Thaddeus

[basilisk]

In my last post about cirular saws, I mentioned a building crew I worked with in the 70's.

One of the guys was Thaddeus, a rather large, powerful man that drove sixteen penny sinkers with brutal effieciency. He framed with a 24oz ripping claw hammer, methodically driving nails in two licks, starter lick would sink it a little over a third of the way and the next lick contersunk the head.

Thaddeus was a deaf/mute, and one of the most expressive people I have ever known, all it took was a glance at him to know what he thought of the status of your work.

There was no "good enough", either it was right or not, if not out came the big ripping claw hammer, demolishsion ensued and you got to do it again.

The stud walls in these houses would be covered with drawings, instructions, lunch orders, weather forecast, women trouble, sermons to young and ignorant(me), current events. I have wondered more than once what a story those walls will tell when these house are torn down. Thaddeus is long since gone on to his maker, but he left a lot of himself behind.

Good memories.

basilisk

[Swingman]

Thanks for sharing that ...

Started out helping my uncles add rooms to their houses and building barns and everything that went inside them, from stalls to feed and tack rooms ... thought everyone knew how to make things, and helping with the framing was one of the first things you did as a kid.

To me, even as a kid, I somehow instinctively felt that framers were the cream of the cream of construction, and later on, that Larry Haun had to be their leader ... still feel that way.

Basically, I'm still convinced that framers are the heroes in the building of a house. ;)

Hope you can see this stuff. If not, let me know, particularly this:

The above is his story, "One Carpenter's Life" ... a must read for any one who has ever done any framing in earnest (it should be free)

And what we were just talking about:

[basilisk]

Thanks, Good stuff

basilisk

[willshak]

basilisk wrote the following on 3/2/2013 3:00 PM (ET):

The only thing I left behind in the walls were beer cans. Of course, these were after the day's work was done.

[G.W.Ross]

Of course!

[hubops]

God speed to Thaddeus. Thanks for the tribute, basil. Everyone else - please don't leave your message to the future as a beer can in the wall ! Yuk. ...here's a James Keelaghan song about leaving A Message To The Future ..

Another - about sawdust apparently.. or grain ? or life lessons .. .. or something. enjoy.

John T.

[Amy Guarino]

Right. The homeowner had to fill the cavity with razor blades themselves.

Any of you home-renovator types ever come across a thousand or two rusty razor blades inside a bathroom wall? Or didn't they have those "razor disposal" slots in the rear wall of the medicine cabinets where you come from? As a kid I wondered where they went; i didn't know they just fell behind the lath, laying in wait for some poor bastard to come along 50 years later with a sawzall.

[Larry Jaques]

So, what's the "response" of those razor blades to the sawzall blade, Greg? I've never seen it. I would think they'd shatter and make all sorts of nasty noises, scaring the shit out of the worker.

[Swingman]

Anything built mid 70's and earlier when disposable because ubiquitous, is almost guaranteed to have them, and a slit in the back of the medicine cabinet is a guarnateed sign to be careful.

If you think about it, nothing more than a manifestation of an all too human failing, "out of sight, out of mind", particularly when it comes to waste of any kind, from toxic to plastic ...

[Greg Guarino]

I don't know. I haven't run into the problem myself. But I talked to a contractor once who said he always told his guys to be careful tearing out old bathrooms for that reason (among others). I would have to be a pretty odd noise, at the very least.

[Greg Guarino]

My parents' house was built in 1939; they bought it in 1960. I can vouch for the same medicine cabinet since I was old enough to remember, which would have been the early 60s. At a time when people perhaps didn't gut and re-shape their homes with such regularity, maybe it didn't seem like such a bad idea.

[Swingman]

Arguably the product of a sophomoric, immature, d*****ad mentality ...

Nowadays, with our much ballyhooed cultural diversity, on construction sites it's more likely beer cans in the plumbing ... shortly after the National soccer team, from whatever third world country the electrician's crew came from, got beat by the National soccer team, from wherever the plumber's crew came from.

That, and/or a bit of feces and urine left behind the master bedroom closet walls ... in retribution for coming from a "have not" origin?? You tell me ...

Maintaining a clean, safe construction site these days is more like cleaning up after a herd of incontinent three year olds, too lazy to walk downstairs to the portapotty, to not having ever learned that the used toilet paper goes into that big hole under their butts, instead of on the floor.

But you, the buyer, pays for it in the end ...

[Swingman]

Yep ... pretty much sums up the history of waste disposal. ;)