Loose Canons

I am so glad I am working again, after 10 months, finely a routine change. It has been nice, waking up tired, the down side is Katie gets lonely. My cat, Katie Kat, is a driven animal, she likes to play a lot. For hours she wants to be chasing raw hide, her cat nip sock pillow seems to have disappeared. She probably has it stashed, goes to it for comfort, while I’m at work. What is interesting with her, is when she’s playing, she needs participation, when she’s fetching raw hide, at times she will return it, just out of reach, she needs reassuring, that her play partner, is engaged in the game. She loves to be rubbed, not a lap cat, actually for her rubbing, she prefers being just out of arms reach, she needs to see an effort being made, that petting her is something you really want, it seems important to her, to have me reach, to jump through hoops, over hurdles, for her pleasure. I have got eighty hours in, working with these guys, working on the theaters at LA Live. It’s my second weekend of employment, Katie figured out quickly, today I was staying home. we played early, and we played hard, it must be hard for her, home alone, long hours of waiting between games, for ten months, I was with her daily. Downtown LA, oh how it has changed, I cut my teeth here learning my trade. I joined Carpenters Local #25 in 1978, this was our area, to look out over a skyline, to see your work, is satisfying to an old man. In spite of it all, I was able to accomplish something that is visible, something that will last long after I pass, leaving a little bit of me behind. There is one building that I worked on, the Home Savings and Loan Tower back in 86, hard to believe, back 23 years. It is a beautiful building, about 26 floors, copper roof, domed turrets on four corners, four gabled ends. In the past I talked of this job, I hung the exterior stone, I worked on aligning those four octagon turrets and their domes. The job I’m at now, LA Live, is about where we parked, working on Home Savings, this was all no mans land back then, sure doesn’t seem like 23 years, man it’s changed around here. So I’m riding my bike to work, taking the metro home. It became hard to spot Home Savings from the street as LA grew, the towers that surround it, are all much taller. Its one of those forest for the trees things going on here, riding my bike after work to the metro station at 7th and Fig, there it was, it’s the train station, the entrance to the subway, I have been in and out of this station dozens of times, I never looked up, an unintended consequence, walking into this station, walking into what I had a hand in building. Out of the three guys put on with me, I’m the only one left, now I’m the old guy, pops, I’m spending some time this weekend thinking about this job, over the years, from time to time, I’ve been known as somewhat of a loose cannon. At times it is still tempting, however, I have tried to put that part of me to rest. The old guy told me “why does everything got to be my way, I just told him he was asked to help me, that if I was the one to be finishing the work, he would be helping me if he were to set it up the way I wanted, not the way he thought best. That will teach him about the danger in asking a why question. He must have figured he wasn’t getting far with me, he set his sights on someone else. There was a rep of the theater company, in essence, the people we were working for. He was sitting, watching from behind us, he had come up to me, pointed out some flaw in my product, I told him that I wasn’t finished, fiddled a little with the finish, then moved out of his line of sight. I had asked the old guy for help covering the door, the rep pointed to some flaws that he was bothered by on the old guys work, it sure was nice saying that, old guy, not referring to me, those days are gone again now. That old guy, lit into that kid, the company rep, from what I know, the nephew of the owner of the company. No one likes being watched working, being bird dogged, it goes with the territory though. He told that kid, he had no right saying anything to him about his work, that he was not allowed to speak to him directly, that if he had something to say, he could say it to our boss, the same boss man that told us in the beginning, if any of these reps say anything, listen. This old guy, went off on this kid, for about a minute, minute and a half, it was ugly, talk about a Loose Canon, when he shut up, the kid just sat back down. It got really strange, when after about five minutes, the old guy got up from his work, walked over to the rep, and introduced himself. As if this kid, the nephew of the owner of the company our company was working for, didn’t know already, this is the old guy without a job. how ya gonna act?