grew up in a different time. We used kerosene lights when I was young. When I first started, there weren’t very good working conditions, kind of nasty work. Yah, it was fun for a while.

After the military, it probably took me a while to get over that one. I didn’t know what I wanted for a few years. I probably went back into construction just because of the excitement or whatever. In the 60s and early 70s it was still rugged out there in construction. Usually the foreman had to be the biggest one on the crew to whoop the rest of them everyday. Seemed like in some areas everybody carried a gun. It wasn’t dull. Just like flying night missions in Nam taking 10,000 rounds a night, it ain’t dull.

It’s just always amazing when a product starts in that door and goes out the back door and they do what it’s supposed to do all the way through. It just don’t get any better than that. You ride by that plant and say “I helped wire that.” To be able to understand what’s happening when you flip that switch and that light comes on, well, that’s something.

Construction work is not hard if you’ve got a plan and go about it the right way. You can make it hard on yourself. I like looking at a set of prints and figuring out what’s got to get done first, how many men does it take, what’s going to happen as the job moves on, and make sure that you are not backing yourself into corners. It’s a challenge, but it’s not hard.

I think the way you do your job reflects on your whole life. Cause usually the ones that don’t take the job seriously, they don’t take their family seriously. It seems that way to me.

You’ve got to work to put bread on the table so you might as well be doing something you like. And if you know you’ve got to, then you get out there and do it. Next thing you know, you like it.

Stories from the Field