Part Ten...
Blogger has a new setup where I can write ahead of time and it will publish when I want. Not edited, so excuse the mistakes.

Upon my return to Maryland, I ran into one of my buddies from apprentice school. Sam (not his real name) had been on the job for a week, but we hadn't crossed paths. By now, I had a roomie, a guy from Knoxville whom was a magnificent bullshiter. Sam was staying at the next motel up the road from the White House. He was rooming with a guy from the Charleston, WV local, and it and all the rest of the Ohio Valley locals were still on strike. But negotiations were finally going well, and the situation looked to soon be settled.

Meanwhile, we had a little strike of our own. I don't know what it was over, but it was the boilermakers whom went out at 10:00 one morning. So naturally, the rest of the trades walked. Sam, his roomie, and I spent the rest of the day on the banks of the Potomac talking about things to do in Charleston when we got there. American Electric Power was building a two unit powerhouse just outside of St. Albans on the Kanawha river, and would be requiring over 3,000 tradesmen and laborers. We made great plans for when we got there. Our strike was a short lived affair, and we were back to work the next day.

This Morgantown powerhouse was owned by Potomac Electric Power Company, and was a two unit facility with oil-fired boilers. This was 1970 and just before the mid-east oil situation went all to hell. Not long after the first unit was finished with construction, the oil system was replaced by coal. Needless to say, there was overtime and I went back there for the big bucks.
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Time out... The White House motel was owned by people who lived in New York City, and was managed by a couple from Florida. The managers went on vacation for a couple weeks, so the owners came in to take over. These were die-cast city folk, very wealthy and used to being surrounded by high class society. They were nice enough, but obviously out of place amongst construction workers. One day after work, I went in to pay another week's rent. The lady was behind the desk and sunlight was coming in the windows in such a way that it was lighting my head and shining through my eyeglasses, and of course they were covered with a day's load of construction dust. She gave me a stern look and said "How do you see through those filthy glasses? It is obvious to me that you haven't bothered to clean them in a very long time". She actually didn't understand or have a clue as to what construction work was about, and she figured all of us were third rate people whom hardly bathed and were completely uncivilized. To her, second rate people were her servants and those whom worked for her, and we were way beneath them. By the time she returned to NYC, she had alienated all of us and we were glad to see her go.
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June rolled around, the strike in the valley was settled, so Sam and I drug up (jargon for "quiting a job"), met at our union hall on Monday morning, and got our referral to Charleston. Two more electricians from the local were making the trip up and knew the best way to get there, so on Tuesday morning we were on our way to the valley in a black 1968 Torino following our buddies whom were in a Ford-blue 1965 Mustang. Charleston was close enough to home that we would be able to drive back and forth each weekend without wearing completely out.

We had our first of many encounters with the West Virginia Turnpike, that million-dollar-a-mile two lane toll road that the people of that state were so proud of. At the time it was constructed, it was the most expensive highway per mile to have ever been built in the US.

We finally reached the Kanawha valley. We kept smelling something with the scent of rotten potatoes. Come to find out, it was the Kanawha river itself. Man, was that sucker polluted!

Next... Amos powerhouse

Part Nine...

Soon after returning to Maryland form home, one of the friends I made at the motel was killed on the job at the powerhouse. He was a steamfitter welder, and a pipe they were testing under high pressure air burst and knocked him off the ladder and his neck was broken. The reality of heavy construction work hit me hard. He wouldn't be the last friend or acquaintance I'd lose to vagaries of the tramping live.*

The overtime was gradually being cut out, and I was no longer working weekends, but was still getting four ten hour days and one eight. Being very lonely and homesick led to drinking whiskey, something I hadn't done before. Other than rot-gut wine, I had never consumed alcohol in any form, including beer. My life was about to hit the fast lane.

The first weekend off, I went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of peppermint schnapps. I got sick and puked all over everything and everybody. My "he's a good guy to be around" ranking went to hell in a hand basket. I was a married man with children and responsibilities, but I was a virgin in so many ways. That was on Friday night. Saturday was a day of recovery and apologizing, but Sunday I was at it again with some Tennessee sour mash whiskey. Nope, not ol' Jack, but George Dickel... a half gallon jug that set me back $15.

Also on Saturday, I bought a Hibachi and thick Porterhouse steak for Sunday cooking. The motel had a small refrigerator in a maintenance room where they allowed us to keep sandwich meat, etc. The Lilly boys and some of the other guys also bought steaks, and we had a very good lunch. After dining, I started drinking again, got drunk, dropped and busted my whiskey jug, and decided to puke some more. My friends saw the whole affair coming, and retreated to their rooms.

I stayed 10 weeks in Maryland without going home. On a Friday morning I had the Bird packed with dirty clothes, more root beer, a bottle of George Dickel shaped like a powder horn, along with two miniatures just like it. If you ever watched the tv series Star Trek, Captain Kirk entertained special guests on the Enterprise with a "nectar" from one of these bottles.

Just before turning into the job parking lot, I felt the steering wheel jerk just a tiny bit. Usually a sign of a wheel bearing expiring, or disk brakes worn completely out. When I applied the brakes, the right front squealed with the protest of metal rubbing metal. I was doomed, I thought. I planned on going to the Esso station and getting the car fixed and delay my journey home until the next weekend.

Even as I was leaving the parking lot, it was my plan. But instead of turning right on 301, I turned left, went across the toll bridge into Virginia, and set my eyes toward Tennessee. To say I drove slowly was an understatement. I got off work at 4:30pm, and nearly four hours later I was at I-81 in Staunton. By then. most of the rubbing metal had disappeared behind me in a shower of sparks. No one tailgated me that trip. The journey south on I-81 was a piece of cake, although I did drive much slower than usual because I had little braking of any kind except for the emergency brake. Somewhere around midnight and after hours sweet talking the Thunderbird, I rolled in home.

Next day I went to a brake shop and had the calipers and rotors replaced on the front of the car, and new shoes put on the back. I was ready for the next phase of my tramping experience, one that would soon lead me into the Ohio Valley.

*In 1964, J.L. Pierce—Carolyn's dad—had been seriously injured and his tramping buddy killed in a car wreck near Culpepper, VA. They were traveling the same route I used to get home from Maryland. Another auto accident in 1966 compounded his earlier head injuries, and just after Carolyn's 22nd birthday in 1968, his heart finally failed.