9 minutes ago, Frosty said:

I always liked gas welding, less demanding than Tig but the same.

I didn't find TIG so much demanding as very confining. Mikey don't like that! Oxyacetylene welding allowed me to "set my own terms." Of course I was doing it on steel pipe refrigeration systems. And more often then not being forced to mirror weld, so the jobs themselves were more than a little confining. Still, I just loved gas welding. One of my favorite things about being a ship-fitter/welder on factory trawlers in the Bearing Sea was that the damp and salt air wreaked their fancier welding equipment, so I got to stick and gas weld a lot.

I moved to Bremerton WA from Anaheim CA to start the new year in 1971, and enrolled in the welding program at their junior college, intending to get a degree in it. I used to come over to Seattle on the weekends to work on "Noah" Brown's steel hauled forty-five foot "fishing vessel," which he was building in his front yard. He wanted to use #7018 electrodes of course, but only had an old Lincoln AC "cracker box" to work with. I was the first guy who could weld out of position with those conditions, and was making enough money on the weekends to keep me in school. More importantly, while still learning to certify, I also learned that what all the experts say "can't be done," usually only means that they can't do it. I also learned that doing the tough jobs will mean you eat well when the slackers are rooming four to a car.

Marriage the following year meant goodby to a degree and hello to Todd Shipyards, but the weekend lessons stuck; I went right on learning and striving to be one of the best at work. By 1984 the big yards were closed or down to skeleton crews, and the slackers were again sleeping four to a car...I went to back to work on fishing vessels in Ballard and in Alaska, and had a ball for another decade. Okay, the Bearing Sea was never a ball...but it was a fascinating learning experience. The last such, was when about half a dozen of the boat kids came to visit Kathy and me in Seattle; It seemed cool, since I never play around; but they kept bringing up chances I took. Each time she would give me her best chilling smile. It was good that I never intended to go back. Know what I mean, fellow husband type?      

By demanding I mean Tig is finickier about having everything set right, maybe more technical. It's very much specialty welding I had little call to do, a little pressure vessel was about it. 

Moved from Anaheim to Bremerton in 71? Early enough to miss the Sylmar quake Feb 9th 1971, 6:01am? We lived almost between the hospitals and maybe 3 miles from the farthest. The VA Hospital being oldest took the worst damage. This was the scene of the most fatalities in the quake, 45 I think. 

The Olive View hospital only looks like it's in better condition, it's a little more than 1 floor shorter than when it was built. Fortunately it was almost all parking, IIRC there weren't any fatalities here.

It sure brought back memories hunting for these pics online. 

I found a pic of what I was looking for of the Olive View Hospital. In the above pic on the far left you can see one wing leaning away from the main building. Below is the wing that toppled. The gray structures above the cop are the roof and the narrow part to the right are the elevators. Most of the patients who rode it down came through with minor injuries, many walked out.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Yup! I crossed the state line in the morning on January first, and drove straight through to Bremerton, before giving up and going to sleep. Dad and I had driven to Arizona to see my brother, and then stayed overnight in Vegas on the way back. He wanted to go back to the coast before driving North, because of a white out in Nevada, but I refused to set foot back in that state, so we drove straight through; about 31 hours worth. I never looked back, and didn't even hear about the quake. Learning a trade, and then being in business delayed my departure for elsewhere (anywhere), for seven very long years after high school. Once gone, I staid good and gone! 

Oh MAN, you were that close and didn't make the short hop across the border and take 395. <sigh> That west side of the Sierra Nevada are almost non-stop obsidian beds and at that time lots of agriculture and small towns an actually pleasant place to drive visit and rockhound. The tribes were friendly though being part Modoc didn't hurt, did a little obsidian knapping every trip. 

Hmmm, funny that, I held a job in Burbank Cal for about 1 year after graduating high school and flew to Alaska to visit my Brother next July and never went back. Oh a couple trips to collect some things, sell or give away the rest but never for more than short visits. 

Frosty The Lucky.

You are right about that. We drove north up the east side of the  Sierra Nevada range. The beginning of that trip was utterly boring (night driving through a white out), but the next day was spent driving beside a river through mountain valleys, ending in a valley of farm land in Oregon; hundreds of miles of interesting. I only remember the highlights, since so much of the trip was at night.

You wrote "...and flew to Alaska to visit my Brother next July and never went back." 

  If I had left for Seattle right after high school, I would probably have become a ship's welder within a year, and ended up moving to Alaska before long; especially since Kathy would only have been eleven back in 1964. Getting married is what nailed my feet here.

  It was kind of funny. Kathy and two of her friends moved from Ballard (a neighborhood of Seattle) to Bremerton right after graduation, and attended Jr. college there; all three of them got their Mrs. degrees, while the local girls were busy playing games. The difference? They knew what they wanted, and bagged their quarry without messing around. Single mindedness should never be underestimated   

I was a month over 2 years out of high school, I graduated in June 70 and moved to Ak in July 72. I moved here after I stopped going to college, I only needed to be told they weren't really teaching the subject they were socializing us, 2 times to stop going. I didn't drop out I figured they'd figure it out. More than 30 years later I got a letter with self addressed metered envelope explaining how important it was for school funding that they have an accurate accounting of graduates and went on to ask what degree I earned and how many class years I attended. Seems my school records weren't complete. The promise was to send my degree as soon as they could "recover" my records.

I tossed the envelope but later realized the diploma and degree didn't mean anything anyway and I could've gotten better treatment working for the state if I'd had ANY kind of degree. I probably should've chosen a harmless degree, checked the master's box and gotten a little back for the taxes I spent in Cal.

After a few years the geologist and I got on each other's nerves, sometimes loudly. I read lots of science books of all kinds while he and the other driller read Clive Cussler,  Stephen King, James Michener, etc. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed a lot of their work but I read other stuff and caught crap as a know it all. One that used to BEG for a rejoinder was the, "You're just lucky you know so much."

I got called into the supervisor's office along with a number of other office folk probably to witness my dressing down and when it was the field geologist's turn to flay me he all but shouted that, "I can know something when I have a degree!"

Amazingly three of the upper level guys looked to me in anticipation while the bridge supervisor, the field Geo and two others looked at me anticipating a look of contrition or something. My response was soft just strong a whisper, everybody at the table leaned forward to hear me. (That is SO MUCH more effective than shouting) I looked the field geo in the eye and said, I know the important stuff, how much do YOU make a year? Being a salaried employee he didn't make any more working 6/10s in the field than he did writing reports in the office. I made 1 1/2 over 7.5hrs/day or 37.5/week and Saturdays and 2 1/2 on Sundays or over 60 hrs.  Working through lunch was a set 1 1/2 unless it was Sunday then it was 1 1/2 + 2x for 3 1/2 time. Holidays was always 2 1/2 time unless it was  Sunday.

I traded prestige and bragging rights for about 3x the salary and didn't have to write reports. Heck, I even had my own desk and a drafting table in the drill shop office.

For practical intents I held 2 welding certifications, Pipe and structural and Pressure vessel, plus metal shop classes and drafting from jr high (middle school) and high school plus 2 semesters in college. College level drafting and metal arts was close to metal shop 1 in jr. high. College drafting was the first time I'd seen a drafting arm and I was in love at first sight. I lasted maybe 2 weeks in that class, the instructor couldn't operate the drafting arm and we sat through a whole class while he tried to draw a box.

I still regret not just taking knowledge from college regardless of how poor they were at teaching. There was a huge library and some genuinely knowledgeable and friendly people to talk to. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have skipped class and seized an education in the student union and library instead. It was about it became legal to challenge a course for earned credit.

Sorry, school in S. Cal still gripes me. I'll turn off rant mode.

Frosty The Lucky.

I didn't run out of patience with Jr. collage classes; just ran out of time and money 

However, two years in business taught me the lesson of always self-teaching on the job; it served me well for the next half century 

If we desire to learn, knowledge is there for the taking, wherever we go.

Exactly. I was taking night classes while working a 40hr week. A normal day involved about 2 hrs. commute in LA traffic and the college was another 2 hrs. commute, though being in the evening traffic wasn't bad. Still, nothing offered was new, heck some classes were exactly the same as I'd passed in jr. high and high school. Same books, quizzes, tests, homework, final, everything. I turned in the same final report paper for American history 4 times over the years. The only difference was each time it was edited better. It followed George Armstrong Custer's military career and got an A each time. It was a good thing I kept the book I'd been given in high school. Being night classes none of the stores, library, sometimes the campus coffee shop was open but not usually. I wouldn't have been able to buy the book in college without taking time off work. 

It's funny, I didn't learn the truth about teaching and learning till I started teaching blacksmithing. It's not possible to "teach" anybody something, all you CAN do is present information in a digestible manner and answer questions. Learning is up to the student.

It still irks me. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

4 hours ago, Frosty said:

t's not possible to "teach" anybody something, all you CAN do is present information in a digestible manner and answer questions. Learning is up to the student.

My favorite lesson on teaching/learning came in a similar way. One of the things I did while editing Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, & Kilns was to teach a class of four how to make their own 3/4" burner and five-gallon gas forge, using my book notes.  Three of the students did fine, and worked without a hitch, but the fourth guy had an anxiety problem over his burner; there wasn't a thing wrong with his work on it. His problem was that he thought the whole deal was just too good to be true. He had worked himself up to maximum self doubt. So, I carefully followed every detail of his construction steps, and insisted he adjust and light up his burner. You should have seen his eyes when a perfect flame appeared on it!

The lesson for me? Self doubt can be a student's biggest problem. This guy was a commercial airlines pilot. But logic was little help to him, when he got to wanting something too much, and all but convinced himself that "therefore it couldn't be possible"

Big issues in life can swing on such tiny worries 

I've seen that sort of thing, suffered it myself. An airline pilot's job is to do everything as perfectly as possible, lots of lives depend on it. It becomes a reflex to apply it to everything you do and can be really hard to step out of the box.

How many times have you heard, "It can't be THAT simple!"

Frosty The Lucky.

Seeing as we are chronicling our early days, let me chime in here. The only thing that kept me out of college was high school.

I started my junior year in high school with English as my first class and Gym as my second class. The English teacher absolutely hated me due to my brother being in her class three years earlier.

I worked out a solution by trading Gym for English so I would have a different English teacher (Gym first and English second) which both teachers agreed to. I went to the counselor and she said “you are 16 why not just quit”. I said give me the paper’s and turned them in the next day and was out of there.

I went to work full time at a Sunoco full service gas station where I was working part time making good money at the time. From the service station I got a job at an independent auto parts/machine shop store working as a counter man/ delivery driver/ and machinist assistant. Making double the money.

While working there for 3 years I got my draft notice and passed the physical so I went right over to the USCG recruiting office and enlisted. Vietnam was heating up and I didn’t see me as a ground pounder.  While in the Coast Guard I obtained my GED and several college courses.
When my 4 years active duty were up I found a job at a Cadillac dealership as a counterman. Worked my way up there to Parts Manager and Assistant Parts Director of the owners other 6 dealerships. Retired from there after 17 years to move to Arkansas.

In Arkansas I changed careers and became a Police Officer, retired again second in command after 29 years. Over the years I found out I was better off financially than some of my contemporary friends who had 4 year degrees and have outlived them all.

I took up Blacksmithing in 1984 with an excellent teacher until he passed away in 1991. I also learned that I’m not a very good teacher.
“Not all knowledge comes from college”.

I can’t control the wind. All I can do is adjust my sails. ~Semper Paratus~

Irondragon,

To begin with, please pardon the delay in my reply. The last two times I checked back, IFI was not available.

Update; then I had lots of fun trying to post!!!!

Loved your history. I joined the naval reserve in my last year of high school for the same reason. Getting shot at was my duty; endless marching for the privilege sounded like pure BS!

I think an associates degree is wise for most people, because  that is what replaces a high school degree as entree level for most jobs worth having today, and it doesn't cost much from a junior college. A four year degree is a big pay out in time and money for a minor return for most people, because they never learned what accomplishing actual work meant.

Trade school (like they do it in Europe) would make way better sense for "the average bear."

I was lucky. Dad put me to work in his ornamental iron shop weekends and summers at the ripe of age of twelve. At eighteen I got to go to boot camp, like most of the other boys. By the time I met Kathy at twenty-six I wasn't completely clueless, and manged to hold onto my husband degree. No divorces, no bad endings, just a quite old age