material and maybe a few more spare feet. And since they wanted it done quickly, we were going to have to do the work on a weekend and have it complete by Monday morning.

I showed Bill and his apprentice just what I needed done and then I warned him, “Be careful. They can’t set the doors into the frames until we finish the wall; that means that you could reach your arm out into the shaft and touch the elevators as they go by. Don’t!” In fact I warned them both a couple of times. And to demonstrate that particular hazard, an elevator hurtled past just as I was speaking. They both jumped back in alarm. (Elevators are very quiet and they never say, ‘excuse me.’)

I left them to their work and went back to mine. Then, every couple of hours, I would go back to the tower to see how they were doing. They were making great progress. Bill had his apprentice work one floor above, getting things ready while Bill finished the floor below. Good thinking.

Then, I went back one more time and opened the barricade door and found Bill lying on the floor, looking dazed and his tools scattered all over. “Bill! What happened?” He shook his head and then told me, “Well, I needed John (on the floor above) to give me some more screws, so I leaned out into the shaft to yell at him. The next thing I knew I was on the floor over here” Yes, an elevator coming up had struck him and thrown him about 10 feet away. But imagine the results if it had been an elevator coming down.

We finished the project on time…even though Bill worked at a much slower pace.

What goes up

Eventually we finished our work in the South Tower and the crew moved over to the Sports Book and casino remodel. I was given a new project to run, the tour bus drive-through below the parking structure. But first, this story…

Just after I had settled into the routine of work at the Sports Book, I received a call from the Harrah’s representative; the elevator installers (Otis) needed us to return to the South Tower and rebuild the elevator walls where they had been torn apart to install new doors. Harrah’s had reconfigured one elevator so that it now had a rear door in it and it was going to serve as the ‘Housekeeping’ elevator for the new hotel rooms.

OK, I knew most of the Otis mechanics and so I asked one of their foreman, Bob, when would they like us to do the work? He told me that, perhaps, I should take a ride with him the next morning and we would both get a good idea of how much work was needed. Fine; I would meet him the next day.

I met Bob at the loading dock where the service elevators were located and that was when he explained that we would take the newly remodeled elevator and go from floor to floor to assess the situation. Using the special Otis elevator key, he opened the doors and I saw the top of the elevator at my feet. We were going to ride on top of the elevator! Yikes!

Well, I couldn’t let Bob know how terrified that made me feel. Of course not. (It's a guy thing) So I joined him on top of the elevator and he picked up the remote controller, explaining that we would be moving at ‘inspection speed’, far slower than the rest of the elevators that surrounded us. Before he closed the doors, I noted that there was very little to hold onto…in fact, there was absolutely nothing I could touch! In the center of the small space where we stood, the cables from the traction motor, 25 floors above us, were located and Bob warned me, “Careful. Those cables will be moving as we move and they’re pretty greasy.” And then he closed the doors.

There was one small 60 watt bulb on the roof of the car but the light it gave off seemed to be swallowed up in the darkness of this shaft that held 5 other elevators; all of which were moving up and down at what seemed to be a great speed. You never saw them, you simply sensed that they were close and then a gust of wind would strike you as the car passed by.

Inspection speed is slow. Far too slow. It seemed to take forever to get to the second floor, where we could step off for a few tension relieving minutes while I measured and calculated the work needed. Then it was time to get back on the elevator and go to the third floor. Another eternity. Eventually, one floor at a time, I made it to the 24^th floor, where I thanked Bob very much for the tour and told him I would probably take the stairs to get back down!

Drinks on the House

While working on the Harrah’s South Tower expansion, it was fairly easy to forget that you were working at a casino. We were high above the crowds that circulated through the downtown gaming district and the work itself kept us focused. But once or twice a week, a Harrah’s rep would come up in the man lift and distribute ‘drink tokes’. He usually carried a coffee can full of the cardboard tickets worth one drink apiece. These would be passed out to the crew and then at 3:30, we would gather up our lunch pails, thermos’s and other gear before getting in the man lift and descending to the Restaurant Level. Here, stairs would take us directly to the casino and the bars.

Somewhere in this time frame, Harrah’s also began the construction of a new Sports Book and parking garage. And right in the middle of this remodel and new construction mess was a bar. Most casinos have bars scattered all over the property and Harrah’s was no exception, except that this one bar became ‘ours’. Once a day, just after 3:30, this bar filled up with guys in hard hats. No civilians allowed. Oh, sure, they might wander in by mistake, but one look at the clientele would cause them to depart in haste. Beer was the only drink consumed and it was usually Bud. Order a Coors and there was a good chance that you would be ridiculed all night. You could order Millers safely, as popular opinion had ‘no opinion’ about that one.

And being highly paid, we would usually give the bartenders a buck with each free toke. The bar might hold the entire construction crew, perhaps 75 people and they were all drinking and giving the bartenders a dollar for each drink. They were raking in the money! This resulted in great service and the promise of just a few more free drinks, even after the tokes had all been used.

Moving on up

It’s been awhile since I posted here. But the memories are still valid.

This job (Harrah’s South Tower) had more than its share of problems. For one, Bill Harrah had recently died and the construction was being overseen by the new owner, the Holiday Corporation, owners of the Holiday Inn name. Harrah’s and Holiday Inn were never synonymous and it really showed on this project. The original budget per room for decorating was around $300 when Bill Harrah was alive; with Holiday, it was $78.

Plus, the Holiday people had used a construction management firm and not a ‘real’ contractor. That left the subcontractors on their own to manage scheduling. It was soon a disaster in the making as every contractor did exactly as they pleased. Finally, after many weeks of frustration and angry meetings, we all agreed on one guy to handle the scheduling for us and agreed to follow his lead.

It didn’t take long for us to catch up and start exceeding the schedule and we were soon finishing a floor every week. But we did have one slight handicap to overcome. Our ‘Boss’, the owner of Solari and Sons was also the chairman of the board at First Interstate bank; the tall black building about a block away from our site. And from his boardroom, he could look at those who were working…or not working. And I would get phone calls from him; “There’s a taper on the 3^rd floor and he’s smoking and looking out the window! Go down there and fire him!” And off I would go…to find a plumber or an electrician smoking near the window. Not my problem. Then I would have to call him back and let him know that it wasn’t one of his employees. And he always doubted me. I finally passed the word to all of our employees that they should expect to be seen by Al Solari while working on the south side of the project and if they needed a break, go over to the north side. Duh!

At the same time we were building the hotel tower, we were also remodeling the casino on the ground level and the seafood restaurant at the second floor. Plus a few other odd jobs at various spots around the offices in the basement.

A note about casino remodeling. Nothing is more important than getting the customers back in and gambling. Cost doesn’t matter; time does. I would often meet with a Harrah’s rep at 8 in the morning and he would explain what work he wanted done and where. There was no time for cost estimates or contracts. We would work as many hours as needed and at 8 the next morning, the work would be complete. Fresh paint and new carpet. I would then submit a bill and they would pay it.

Example: I met the Harrah’s rep one day behind the barricades that had just been erected around a 20’x30’ space. The slot machines had been removed and were now lined up against the barricade wall. Besides me, every trade was represented at his meeting. Ironworkers to painters. The ironworkers would go first, putting in a few beams as the laborers removed the old construction. My crew would fireproof the beams as soon as they were in place. My framing crew would follow and the electrician was right behind. Plumbing, plastering, HVAC and drywall. No one left till they were complete. There were probably close to 30 people behind the barricade, all working shoulder to shoulder or waiting for their turn. And 24 hours later, the barricades came down and the slot machines put back in place.

Progress slows

We had solved all of the layout problems on the 3^rd floor rooms and the 4^th floor was framed right on schedule. But the 5^th floor was the starting point for a general slowdown in production. It just so happened that the existing Harrah’s hotel had a rooftop pool on the 3^rd floor and you could observe the pool and the guests starting at the 5^th floor level of the new construction. Since it was early summer, the pool was filled with guests’ everyday and every worker on the project seemed to find a reason to do something, anything at all (except work), on the north side of the building which overlooked the pool.

It was fall before we were able to get into full production again. And by then we were on the 24^th floor. You had to have binoculars to see the pool by then!

A story:

We were on the 8^th floor having lunch one day and I was sitting on a toolbox with wheels, when suddenly I felt the toolbox move slightly. And then again. We all looked at each other as we had all felt the movement. I stood up and the motion became stronger. What was it? The whole building was moving! Since we had been sitting close to the outer wall of the existing hotel tower, one of us noticed that the gap between the two buildings was opening and closing, indicating that only the new building was moving. We put a tape measure down and it showed that the floor we were on was moving about 2” and in a slow circular motion. The general superintendent happened by and we asked him about it. He was mystified as well and quickly went down to the office to call the engineering firm. He was soon back and told us that what we were feeling was the motion caused by the concrete pump on the ground floor. The pump itself was bolted down to a large ‘thrust block’ of concrete that was tied to the structural steel column in one corner. Every time the pump sent a surge of concrete up the ‘slick line’, it moved the building. They had been pumping concrete for the 12^th floor during our lunch hour and so we hadn’t heard the usual ‘whoosh…pause…whoosh’ of the wet concrete across the steel deck.

Mystery solved. And what was more interesting was the fact that as we got higher in the building, the motion increased, up to 6” at the roof (24^th floor). The engineer came out and told us that it was just what he had planned for.

We're Back!

To make a long story shorter… after all, I was working as a wrangler for only one week a year; I will return to it later. Let’s just say that the first year was great! I enjoyed it thoroughly and was asked to return the next spring. And for 9 more years.

Back in Reno, life was fine. Since Solari & Sons had no competition for the majority of jobs, we rarely went without work. And when I got back I had a new project to start; Harrah’s Hotel Tower expansion. Harrah’s didn’t want to miss out on the remodeling frenzy that had gripped the town, but they were short on space and already had a 24 story hotel on Center Street. They had begun a casino expansion on Lake Street with a new Sports Book casino and the only place left to add on for hotel space was directly over the top of the Seafood restaurant on the corner of Second and Center. This expansion would tie into the existing hotel and add a dozen or more rooms per floor.

It had been decided that the expansion would never shut down the restaurant or the casino below it. These were located in what was called the Dondero building. The two-story structure had been absorbed into the Harrah’s building without ever demolishing it in its entirety. When we entered the ceiling space above the restaurant and the casino, we actually walked across the old roof of the Dondero building. Looking over the edge of the ‘roof’, we could see that the walls of the old building were enclosed by false walls in the casino. And this roof top area was also used as the spot for security to set up their monitors; the camera feeds that watched all the gambling below.

Needless to say, it was a tight little corner to have to build a very tall and tiny high-rise hotel. To erect the steel, they had to dig deep into the corners of the Dondero building without bothering anyone. Concrete footings were poured in the dark of the basement and behind walls. And it was our job to follow along behind that work and repair any damage that was caused.

Once the steel reached the level of the third floor, it was time to bring in a crane to erect the rest of the building. But not an ordinary crane; the site already took one lane out of Second Street and the city wasn’t going to allow any more than that. A very special Manitowoc crawler was brought in and it was able to stand its mast vertically and use the jib section almost as if it were a tower crane. But, as it squeezed itself into position, next to the manlift, it had to ‘squirm’, rotating the tracks on one side while braking the other. This action actually broke the concrete walls down in the Dondero basement and that caused flooding from groundwater.

But, we were soon moving upwards and onwards. Steel flew into place and we sprayed fireproofing on it just as soon as the concrete deck was poured. A few days after that we were doing the layout and building walls. Electricians and plumbers were right behind us. Progress!

And then we got to the 5^th floor…

Dreaming

On the highway and on our way to the first camp.

It was only going to take us about an hour or so to drive the distance; the riders would take all day to reach the same site. A couple of the catering trucks would meet them at noon for their lunch break, while the main kitchen truck followed us and would setup in the same location. Well, almost the same location. It was always important for the kitchen to be upwind of the mangers and sometimes there was some bickering about where we were going to be located. Especially if there was a good sized tree to be used for a ‘deadman’ for one end of the mangers and that tree happened to be close to where the kitchen was going to be.

A note about our camp sites: About half were on private property; large ranches were preferred. The board of directors for the ride had chosen the various sites and had used their friendship with many ranchers and horsemen to secure us a good site. But…not all sites were created equal and the board members were not always knowledgeable about our requirements. Trying to fit 150 horses, mangers, kitchen and all the assorted vehicles that came with that, into a ‘scenic’ spot was sometimes very difficult!

Once we entered the area, we tried to keep the motor homes from crowding us; telling them they had to wait on the road, at least till we were in place. Some riders had begun bringing large motor homes with them so they could enjoy the comforts of home after a hard day in the saddle. TV and a couple of cold brews after a hot shower. This was an expensive way to go; as they had to pay their own way plus pay for their drivers’ meals and his bar tab. When I was involved in the ride, there was a limit of twenty motor homes and no more. Even with just twenty of them, they could crowd the campsite down to a painful minimum. The riders that chose to rough it and camp on the ground were our kind of guys!

Now it was time for us to set up the camp… all over again. Our goal each time was to have the camp ready and waiting for the riders at least an hour before they arrived. That would give us time to get cleaned up as best we could, enjoy a quick lunch and maybe even a nap in the back of the bed truck.

Did I mention the toilets? As it turned out, the only flush toilets we would see were at the beginning and at the end of the ride, a week later. In between we had to use pit toilets; hand dug by the wranglers. Being the new guy, I was included in the toilet digging chore every time. Once a deep trench was dug, we placed long and narrow 5 sided boxes with toilet seats screwed to the top of them over the trench. I’ve said enough…

And since we (wranglers) hated these toilets, we were always hoping that some minor county official would happen by someday and see them in use and then, in our dreams, he would put a halt to their use. “What do you people think you’re doing? You’re going to have to rent portable toilets and immediately!” Just a dream of course.

Calm before the storm

Where was I? In a dirt parking lot in Riverside and in the back of a truck. OK, it wasn’t quite that bad; the Riverside Rancheros club site was actually secluded and surrounded by thick Eucalyptus groves. With some imagination you could believe that you were far away from civilization.

With the horses quieted down, it was time for dinner. Since the caterers’ truck hadn’t arrived from Arizona, we were on our own for this meal. Burger King. But…all of the meals, beginning the next day, would be catered by a crew from Wickenburg and we had already been given a menu for the week ahead. Steak and lots of it. Plus the occasional lobster.

Most of the riders were socializing in the club house while we set up our sleeping spaces in the bed truck. A few of the riders did manage to stumble down to the mangers later in the evening to see to their horses, but not many. Most were too busy with partying. Although it wasn’t really our responsibility to care for the horses on that first night, we took the remaining horses to water.

My first lesson as a wrangler was to learn how to tie and untie horses from their assigned spots on the manger. And to remember where they were tied. Each manger space had a number and I learned quickly that horses don’t necessarily like their neighbors. Get a horse in the wrong spot and it’s likely to cause a fight. A horse wreck. I was also told to gather up as many horses as possible when watering, at least 3 of them and 4 would be even better. So I would carefully note the numbers as I untied the 4 horses and led them out. But, horses, being as stupid as they are, would quickly move back and forth and all around me as I tried to keep them separated. I soon had a tangle of horses in my hands, all pulling in different directions. And as soon as they were at the water troughs, they would move from trough to trough, sampling a little water from each, while I tried to keep them in some semblance of order. Impossible. Once they were full, I would lead them back while I tried to remember which one went where? What was that number? Talk to me horse! Where do you belong?

With 6 wranglers working, it didn’t take long to get the horses watered and back in some order. But this was easy, I was told, we only had about 90 horses and tomorrow we would see the additional 60 added to the mangers. Oh, oh!

Judy woke us up at 5:30 and we began our day by filling the water tubs and adding some hay to the mangers. Then it was time to begin the daily watering rodeo. And it really was a rodeo as the horses had grown quite thirsty overnight and pulled us to the water. After a few trips, I switched to taking no more than two at a time, just to avoid being crushed in the rush to water.

After the horses were back in place, it was time for our breakfast. The cooks had arrived late last night and had been up since 4. And being wranglers meant that we were always first in line for food. A perk we loved!

A little while later, relaxing with coffee cups in hand, we watched as the riders gathered for the ceremonial beginning of their first ride, 17 miles to the south. And once they had left, the work began for us. The mangers and all that gear had to be taken apart and placed in trucks and trailers for our trip to the first nights campsite.

About 1-1/2 hours later, we had everything packed and our bed truck was now filled with the suitcases, cots and bedrolls of the riders. A mountain of gear. And since I was the spare driver, I was given the veterinarian’s truck to drive. A brand new Chevy pickup with all of the luxury items included.

It was time to hit the highway and our caravan went just as fast as its slowest vehicle, the hay truck. But we were moving and the adventure had begun.

First Day

We pulled in to the long and narrow dirt parking lot of the Riverside Rancheros club and then we began the drill of setting up a camp for the first time. My fellow wranglers were already complaining about the location for the setup; being new, I didn’t have much to say. I would learn.

Setting up required that we first unroll the heavy bundles of canvas and steel cable that made up the mangers. Hay, from the hay truck was dropped as directed and then the truck was parked. The ‘bed’ truck (where we would live and sleep) was placed in position as the center anchor for the mangers. Cables and chains would secure the end of the mangers to the frame of the truck. The hay truck would serve as the anchor for the other end of one manger and a buried ‘deadman’ or a convenient tree would be the anchor for the end of the other manger. Since this was the first night, some horses wouldn’t show until morning and so we didn’t need to set up the ‘little manger’, a separate unit that required its own anchors.

Here’s the picture; from right to left, the hay truck followed by a length of manger that could accommodate about 60 horses. That manger was then attached to the right side of the bed truck. On the left side, another long manger was attached and that ended with an attachment to a large eucalyptus tree. Heavy chains and cable ‘come-alongs’ made the final attachment at the bed truck. These would be tightened, which would lift the manger off of the ground. And to complete the lifting, drive poles were hammered into the ground at 3’ intervals and the manger lifted onto the hooks on the poles. These drive poles were made of heavy 2” pipe with a sharpened point to penetrate the soil. And the only way to install them was to use a sledge hammer. One man would hold the pole and the other would swing. Once it had been well started, we would alternate the swings. (We used to joke that we were well qualified to work in the circus) The goal was to drive the pole till the hook reached the level of our belt buckle. And I quickly learned to rise up on my toes to make this critical measurement! And I also learned why the others had complained about this location; it was a parking lot and the many vehicles had compacted the soil. I soon became an expert on soil types.

After the manger was in place and lifted onto the poles, we opened the bales and put a flake of hay into each numbered spot on the manger. Then it was time to get out the large water tubs and the smaller grain tubs. Hoses were linked and we soon had all 6 tubs filled with water. Our bed truck was our next chore and so we arranged the bags of grain at the far end and then set up our sleeping spaces; a foam bed roll, a pillow and a sleeping bag. We placed our other gear wherever we could find space. Since the bed truck didn’t really carry anything important, like hay… it became the truck that anyone could throw whatever they wanted, into. The riders would use it to carry their bedrolls and extra gear. It was the baggage cart, despite the fact that it was also our home for the next 7 days. We would have to rearrange this mess every night after making camp.

That first night came quickly and we soon had about 80 or 90 horses tied to the manger. Unhappy horses. They had spent the winter in tall grass and roaming free at their owners’ ranch. Most didn’t like the neighbor they had been tied next to and so we had to put up kick poles between them. Dave, one of the wranglers and our farrier, would gather up a supply of small rocks and whenever a horse would start kicking at its neighbor, he would nail it with a well placed rock to its rear. I liked that!

Trailing

Should I be posting something here about vacations? After all, the focus is supposed to be on my working life. Well, these one week vacations where I imitated a ‘wrangler’ were working vacations, so I think they qualify for entry.

The first year of the ride, I had no idea of what I might be doing during this one very long week with 150 horses and riders. I got a list of things to take with me, from Bill. The list included gloves (2 pair), hay hooks, hats, boots, socks, shirts, thermal underwear and lots of Levi’s. And a camera. Oops, almost forgot; a bedroll and a pillow.

We left very early on a Saturday morning and drove down US 395, on our way to Riverside. We were supposed to drive into San Bernardino first and meet up with Judy, the head wrangler, and then pick up the trucks and trailers we would need to load all of the gear onto.

All went according to plan. Even if we weren’t, Judy was very efficient. He had been doing this for many years. We stopped at a truck rental firm and picked up the ‘bed’ truck and another, larger truck for hauling hay. We were all assigned trucks to drive; except for me…the new guy. I would fill in as needed.

Then it was time to pick up the ‘iron’. The word described it well. Steel posts and cables and Come-alongs and chains and nuts and bolts, huge bundles of portable mangers…tons of gear that I had no idea as to its purpose. But…I would find out. This was all loaded into a horse trailer, along with about 50 long and narrow wooden poles; ‘kick poles’ that were placed between horses to keep them from kicking. Horses kicked?

After all was loaded, we followed Judy to a hay supplier who loaded our hay truck for us. OK, we helped, a lot. A full load of heavy 3-wire bales. Giving me a chance to see how my new hay hooks worked.

Once loaded, we headed over to the club headquarters of the Riverside Rancheros. It was from here that the ride would begin.

Explanation: Every year a different trail was used. I believe there were about half a dozen different ones. And every other year, the ride would begin in Riverside. In alternate years, we would begin somewhere far away and then trail back to Riverside. This year we were going to San Diego; actually a little bit east of the city, to Alpine.