Loose Laces

Part One...

From March of 1970 until December 1973, my work caused me to be away from home most of the time. I did come in on weekends when I wasn't too far away for traveling. Four to five hours was usually all I wanted to spend behind the wheel twice in two days. I was a tramp electrician and proud of it. We were called tramps because of our penchant for changing jobs and traveling from area to area. Actually, back in the early days of the trade, workers walked or thumbed or took any transportation they could afford to get to jobs. My actual job title was Journeyman Wireman, and I was trained by and worked through the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which began as a trade union for linemen and electricians, but later expanded into factories and any other place that would vote them in, including a lot that had nothing to do with electricity except for flipping on a light switch in an office. I don't think the expansion was a good thing for anyone except the fat cats whom run the union. They soon placed the tradesmen on their short list of people to ignore.

Other than having to leave the family for sometimes weeks, life on the road wasn't too bad; most of the time. If the job was near a good sized town or city, accommodations could be found in private homes or even roadside motels at reasonable prices. The worst places to find sleeping facilities was in the out of the way bergs. The natives usually didn't want "dirty old construction workers" around anyway, and didn't go to any trouble to help us. A few did though, and became much wealthier for their hospitality.

The worst accommodations I had to endure were in New Martinsville West Virginia. I had a bed in a small and shared upstairs room with the only electricity a bare and filthy light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The tiny bathroom was used by all ten tenants, and its electrical offerings were the same as the sleeping room, except it had a plug in adapter which the light bulb screwed into. It had no mirror, so shaving was hit-or-miss. I stayed there about two weeks before I located a private room I could afford.

The best place I had while tramping was called Captain John's, and it was located just across the Tennessee River from Watt's Bar Nuclear Plant where I was employed in construction by the Tennessee Valley Authority. I had a private, two bedroom cabin all to myself. It was actually part of a resort, but the owner let the cabins to construction workers, because at one time, he had been a traveling tradesman and understood our situations. This was later on in 1977-1978, when I had gone back on the road after a brief career as maintenance electrician in some of our local factories.
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I may give you lucky readers the entire tale of my days as a tramp, and I may begin doing so tomorrow... or not.