Flashback Friday # 180

Meet the Big Boss

A warm welcome to all who have ventured here from the cold, sterile area know as cyberspace. It will be warm indeed, since the subject is Summer. More specifically, the summer following my Freshman year in High School.

I told you in a former post that Dad had become a contractor. I went with Dad at times to the new homes he was working on as a finish carpenter. I had the responsibility of installing most of the hardware you see in a new house. That included installing all the cabinet & drawer pull and knobs. I also installed all the springy door stops. I also had to lay the track for the closet doors and hang the doors so they ran freely.

I also got to cut the underlayment that goes under the linoleum in the kitchens. Fortunately, there were few weird corners or angles in these kitchens. I could handle most of the straight cuts.

I did have a few problems, by times. Seeing that you use the materials that have been purchased by someone else, sometimes these material weren't the best. One time I was installing a sheet of underlayment that was wavy on one side. I used a whole box of nails to nail that piece down, so it wouldn't feel spongy. Just moments after I had told Dad that I had used a whole box of nails on that sheet, The BIG Boss shows up and asks how things are going. He looked around a bit, then walked across the sheet I had just nailed down. "Feels a little spongy.", he says. "You might want to put a few more nails in it." All Dad said was "Yes, Sir."

I also got the job of hanging the upper cabinets on the kitchens. Since I was smaller, and could get up on the counter tops easily, Dad wasted no time in showing me how to do it. Every kitchen in these house were the same, so if you did one, you knew how to do them all. One problem we had was that the cabinets weren't the best money could buy. Many times we had to repair them before we could hang them. Once the Big Boss arrived unannounced (once again to check on the progress). He asked what we thought of the cabinets that he had chosen. I (not knowing that this was the Big Boss) told him "We would probably be better off hanging the boxes they came in on the wall. They were much sturdier than the cabinets". He simply looked at me odd and walked away. Perhaps he never had anyone speak speak frankly to him before.

More about my summer jobs in later posts.