Part Twelve...

Sometimes getting fired isn't a bad thing, especially when your trade is in high demand. Times would never be better for union tradesmen than they were in the decade of the 70s. Even with oil prices on the rise and interest rates hitting new highs, the heavy construction industry was booming. Powerhouses, both coal fired and nuclear were being built all over the country. Steel and other metal mills were still flourishing. Chemical plants were expanding, and commercial buildings were popping up everywhere in small and large cities. The only thing in decline was home construction, except for mobile homes, an industry running full blast with new factories going into production nationwide.

Another good thing about getting fired, or even quitting on most construction jobs of the day, was that you got paid every dime that was owed you before you went out the gate. Our motto was "My ass is red and my pockets green; there's a lot of this country I haven't seen!"

The next stop for Sam and myself was Parkersburg, WV. It is located about 80 miles north of Charleston along I-77, but was still within weekend driving distance of home. On Monday morning after our dismissal from Amos powerhouse the previous Thursday, we were at Local 968 in downtown Parkersburg. We received referrals to the DuPont chemical plant in Washington WV, which is just west of town on the Ohio river.

Parkersburg was a city of about 50k population at the time, with several major manufacturers to keep the residents at work. But, it was no party town like Charleston. The nightclubs were about as lively during the week as an empty funeral parlor. One club, the 616, had been a good watering hole up until about a month before we arrived in the city. It was a titty bar that was forced to give up its strippers to keep its license. On suspicion, Sam and I gave it a try one night, but it was pretty barren. A buddy from the Maryland job lived across the river from Parkersburg in Belpre, OH. He managed to get us into the VFW, which became our hangout one night each week. It was at the VFW where I watched the first Monday Night Football game ever played. The Jets played at the Browns, and I believe Keith Jackson was the play-by-play announcer, with a loudmouth Texan and ex-Dallas Cowboy quarterback named "Dandy" Don Meredith, and another louder-mouthed prick of a tv sports journalist named Howard Cosell as sidekicks. The only thing Cosell ever did right was get drunk and puke on Meredith's cowboy boots during the broadcast of a game later on. The unflappable Frank Gifford replaced Jackson the next season. The three announcers became legends.

Two things the Parkersburg situation lacked: decent and affordable restaurants, and living accommodations for transient workers. We checked out a hotel in downtown, but it was an expensive flop house. The owner and I almost exchanged blows after I told him the rent was too high. We stayed in a motel the first couple of nights. We finally found a trailer for rent, and it too was a little more than we wanted to pay, but we took it anyway, hoping to find better. The last thing the landlord said after taking our money was "absolutely no women". Didn't bother me at all, but Sam was perturbed, as he had a friend from Charleston due to come up and spend each Thursday night as his guest. They ended up in a motel over on I-77. His friend ended up paying for the room each week for as long as we were there. Why was he so popular? For a scrawny guy, he was endowed very, very well.

After a week, we found another, smaller, and much older trailer closer to the job and for a lot less rent. At 6'5' tall, I had to move around with my neck bent, and was almost on my knees to take a shower. I loved it! I became the cook and Sam was the dishwasher.

Then autumn began showing, and we decided it was time to hunt for a job that would be inside a building and warm for the winter. Sam wanted to go to New York City and work on the World Trade Center. The NYC local had a great pay scale, and was working some overtime. I told him it was too far for me, because I was used to going home on weekends. He decided to carry out his plan for NYC, and after calling our home local to see what was available, I got a job in Kingsport (again, of course) on construction of a new newspaper publishing plant. I counted on being home for at least a good part of the winter. The pay was poor compared to what I was getting in the valley, but I figured I could do some house wiring on weekends to help out.

After a couple of weeks on that job, the company decided to transfer me to—where else?—Tennessee Eastman. I lasted three days, three hours, and thirty minutes before I told them to shove it. I drove straight to the union hall and was given a referral to a powerhouse near Moundsville, WV. That town is noted for being the home of the West Virginia State Prison. The Wheeling local was in charge of providing electricians. The only good thing I can say about that job is that the first unit was online, and it was a warm place to work. even in the second unit where I was. I found poor and then good accommodations in New Martinsville.

On December 31, the morning began with a warm wind blowing from the south, with the temps in the 60s. By 1:00 pm it was snowing, and at quitting time, there was more than three inches on the ground and roads. Didn't matter. I was a die-hard Tennessee Volunteer football fanatic, and I wasn't about to miss seeing them play Air Force in the Sugar Bowl on January 1st. I gathered my two traveling buddies, and set out southward on Route 2, and finally got to I-77, where I made pretty good headway on to Charleston. There was a lot of traffic, but few accidents to avoid. There was 13" snow in Charleston, but we made it to the turnpike with little trouble. Soon after getting on that peculiar highway, traffic stopped. The toll both attendant at the Charleston end knew of the situation, but failed to tell any travelers about it. There was a tractor-trailer jack-knifed on a bridge at Cabin Creek. For you old sports fans, Cabin Creek is a small coal mining company town and the home to the great Jerry West of NBA fame.

Anyway, there we sat. After about an hour, the turnpike people came by and handed out coffee. Fortunately, I had the foresight to fill up with gasoline in Charleston. Sometime after midnight, the traffic began moving in just one lane. Of course, they allowed the north bound vehicles to go first, and before they all got by, another accident on another bridge stopped things again. To shorten the story, I pulled in home a 6:01 am., went to bed and got up at 11:30 am to watch the game. The snow had tapered off a lot before we got to Princeton WV, and there was absolutely none where I lived. The best part of the ball game was when a squirrel ran onto the field and eluded all attempts to corral him. 34-13 Big Orange!

I worked the job in Moundsville until near the end of January, when it was announced they were looking for volunteers for a layoff. I put my name in the hat, took the layoff, went home and drew rocking chair money off of WV until springtime.

Next, Sam and I return to Maryland.

Part Five...

Due to a miscalculation in August of 1968, by 1970 I was driving a 1966 T-Bird Landau with the sequential turn lights all the way across the back. It is now a classic. The miscalculation was that I thought I would celebrate my 24th birthday by pitching my first drunk... and driving. My uncle Fred, my first cousin Jerry, and I went to the liquor store and and bought a bottle of Mad Dog (cheap Mogen David 20/20 wine for you that have never partaken) and drove back home and drank it. Of course, we had to have more, so off we went in my pride and joy, a 1966 Chevelle SS 396 with 360+ hosses awaiting my command. I had weaseled around and talked my wife into letting me trade a perfectly good '63 Impala convertible which I had bought new for the brand new hotrod Chevelle. Needless to say I totaled the Chevelle that night. I was able to get it home, but I couldn't turn the steering wheel to the right. It was an interesting and sobering little journey. I ended up buying a 1955 Chevy two door sedan with a bored 283 engine that had a wrist pin slapping just to have transportation. Every two or so months, I had to pull the tranny and replace the throwout bearing because it somehow was working its way up on the snout of the input shaft cover. I finally sold it and bought the T-Bird with a 390 engine that seemingly would not top out. It was to carry me into the world of trampdom.

In March, 1970, I went over to the union hall (in Kingsport, of course) to see about finding work after having been fired from the Eastman. All the trade Locals in the Ohio Valley were on strike, and the closest work I could get was through Local 26 in Washington DC. They had a powerhouse job down on Hwy 301 in Maryland, along the Potomac river. Fortunately, they were working a lot of overtime at double-time pay, so I looked to make some big bucks. I left a scale of $4.25/hr at Eastman and went to a scale of $6.90 in DC.

The BA gave me a referral to DC, called and told them I was coming (and no telling what else) and sent me on my way. He failed to tell me others were going there and I could arrange to ride and share living expenses with one or more of them. The following Sunday and with one hundred borrowed dollars in my pocket, I said my goodbyes at about noon and hit the road. I arrived just outside DC in Virginia just before dark, found a motel room and a place to eat, called home, and went to bed, tired and anxious about what would happen the next day.

I got up the next morning and the T-Bird wouldn't start... dead battery. Luckily, I quickly located a used one that wasn't quite as dead as mine, put it in and went to seek my fortune in a place I had no business being.

I crossed the river into DC. Take into account I had never driven in a town bigger than Knoxville, except for a straight-through drive in Baltimore several years earlier. I had no idea where Kansas Avenue NE was except for a road map I bought for the occasion, but I was determined to get there. DC streets are laid out like a bunch of wheels inside a big wheel, at least that is how it seemed to me. I was driving eastward on Pennsylvania Avenue with the Capitol dome in my sights, and I wanted to get on Georgia Ave. heading north, but to my consternation, no left turns were allowed at that time of rush hour. Somehow I missed the turning place anyway, so I drove to the Capitol and around it and was headed in the direction of the White House with my own house beckoning me. I finally made a turn somewhere and drove in circles for a half hour or so, somehow passing the Capitol again, and getting back in Virginia (I think) at Arlington Cemetery. I got turned back around, once again drove by the Capitol building, and ended up on Tennessee Ave., which I thought was a good omen. It was a ghetto. All over everything in those neighborhoods was spray painted the figure of a black panther. They were painting even as I passed by. Was I scared? You couldn't have driven a hat pin in my asshole with a sledge hammer! Here is a car with tags from a southern state driving around in circles in a place where people are very pissed about their lot in life, and are known to distrust anyone white and especially anyone white and from the south. If looks could have killed, 365 days from that Monday, I would have been dead one year.

Somewhere in this wandering I passed near something called the National Arboretum. Didn't have a hillbilly clue as to what that was. Finally I spied the capitol dome once more, and once again kept it in my sights. At a big intersection, I spied a cop car and figured they would be able to point me to my destination. They were pretty far away, so to get their attention, I ran the red light and blew the horn. It didn't take them a minute to have me pulled over. Two very large and very black cops got out. I thought, 'Oh shit, I'm dead meat now or sure'. Actually they were very nice, but neither of them had a clue as to where Kansas Ave, NE was, but one of them did know about Georgia Avenue. It was only about a block or so away, and I felt relieved to get on it and drive northward to see what I could find. It was now 10:00 am, and I was supposed to be at the hiring hall at 7:30 am. Not good. Finally I saw the sign... KANSAS AVENUE NE. In about ten minutes, I was at the union hall.

Their BA wanted to send me downtown on an "assholes and elbows" job for 40 hrs/week. The definition of that is a job where one is bent over all day long running conduit where a floor is about to be poured. You walk by and see nothing but assess in the air and elbows flying, hard at work. I told him no thank you, and if he would be kind enough to point me in the general direction of south, I would be on my way. He got pissed and I got out. Before I could leave the parking lot, he flagged me down and threw a job referral through the window. It was for the Morgantown Maryland powerhouse, the place I wanted from the beginning. Again, I had to find my own way.