lowfiron

You mention 9% unemployment. Do you have a number for unemployed construction workers and tradesmen? Or are you ignoring the impact on the core of the industry? The labor force.
I'm a 60 year old Carpenter now working as a handyman and doing small remodels and repair. I will not likely be fully employed as a Carpenter for the end of my career. It seems that if even when you are highly skilled no employer wants a 60 year old Carpenter.
Thanks for an answer and maybe some enlightenment in that area. The labor force that is.

Well maybe the heat of the SFV was not such a big deal to you after reading this essay.
I do recall and feel that the best of the carpenters or at least a lot of them were farm boys.
I got into framing because of two brothers one which was a carpenter. That would be the Klocows, Bill and Joe, from Minnesota. Bill was the carpenter. Both were hard and fast workers, fast because they just did not stop, had focus and were pretty systematic at what ever the task was.
Joe, though not a carpenter was willing to analyze any task or problem with you and I had a lot of conversations with him. It was a part of daily conversation and working things out and planning for the next day-week- month.
When I was raised the conversation might of been about chores and school work but it did not get into the nitty gritty details like having a conversation with a farm raised person!!
So my observation of farm raised carpenters- workers and businessmen. This was a like going to University for me!!
I have a ton of stories about these guys.

I grew up in the heat of the SFV. Of course not as hot as Lancaster or Palm Springs but it could get HOT.
How did you first deal with summer in the SFV??
Maybe the humid heat of the prairie prepared you and it didn't seem so bad.
I joined ZCLA and sorta did a similar thing. Still belong to an affiliate.
Great recollection there!!

Well we are two degrees apart.
Elmer taught roof framing at the Ventura District Council on Dawson Dr. in Camarillo to the apprentices. I took that class. Never heard the "Moe" nick name but I think we called him "Elmo" derisively.
I never stacked behind Elmer but he was a foreman on two jobs that I rolled trusses and cut and stacked the sheds over the living rooms. Can't remember the name of the framing contractor. It was in Thousand Oaks and Westlake.
I got to know one of his sons, he lived near Channel Islands Harbor and I lived near by. I remember he had a collection of insects, mostly beetles and he ice skated.
There were a ton of charactors at the time. No shortage in the earlier days I'm sure.
Every once in a while I would work in the Valley or Simi Valley.
Thanks!

Good concise history.
I started in 1970 in Westlake-Thousand Oaks racking horses for Rodger Wiggins, a roof cutter. I did the apprenticeship and stacked then cut and rolled a ton of truss.
Even coming in late it was an interesting time. Hippies were becoming carpenters!!
Look forward to more history.