CHRISTMAS 1997 Last year's stories about work experiences brought some charitable comments even though there was no connection to Christmas. Here are some more early work experiences.
Dad was able to get me (and later, brother Jerry) into the union as a bricklayer apprentice when I was I5 years old. Trade unions are similar to medieval guilds in that the son of a journeyman member is given preference in being aeccpted as an apprentice. At the time I was the only apprentice in the local and was indentured to the local rather than to a joumeyman member, allowing me to work for other journeymen for wider work experience. This was during the war so most of the work was in war industries with only an occasional brick and mortar job. Before I set out on my first job dad tutored me at home after school. Whenever possible he would bring some mortar home from work and show me how to handle the principal tools, then I'd practice for an hour or so. He gave me well wom tools and bag, buying new ones for himself. At length he decided that I was proficieut enough to work on an actual job: after all, I was only an apprentice. He found a brick job in which the brickwork was to be laid in a haphazard fashion to simulate European farm cottages of the medieval era. Thc masonry contractor was agreeable, laughingly saying that I might be able to better reproduce the architect's plans than the professionals. I appeared on the job the next moming and set to work. The contractor repeatedly told me to "make it more crooked, more wavy - you're too straight and Ievel!~ After less than an hour, he said "Sorry, I can't use you.~ When dad got home from his job, I was almost too embarrassed to tell him about my getting fired after being on the job for less than an hour. He laughed heartily and told me that I had done much better on my first job than he had. Dad married mom when he was only a few years out of high school. Their plan was for mom to work as a secretary to support them while dad attended school to become a doctor. The plan worked well until mom became pregnant with me. In that era a pregnant woman was not permitted to work in an office, so when mom's condition became obvious she was fired. Dad needed money fast so he scanned the Chicago classified and noted that bricklayers had the highest hourly wage. He went to the nearest construction job and told the brick foreman that he wanted a job. When asked about his experience, he said that he had some, more or less, and he was told to report for work the next day. Excitcdly he rushed to the nearest hardware store and bought a level, a mason's tool bag and a set of mason's tools. The next morning he had just taken his shiny new tools out of his new bag and was about to put his immaculate overalls over his new work shirt when the foreman, seeing dad's ncw clothes and unblemished toots, rushed over and shouted, "Get off of m job! You're no bricklayer!" But dad was not easily discouraged. On the way home, he begged a shovel full of mortar from another job site, w hich he smeared all over his new clothes, tool bag and tools. He beat the trowel with the brick hammer and vice versa so his tools looked well worn. His next try was successful. Dad told me that this was the reason he'd given me his well worn tools and bought new ones for himself.
When my 3-year apprenticeship was complete I was examined by a union committee to determine if I were skillful enough to be awarded a journeyman's rating. At the time I was laying firebricks in one of Henry Kaiser's cement kilns in the hills in back of Los Altos. The work required little skill except for the cutting of the keystone on the completion of each ring of the huge wedge-shaped firebricks that lined the interior of the rotary kilns. I was working swing-shift, so the committee gave up their evening to test me. 'I'here was a lot riding on my passing the test: my pay would double from one to two dollars an hour and if I failed I'd have a second but final chance six months later. I was to be tested on the cutting of keystones and a half dozen rings that needed keystones were reserved for my test. The three or four committee members, in addition to the three bricklayers and four hod carriers who comprised the evening crew formed a circle around me. I heard the deep, gravelly voice of the union business agent, Geno Walter, say, "A11 right, kid, show us what you can do" I held one of the 20-pound firebricks up to the keystone location, marked it with a pencil and put it down on a gunny sack fillcd with sand. Cutting a fircbrick with hand tools is not a sure thing. Sometimes thc brick cracks in the wrong place ruining it; other times, it requires a lot of chipping with a brick hammer before it fits into place. Even if cut well it usually requires that you make a number of trial fits. I rcmcmber thinking that if there were a heavenly father, this would be thc time for him to smile on me. With the brick set and hammer, I tapped on the penciled lines, working around the brick about three times until it broke. It broke precisely on thc lines then went into place with a light tap of the handle of the brick hammer. I remember hearing some soft whistles and then silence. Finally I heard Geno say, "Have you seen enough?" With nods of their heads the committee walked away. If I had tried another 100 tunes I could not have duplicated the precsion of that cut. Of all the firebrcks that I cut in subsequent years I never cut one that well again. Ah yes, Geno.
When Geno was well into his sixties he announced that he was getting married. This was a surprise because it was his first marriage. One of his close friends explained his delayed reaction to the opposite sex: around the tum of the Century, Geno was living in San Francisco. One day he rented a horse and buggy and took a woman friend for a drive down the peninsula. After traveling about 20 miles ts what is now Menlo Park, he stopped the buggy, took off his jacket, got a blanket from the box at the back of the buggy and spread it out in a group of bushes. The woman did not like what appeared to be his intentions so she grabbed the reins whipped the horse into a sharp U-turn and headed back to San Franciseo. Geno's money was in his jacket, which was in the now departed buggy, so he couldn't take the train. And without a jacket no one would give him a ride. He had no choice but to walk all the way back to San Francisco each step increasing his resolve to never again have anything to do with women - a resolution he kept for over 40 years.
A final recollection: dad and I had a job making a brick boiler at a pencil manufacturing factory in Stockton. It was 1946 and the military was mustering large numbers of men from Stoekton. We searched all day for a place to stay but there wasn't a vacant room within 20 miles. In desperation we bought a pair of army blankets and stopped dad's truck near a park. We each chose a bench and tried to sleep but after dark a policeman woke us by shining his flashlight in our faces and shaking us. We explained that we had money for a hotel but no rooms were available.He agreed to bend the rules and let us stay on the benches. By morning I felt as if the slats were permanently embedded in my back. We went to the job and explained that we couldn't work without a place to sleep. The factory manager suggested that we get a bed, put it on the truck and park it next to the office near the drinking fountain. He said that it would be a secure place to sleep, the factory being locked at 8 p.m. and unlocked at 6 a.m. A telephone call home to mom brought us a double bed, pillow and blankets by that afternoon. We had a leisurely dinner and a walk then parked the truck next to the office before the gates were locked. It was summer and just getting dark. Dad and I were in bed in our underwear, chatting. Suddenly a man in uniform carrying a large caliber gun came from around the corner of the office, shouting, "Don't move or I'll shoot both of you!" The gun looked huge, the bore as large as your thumb; the man was old, of retirement age. He was so close I could see that his trigger fingcr was white, devoid of color. His hand and arm were shaking violently, the end of the gun barrel swinging from the ground to above our heads and sideways between dad and me. I had never been so terrificd and my first thought was to pull thc covers over my head. Dad was much braver. He sat up, looked the man squarely in the face and told him in a loud, comm:mding voice where he could put his gun - language I'd never before heard from my wcll-mannered father. Slowly the man backed to the pay phone at the corner of the building, then talked to the operator, all the while continuing to point his revolver at us. I remember feeling that death was no longer so certain with him 25 feet from our heads and the violent shaking of his arm making it less likely a bullet would hit one of us. After perhaps I 5 minutes we heard sirens, then two cars with four men in each stopped a' the locked gate. The guard Iet them in and they approached with guns drawn but not pointing at us. When the chief deputy told the security guard to put his gun away I began to breathe again. The eight deputies made a semicircle around us, looking under the bed, in and under the truck, under our pillows and blankets. The company guard said that OUt underwear "costumes" were a ruse, that we must have known that the company payroll was in the safe below the only window on that side of the building and that we had parked in that spot so we could break in and lift the safe into our truck. Dad told them that we parked where the company manager had told us to park. One of the squad cars and four deputies left but the others stayed, guns re-holstered, until the manager, who'd taken his family to the movies, returued home after midnight and verified our story. The next evening the guard came by and apologized. He said he'd been a guard at that factory for 40 years and had never before found anyone on the grounds after the gate was locked for the night. He also said that if we'd been any where else on the grounds he wouldn't have become so excited, there being little demand for stolen cartons of yellow school pencils.He then invited us to use his shower and have coffee with him in his office.
Jim (aka "Fat")