Starting at the bottom, 1940

[ErnieCopp]

Some members have expressed interest in hearing stories about some of the things I experienced along the path UP from the big Depression, and the advances and refinements i hve seen in Trucking, Heavy Equipment, and Technology. I consider an ADVANCEMENT to be when a new method or machine is developed, and a REFINEMENT is when that new method is improved. Putting wheels on the early drag scrapers to move more dirt was an advancement, but putting rubber tires on the wheels is a refinement.

The big Depression almost stopped the demand for almost everything, so while the Diesel Engines and Rubber Tires had been invented, with the lack of demand, very little had been done with either invention. When we left Kansas in 1936, they were grading and re paving Main Street, using Horses and Fresnos to move the dirt. When we got to California, they were still mixing large quantities of Concrete on platforms with about ten men, using shovels and hoes. So, as i entered the workforce in 1940, part time, and full time in 1941, I am one of the few men still living that had a ringside seat to all the ADVANCES that took place over the next 15 years and the refinement of those advances that continue to this day.

We were all very tired of being poor, as the depression had been several times as tough as the current recession has been. When jobs began to open up from the Defense Industry building equipment for the English and the Russian Lend Lease program, everyone that was able bodied either joined the Military before they were drafted, or went to work for what seemed like big money. I dropped out of the tenth grade in the Spring of 1941. I was big and strong enough to do a man's job, and no one ever questioned my age.

I was working in a Grocery warehouse, that was among the first to package Beans, Rice, Dried Fruit, etc., in plastic bags, as most items were still being sold from barrels or sacks, and measured into paper bags by the Grocers. That warehouse was organized by the Teamsters and i was given a Union membership for my help, in November of 1941.

Pearl Harbor was bombed about three weeks later on December 7th. In February, my brother and I saw a small ad in a newspaper, offering to train Equipment Operators that were willing to go to Christmas Island, South of Hawaii. The instructions were to come to an address downtown L A. I was 15, and my brother ws 18, but I looked older than he did.

Apparently very few men were interested in going to Hawaii to work that soon after Pearl Harbor, because only two other men besides my brother and I, showed up. The address was a vacant lot, and there was a Tournapull there, which was the first rubber tired, self propelled earthmover. We had never seen one before. But it had a Cummins engine in it, and a four speed transmission like trucks had. We were told how the control levers worked, but could not load it as it required a push cat. We each got on it, and drove it around, showing the guy we knew how to double clutch and shift, etc. so he told us to bring our Birth Certificates and go to the office the next week. We confirmed that we had to have Birth Cetificates, so that was the end of that road for me. My brother had his, and he was hired ,and left me with a burning desire to be a Heavy Equipment Operator. Not being able to let anyone see my Birth Certificate also kept me from working in Shipyards or Airplane plants, but there were plenty of other jobs available. To be continued.

 

[ErnieCopp]

Part 2. Spring of '42 to Early Summer of '43.

It is very hard to compare the general mood and attitude, between 1940 and now, but i will try. We had absolute optimism that things were going to get better, but our desires and expectations were very low. We did not even think about big houses or new cars. We just wanted decent places to live, and a car that would run. As those small desires were more likely to come true, we did not suffer much from the current widespread feelings of dissatifaction, protests, envy, frustration, or what ever it is that causes the anger between different classes and groups now. I did not have a home from 1941 until i got married in late 1945, but i never considered myself "Homeless", or felt like a victim. There were many others in the same situation, and we considered ourselves to be "Out on our own". This is just a small example of the difference in the general attitudes between the two eras. There are especially large differences in Patriotism, Self Respect, Pride of Country, Independence, and all of those foundation stones that support the people we are. I do not know what, if anything, will ever restore that Spirit.

Spring of '42 to Early Summer of '43.

To return to the narrative, after my Brother shipped out to work on Christmas Island, in the Spring of '42, I hitchhiked to San Francisco, trying to get a job overseas, but was blocked again by the requirement for a Birth Certificat3, so I went to Kingman, AZ where they were starting to build the Army Air Force Base, and got a job driving a dumptruck, hauling baserock from the Crushing site, for the runway. It was just a five yard, two axle dumptruck, but it was a good job for a beginner. After that job was done, I relocated to Flagstaff, and got a job on the Belmont Ammunition Depot. I had a clearance from the Operating Engineers as an Oiler, and joined a crew that would drive around the site, greasing and fueling the equipment. I learned quite a bit about doing that, but Flagstaff is at several thousand feet altitude, and it got very cold in the Autumn. My next move was to Wasco, North of Bakersfield, CA, where i hoped to get a job leveling farm land, but rainy season was starting, so I did not get that job.

But a man staying at the same hotel in Wasco stopped me in the hallway, and offered me a job as a Roughneck on his Drill rig, working on the Conoco lease about 20 miles West of Wasco. His name was Elmer Whipple, his father had been a Well Drilling Contractor on the Signal Hill and Huntington Beach fields in CA, but the depression had stopped that. Since they could not sell the oil they had, there were no new wells being drilled during the depression.

But as there was then a demand for more Drill Rigs because of the War. Elmer had resurrected a very large Steam Powered rig, and started San Joaquin Drilling Co. The nucleus of the crew, drillers, derrickmen and firemen were nostly from the oil fields in East Texas, but the simpler jobs were filled by hiring and training locals.
The older hands were the toughest meanest bunch I ever worked with, but once they accepted you, then they were very loyal friends. An example of how rough they were is this: There was another young fellow working there, Paul, that was a heavy sleeper. We worked three, 8 hour shifts, seven days a week, and changed shift every week. The rules were, that when we were not putting pipe in the ground or taking it out, the Day and Swing shifts had to keep busy cleaning, painting or repairing the rig. But the graveyard shift got to take naps or rest in the doghouse while the Driller was just drilling. But when we were called out we had to respond immediately. It takes all five men to handle the pipe, and Paul did not respond and had to be called twice.
The Driller told him that was not allowed and it better never happen again. But instead of waiting until it did happen, the Driller waited until Paul was sound asleep, and he tied a short piece of rope to his ankle and the bench leg, then threw a bucket of water on him at the same time he yelled at him to get up. Paul jumped up, and fell hard. It was not meant as a practical joke, it was just his way of teaching Paul to never be late again.

Paul realized he would never be accepted by those men, so left a few days later. I fit in better with them, and they taught me a lot, not only about drilling oil wells, but about life, how to protect yourself in dangerous situations, and just their brand of manhood in general.

It was cold, wet, hard work, and as it took a full crew to operate, if a man on the relieving crew did not show up, one of the men of the prior crew had to double shift, and work 16 hours, so we were all very tired.

When we finished the job on the Conoco lease, we moved the to another site west of Hanford, Elmer bought a second rig, and I was promoted to Derrickman, that handles the top end of the stand of pipe. A stand consisted of three, thirty foot joints of four inch pipe. When a stand is unscrewed on the floor, the Pipe Racker pulls the bottom of the pipe over to the corner of the rig floor, and that causes the top end to sway over to where the Derrickman can reach out and pull the top end in to the corner, as the driller sets the bottom on the floor. It requires a certain rhythm between the Racker, the Driller and the Derrickman. The derrickman, before OSHA, stood on a Monkey Board, a 2x12, with cleats on the bottom, laid across the corner of the derrick. We had a leather belt around our waste and that was tied to the derrick as we had to reach way out to grab the pipe. I am sure it is much safer now.

The access to the top was by a simple ladder attached to the outside of the derrick, No cage, no landings, just one straight climb. But a good driller is always in a hurry to get started, so he did not want to wait while i climbed the ladder. So, i usually was sent up one of the other two ways. The traveling block that hoisted the pipe had, i believe, 12 sheaves, and the mechanics of that means the "fast line", which is the line running to the draw works, must travel twelve times as far as the traveling block. So, to reverse that, you need to let out 96 feet of line to lower the block 8 feet. So, the quickest way to get me to up to the monkey board, was to have me climb up on the draw works, grab the 1 1/8" cable with one hand, wrap one leg around the cable and use my other hand to fend off the derrick, Then the Driller would lower the block about 8 feet and Presto, i would be carried up to the level of the board. I would step off on the derrick and walk around to the board. That was the quickest, but my favorite way was to ride the elevator up. Two bales hung down from the block, about 2" forged links over six feet long, and supported the latching clamp that gripped the pipe. That clamp was called the 'elevator'. I would stand on that, and the driller would hoist me up. I would pump in a bit of swing and the driller would time the hoist so i would be closest to the board and just take a big step across. And if he was in a good mood, he would bring me down that way. There was faster way to come down, but i was never much of a jumper, so i never tried that. But some others have done it. That was to have the driller wait before he lowered the last stand of pipe in the hole, and the derrick man would jump far enough to grab the pipe and slide down, like the firemen slide down in firehouse.

I loved working with the Steam engine, and am very sorry i did not get some pictures of it, but cameras were very rare back then. I do not recall seeing a single camera during those years. But the two best things about working with Steam, is there is sometimes a harmony like effect where the chuffing of the exhaust valves and beat of the pistons seem to match up generally with either our heartbeats or our breathing. Not in exact time of course, but in a soothing way. The other thing that makes steam so wonderful is the simplicity of it.
The torque is produced by the pressure of the steam, so transmissions are not required. The torque is about the same at 1 RPM as and 20 RPMs, and in our case, the Steam valve was a wheel mounted on a sliding horizontal shaft. Turning the wheel controlled the amount of steam, and sliding the rod or wheel back and forth, changed it from forward to reverse. It was very powerful, as we had three boilers about the size of tanker truck tanks, one of the boilers was for superheating the steam from the other two. There were two cylinders and trying to recollect now, probably close to 16 or 18 inches diameter overall.

After working every day without a day off, for 8 months or so, with lots of double shifts, i had saved up enough money to buy a good motorcycle, and and i wanted to get back into construction, so I left the Oilfield work and never returned, but benefitted in many different ways from what those good men taught me. They allowed me to make mistakes, if i only made them once, played their practical jokes on me, and finally accepted me into their group. I never kept in touch with any of them, but i often think of how tough it must have been working in the Oil Fields during the deepest part of the depression, and what tough men those conditions produced.
To be continued.......

 

[Slowngreen]

Good story man. What bike did you buy when you left working in the oilfields?

 

[w_r_ranch]

LOL!!! Don't get Ernie sidetracked... I ran here this morning to read his next post, but I imagine he was busy... I love hearin about other people's experiences!

 

[ErnieCopp]

'38 Harley 61 Cubic inch, OHV. They call them Knuckleheads now, but we did not use that term. That was my Third, Best, and Last bike. First was a '36, flathead, 74 cu in, second was a "39 Knucklehead, but it had neutral between 2nd and 3rd, and could not be speed shifted, so i did not keep it very long. The bike was what I spent my money on, so i had it hopped up about as far as i could take it.

Ernie

 

[ErnieCopp]

Sam,
I will probably right another segment tonight, as writing and thinking about it is stirring up a lot of things I have not thought about in many years. I just wish my short term memory was as sharp and clear as things that happend 79 years ago are.

Ernie

 

[ErnieCopp]

PART 3, STARTING AT THE BOTTOM. SUMMER '43 TO SUMMER '44.

That summer was a bit of a setback or let down for me as I learned very little of consequence. I returned to L. A, and caught up on some of the social life I had missed the last two years of working on remote construction sites and in the Oilfields, my work was mostly delivering freight or working in warehouses. I worked out on the Mohave Desert on a couple of jobs at Mohave Air Base and Inyo Kern, but defense work was slowing down so the attitude had changed drastically during the two years since I had started. Both the contractors and the employees seemed to realize that not much more work of that type would be needed so that job might be the last. The sense of urgency was gone, and they seemed to be taking as much time as they could. I was just not enjoying it anymore. But as winter came along I did find an interesting job, when I applied for a truck driving job at Century Oil Company, I expected to be drivig a small two axle tractor pulling a single axle tanker delivering fuel oil to schools for the Los Angeles School district.
But they offered me the job of driving the large tanker truck that hauled the Fuel oil from Long Beach refineries to their Depot in downtown L A. It was the same size as current tankers, but because trucks and trailers were so much heavier then, it could only haul 5500 gallons. I told the boss I had never driven a truck with a full trailer, but he said that would not be a problem as i could drive through both the loading and unloading stations. The truck was a 1A double ignition White, with a huge six cylinder gas motor, with a spark plug on each side of the cylinder head. It had as much or more power than the 150 HP Cummins diesel.

It was several years old, early or mid thirties, hard to steer and shift, which was probably why none of the other drivers wanted the job, but I was happy to take it. But I was concerned about not being able to back it up, and did not want to have to learn with a bunch of people watching me, so on the first Sunday, I went in and practiced backing it up around the big circular driveway in the yard.

I did not know this at the time, but the very easiest full trailers to back up is when the length of the tongue from the front axle of the trailer is the same length as the distance from the rear truck axle to the trailer hitch. If one of those lever arms is much shorter than the other one, it makes it difficult, or almost impossible to recover to follow after turning. But i was very fortunate that those were nearly the same on that truck, and by the end of the day, O was able to back around the corners of the oval and then straighten up. And it happened that i did need to know that before the winter was over. I made a dollar an hour and was told i could work all the hours i wanted to, so many nights i just slept a few hours on a table in the office, and made as many loads a day as i could. When the weather warmed up in late February, they did not need as much fuel oil so my hours were reduced, and i moved on.

My next job was with Belyea Trucking Company, the leading Heavy Trucking and Rigging Company in So. CAL at the time. I hired on as a driver and was assigned a 39 Dodge Tractor pulling a 22 ' single axle flatbed, just hauling freight. I think they had about 10 or 12 of those small rigs, along with a dozen or so Diesel powered three axle trucks pulling two axle lowbeds. Then the pride of their fleet were two sets of Double Gooseneck seven axle lowbeds. Those were the only two in So. CAL, and Bigge Drayage owned two more up in the Bay Area.

I had only been there a couple of weeks when the relief driver or helper for one of the big rigs did not show up for work. I was just coming in, and was the only one available, so they told me to go with that driver and help him.
That stroke of luck, or Blessing, turned out to be as valuable for me as the time in the Oilfields, as Chet London, the Driver, liked my work and kept me with him from then on.

Our truck was a Sterling, with a 150 hp Cummins, which was the biggest available then, but to handle the heavier work, it and the Fageol truck on the other set of trailers, had been geared down to a top speed of 28 mph. They had identical setups because the Fageol had to push our truck when we had to go up more hill than we could make on our own. We had four speed main transmissions, with 3 speed Brown-lipe Auxiliary, and the Brownies had a double under drive. Everything had to be split shifted in those days, but when our trucks were in First Gear and Double Under, the Brownie had to be split with the main box in order to get it up to direct.

It was up to our two trucks to move everything that was too heavy for a five axle lowbed, and those loads ranged from huge diesel motors for ships, to big Cranes and Shovels and Ditching machines. We worked long hours, Chet was about 50 years old and was exhausted, and except when we were in real difficult situations or when i was needed on top of the loads to fight off trolley car cables or powerlines, or on the ground helping turn corners, he allowed me to drive. As such low speeds, you have very little momentum when shifting, so shifts had to be made quickly, but the trannies had to be syncrhonized by double clutching, so it was a real interesting learning experience which i enjoyed tremendously. It was another situation like the oilfields where comfort comes last, as we would sometimes be on the road for several days, and when we could not go any more, Chet had a bedroll and he would sleep a few hours on the trailer, and i would sleep sitting in the cab. and then go again.

I worked with Chet until August of 1944, learning how to start and load a lot of the heavy equipment that we moved, but the big cranes and shovels always had operators to load them. Our work with the Crane and Rigging Company also taught me a lot of very useful ways and means to get things done. But in August I dropped the heavy skid or ramp that we used to load equipment with, on my foot, and had to take a few days off. I was nearing my 18th Birthday, knew that i had learned about all there was to learn about Truck driving, so i told them i would not be coming back when my foot healed. Again, i hated to leave such good men, that had been so good to me, but i went to the Operating Engineers Union office and signed up with then August 15th, the day before my birthday.

Just a few years ago, I had written an article about Belyea Trucking and how we moved heavy loads in the early days, and i was contacted by a fellow that restores old Sterling trucks. As Belyea had been one of leading users of the Sterlings, I gave him all the information i could recall about them and he sent me some pictures of the double gooseneck trucks we used. I will try to attach a couple of them. I am not in those photos, but in some of the ones he sent, I was able to identify the drivers for him.

 

[ErnieCopp]

PART 4, STARTING AT THE BOTTOM. AUGUST '44 TO AUGUST '45

I mentioned in the previous segment that the sense of urgency had dissipated on Military construction jobs, and that also applied to the general attitude of the population. The thrill of having a good job with money in our pockets had worn off, and that was made even worse because there was very little to buy. Prices for most items were frozen and many of them required ration stamps, People were tired of standing in line to buy things so they started cheating with their ration stamps. Merchants were cheating by diverting some of their merchandise allotments to the blackmarket where they could get much more for it than the frozen prices were, and even women were tired of being lonely, waiting for years for someone that might never come back, so they started cheating, too. Many people were just war weary, and enthuiasm and optimism were way down. People continued to work, and go through the motions, and just tried to make the best of it.

After i had signed up with the Operating Engineers I was dispatched out of the hall for some of the simpler pieces of equipment that i had listed as being able to operate, but there was very little civilian construction work going on. It was very difficult to get many items like pipe or electric wire or other building supplies, and nearly everyone believed when the Defense plants shut down that the country would sink back into another depression.

After working a few short jobs, nothing exciting or important, i saw an ad that a company was hiring Truck Drivers, Operators and other craftsmen for a job near Pasco, WA, and they would furnish a train ticket that was to be paid for from our paychecks. I could now show my Birth Certificate, and a friend of mine and i signed up to go. But Red Reeves, my friend changed his mind before we got there and dropped off in Yakima WA to find some friends of his that were making good money picking apples.

When I checked in, I found out the dirt work had all been done, and they did not need any of us, except to pad their payroll. We did not know it at the time but that became Hanford, where they were building the Atom Bomb. They finally assigned me to drive a Schoolbus, and my entire work day consisted of taking a load of men a few miles out onto the site, to where they were building scattered buildings, and i would wait until the men finished their work and drive them back to the camp. It was just a scam to they were pulling, as it was Cost Plus work and the more they spent, the more they made. I detested the job, and as soon as I had paid my train ticket debt, I quit.

I met up with Red over in Selah, and as he had not liked picking apples, we took a bus to Seattle. We were nearly broke when we got there, so we checked in with the Longshoremen's Union, and were sent out to load a ship with supplies for the military. The name of the ship was SACAJAWEA, one of the Concrete Ships that Kaiser had built to supply the war. The cargo was sent down into the holds on pallets and then hand stacked tightly so it would not shift. We were loading beer in our hold, and they had a guard there to keep some of the drinkers from getting into it. Red was in a different hold, loading gallon cans of peaches and other fruit,without a guard. We barely had enough money to buy bread and baloney, so we were not getting enough to eat. But i did not find out until later that in Red's hold, they were cutting the tops out of some cans and eating all the canned fruit they wanted. As i was going hungry, that upset me, as he always took a full share of the bread and baloney.

We were paid off as soon as the ship was loaded, and we split up and hitchhiked back to L. A. That was the last of my rambling, and I settled down in CA for several years after that. I soon found a steady job with a small Asphalt Paving Company and started learning useful things again. I was the only operator and had several small pieces of equipment to run as they were needed, drove the truck and did the mechanic work. But the main thing was learning a lot about Asphalt Paving, which i liked. Most of the work was for 20th Century Fox Studios, located on about 5 or 600 acres just west of Beverly Hills, where Century City is now. They would keep changing and building different Movie sets on the lot, and when they were shooting, we had to shut down all the equipment and not make any noise. I am not a big movie fan, but it was an interesting place to work.

I worked there until the War ended in August , 1945, and then left to run bigger and better equipment. To everyone's surprise, the return to the Depression did not happen, because when all the Servicemen returned and started marrying their girlfriends, they needed houses to live in, and while the boom started and stopped several times, it did keep booming off and on for the next 20 years.

To be Continued.......

 

[ErnieCopp]

PART 5, 1945 to 1949. STARTING AT THE BOTTOM, AND REACHING THE TOP.

No one had expected or forecast what was coming, and after 10 years of depression and 5 years of war, we had nothing in our experience to even dream of what was going to take place. All the evidence was there, but no one that I heard or read, seemed to foresee it. So, we were happy our relatives and friends that had survived were coming home. Both of my Brothers made it back as did most of my friends. Most were healthy but some had emotional problems, we were all looking for work as the defense work had stopped, and the depression never happened.

Some of the reasons were, the population in the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area expanded between 50% and 100%, with people that had flocked in for defense work, returning military, etc.. and while it had been expected most of the migrants would return home, few of them did. There had been no infrastructure improvements to speak of for the past 15 years, so Roads, Flood Control, Sewers, Utilities, Housing, everything, needed to be doubled from what it was. Private investors were still holding back on devlopments, except for houses, but the State and County seemed to have enough money to get the ball rolling, and Public Work jobs were being planned and put out for bid.

We were still using the old prewar equipment, but Caterpillar, Barber Greene and other equipment manufacturers were now free to sell to the contractors, some surplus military construction equipment was becoming available. Manufactures could sell the same equipment they had been making as fast as they could build it, so they did not change the basic design until they had to do so, in order to meet competition.

The experience I had gained operating heavy equipment, bit by bit over the past years made me as qualified as anyone else at that time so i became one of a loose group of operators that would move from one big job to the next as the grading and paving was completed. The large national companies like Kiewit, Morrison Knudsen, Atkinson, etc, would get the big jobs, bring in their management and then hire the rest of us locally. We lived in housetrailers and moved from job to job, within about hundred mile radius of Los Angeles. A lot of the work was widening the main highways going North and East, a ten million yard dike to protect the Coachella Canal from damage from flash flooding, and finally, in 1949, turning Mines Field, a local airport, into LAX International Airport.

When we started, most of the dirt was moved with Cats and Scrapers, and everything was controlled with cables and clutches. Hydraulics had been improved to the point that could be used for power steering and brake assists, so new rubber tired earthmovers were being used more, but the equipment was still mechanical, and required above average strength and endurance to push and pull those levers all day. Many of the cranes required the operators to almost stand on their brake pedals so their weight would help put enough pressure on the brakes.
Add the , the noise, the heat, and the dust, and that narrowed the pool of men that were both willing and physically able to operate the equipment at that time.

I started out like all the others, just running whichever was available when they hired me, Cats and scrapers, Bulldozers, Rubber tired scrapers, and Motor Graders, but as time passed i developed a preference for the Motor Graders, generally called blades in CA, and by other names in some states in the Midwest. For simple work, like smoothing the shoulder along the road, or clearing snow, it is very easy and very boring, but the challenge and fascination is when the machine is used for making Final or Fine Grade, in preparation for the pavement. Doing that work makes the blade the most difficult, most challenging and most interesting of all the different machines. The specifications generally call for that final grade to be within 2 hundreths of a foot, or about a 1/4". Stakes are driven in the base rock with the tops flush with the designed grade, and the operator cuts or fills the grade to just flush with the top of the stake. He has a helper that works with a shovel to clean off the stake top after he passes over it. The stakes are generally placed 50 feet apart longways and 25' crossways, or exactly at any grade break, but when the grade is checked, the inspector does not check at the stakes, he checks in between. So the operator must carry the grade he has at one stake all the way to the next stake, with the cross slope of his moldboard at the proper angle to match the designed grade.

There was a very small percentage of operators that had the eyesight, the coordination, and could withstand the pressure to do that, but a few of us enjoyed the challenge. The pressure was intensified by the genteel money war that was being waged between the contractor and the resident engineer over that quarter inch of tolerance that was allowed. The Contractor did not mind if you left the rock a little above grade, as he could save some very expensive asphalt and still reach the designed grade at the top, but he did not want the grade low, as it would cost him extra asphalt.

The Resident Engineer felt the exact opposite, as he did not want the grade higher than the maximum ,002, above the stake, but it was okay with him if it was low as that would require extra asphalt that made the road stronger.

I was holding my first job as a Finish Blade operator on my 20th Birthday, in 1946. I remember that date because my daughter was also born while i was on that job. I was not able to do that work steady, as that is a small part of every big grading job, but as time passed, i did more and more of that, and less of the other machines. As the economy grew, and there was more demand for Finish Blademen, those of us that could do it were spoiled and became, i am sorry to say, a bunch of Prima Donnas, with no idea that within 15 years or so, our prestige would be taken away by the development of Lasers and such that made equipment controls possible that did away with the need for dealing with Prima Donna blademen anymore. I later went on to become a Highway Paving Contractor myself, and had other successes, but i never found anything else that was as difficult, as challenging, nor as satisfying as being a Finish Blademan during the last years of the mechanical heavy equipment.

As the years passed, no real advances were made in the equipment, but refinements were making it a little easier to operate, which widened the pool of potential operators. More powerful Diesel motors became available, allowing for bigger versions of the old designs, but we were still held back by having to use Gears, Clutches and Cables to do the actual work. Manufacturers kept trying Electric and Hydraulic motors but they were either too weak or oslow to compete. And we were still using those methods when we built LAX Airport in 1949.

My progress was interrupted on the LAX job when i was crushed between the front bumper on a rubber tired earthmover and the tracks on a bulldozer. That put me in traction for six months, then they sawed my thigh bone in two, plated it, and i spent another six months and two weeks before i could get back to work.

When i was able to return, i resumed working as a Finish Blade Operator, Operated Cranes, and moved into supervision before starting my own contracting company in 1954. Parts of that company is still being run by my children and grandchildren, but nothing that has happened to me since 1946 has been any better than reaching the top as a Finish Blademan, so i will stop my part of it here.

On the Heavy Equipment, Automation, Servoswitches, Laser controls, were all either minor improvements or refinements, but the first big advance was about 1960, when hydraulics, both pumps and hoses, that could handle enough pressure to operate bulldozers and other equipment satisfactorily. That provided the one thing that we had needed the most when i was a catskinner and that was Downpressure, which we did not have with the cable operated machinery.

Then the second big advance was about 1975, when Hitachi developed even better hydraulic motors that made the Excavators possible. Those machines have truly revolutionized constrution, and with the fingertip, or toe tip, controls, computers, AC cabs, etc., brute strength is no longer required and a 120 pound lady can run these modern machines just as well as a 220 pound man can.

Any questions, comments, discussions, or differing opinions are welcome.

Ernie