I've posted long azz stories here about a lot of my jobs...too many times
but
I don’t think I’ve written much about my stint at a camp trailer factory
Aloha Trailer
Beaverton OR
The mid 60s
I’m in my earlyish teens, needing a second job to support my playtime tween school (when I went),
and my night job at the posh Hillvilla eatery sitting above Portland on Terwilliger Blvd
Those days I didn’t sleep much (catching up on that now)
I hit on a little manufacturing facility called Aloha Trailer
A buddy told me about ‘em, and their lucrative wages
Filled out the ap
Lied about my age
Waited
Nothing
Went back a few days later
Nothing
And the next day
Nothing
My dad had told me if I really wanted to get hired on, anywhere, to hound ‘em
They’ll sooner or later get tired of you, and hire you
It worked, after about a week of seeing me every morning, checking on my ap
I was led back to the inside wall area, and dropped off
Watched three guys banging away with nail guns, tying in precut 2x2s together in what I learned was a ‘jig’,
of which was laid out on a large table, with 2x2s nailed in a pattern,
so we could pretty much brainlessly lay down the precut pieces and nail away.
Then insulation was rolled over that
Then paneling was flopped down, and stapled here and there
Then routing out the windows, doors, and elect box holes
Eventually routing out the edges
Then stapling a beaded plastic strip around the outer edge
Then the railed hoist was slipped over it, grabbing the top edge, and off it went, to the steel frame
Twenty times a day
Fast
I stood there, waiting for someone to show me what to do
After about 15 or 20 minutes of watching, wunna the guys said ‘you better grab a nail gun and git busy, or you won’t make it to first break’
That was my training
Gotta say, the crew there was raw cut
Some ex-cons
Some obviously hard drinking old guys
Some hard looking, yet comely, women
Some south of the border guys, getting a break from the fields
Some tough looking kids my age
I became fast friends with three or four
Could they ever party
Trailer framing was right next to us
Rolling in from the roll up door
An ol’ guy laid on a large drill, making holes in the steel frames….all day
I’d look over, and ever time I looked, he’d just shake his head, like; ‘it’s come to this, my life’
Up the way, after the inside walls were attached to the frame, some ladies and a few guys installed cabinets
I’d walk by their department on the way to break and lunch
This one lady caught my eye
Mainly because her pants were painted on
And she had more curves than those trailers would ever travel
She’d give me a side glance ever once in a while with those over done cutting eyes of hers
Didn’t quite know what to do with that
An ol’ guy told me, ‘yer gonna be wunna hers’
Didn't know what to do with that either, as she sorta worked rather too closely with this Clark Gable lookin’ guy
Anyway
There were two breaks and lunch
We all swarmed the lunch truck, buying cigs, a cool drink, and maybe a pecan pie, then settled around the sheds outside, shooting the shit
This one large fellow, ‘Tiny’ would lay back on the insulation bundles, slugging down his goat’s milk
No front teeth
‘Goath’s milk, good thtuff’
‘If you say so, Tiny’
One lunch break he fell asleep
Pools of goat’s milk tie dying the front of his enormous bib overalls
Nobody woke him
The boss asked ‘where’s Tiny?’
Not sure what happened, work was too fast to notice much
Our immediate foreman was Bob Butz
We played with that name
My work buddy, Dale Kinneman, would say right to his face, ‘whatever you say…Mr Butz’ then shoot a look at a grinning me
But the guy was straight up, a good foreman
He also worked a second job, managing a Shell station, nights
asked me if I needed a second job
riiiight
Funny, never thought I’d remember anyone’s names
Butz, yeah, but Dale Kinneman?
He was pretty fresh outa the pen, newly married, had to, and had a baby that was really effed up.
Said they’d dropped him, on his head.
We had our fun at that factory, as the metal clip on the nail guns could be pulled back to enable us to compete in light bulb execution…pap pap pap…plink
The pictures of nails driven thru folk’s body parts, hung on most every post, lost their effect after awhile
The summer went by fast for me
One day they brought everone together
‘There’s gonna be a cut back’
‘You’ll each get a notice as to whether you’ll remain working here or not when you get your check’
And that was it
Thought sure I’d be cut
Wunna the upper management guys called me over
Asked me to stay over for a bit
Told me I’d remain there, but some long time employees wouldn’t
‘So don’t let on when you get your check’
The next week, Tiny wasn’t there
The guy that told me to get busy wasn’t there
The grizzled old frame driller wasn’t there
Some mighty good workers, with family…was no longer there
Dale wasn’t there
First time I ever felt bad about good news
The better news…. the gal with sprayed on pants was there.
We built walls together
Tore down some
What reminded me about that place, was today, in town
While filling up, in the lane beside me, was a ’65 Aloha trailer, 15 footer.
I prolly built the walls
Me and the owner had a nice chat about his ‘relic’
Gave this relic a rush of memories
Sorry about the lengthy story
