Working with Uncle Billy

My first summer job after high school was as a laborer at Royal Guard fence company in Westbury. I started out sorting fittings and loading trucks. Eventually I got to drive the ftorklift and go out on jobs. That was the first time I had ever made cement. Me and two iron workers were sent down to Coney Island to put in some posts along the boardwalk on a retaining wall. I had to mix all the cement by, hand for the posts,. Obviously I never done that and  made it pretty sloppy. Trying to push a wheel barrel of sloppy cement along 2x6's laid in the sand was kind of difficult. At one point the cement got the better of me and started tipping. I couldn't hold the wheelbarrow and it flipped me over the retaining wall and all the cement came down on top of me. Eventually we did get the posts in and the guys bought me a Rheingold and a hot dog for lunch.

I also was called upon to be a flag man on the Belt Parkway under the Verranzano bridge while other guys fixed guardrail along the Belt Parkway. It was pretty dangerous and I came pretty close to getting hit a few times. They eventually replaced me with a mechanical dummy and he ended up losing his arm. At the end of that summer I thought I knew something about the building of fences. The following summer I asked Uncle Billy if I could work with him at the fence company he was at. He did get me the job.

I learn from one of the guys to make cement by making a pit in a big pile of sand on the back of the truck and dumping the cement into it. He would just watch the color of the soil and when it was right he would pitch in to the wheelbarrow and add water. He was so much faster than I was until I got the knack. Uncle Billy showed me how to stretch chain link fence and how to do mitres for hills and dips. He was a real hero to me after all he had been through in WWII.

He had Ranger training but ended up with Patton. He was guarding a bridge when shellfire came too close and he got hit in the head with shrapnel. The guy next to him had his head blown off.  He also got shot in the leg later in the war.  He ended up with a steel plate to replace part of his skull. One of the most even tempered guys I knew. And he had a lot to put up with between me and one other guy named Elwin Peters.  We were useless some mornings after partying all night.  But when a new guy came on we would bust his butt to see if he could do the job.  We would flip 250 lb rolls of fence wire onto our shoulders and throw them over the side of the truck. Then tell the newbie to finish loading in the same way. Had to know what you were doing to not have it land on the ground or yourself.  I got into a fight with one smartass..but two summers of fence work and a summer of Kenpo lessons and he was on the ground. I learned more about using tools and having the confidence to taking on construction projects from Uncle Billy than three years of shop classes. Did I mention he was also my godfather?