[wrinkleneck]

Lawton, Oklahoma.....Southwest Lawton, out in the middle of no where...Not a single tree in sight for miles.....Late 50's

My dad was career Army stationed at Ft. Sil and was never home.

Only house in sight was my uncle's, Lee Camp. He was dirt poor and a welder by trade.

He had dirt floored welding shop next to his house that he fed his family out of....My bedroom window faced his old rickity shop from across the dirt road....Late late late at night I'd hear his only electric welder bussing away..it was a Lincoln AC tombstone, and it flashed all night thru my bedroom window.....after school I'd take my broke dick bicycle over and watch him braze the frame back together with his old gas rig.

He bootlegged shine on the side and cheated on my aunt in dirt floor skidrow bars...but that bastard could weld/braze even engine blocks with just that old AC tombstone and his gas rig....He got shot in a skidrow bar about when I was 10....died of a .22 to the heart....He only had two fingers on his right hand....I watched him lose his fingers in the fan blades of a 50ish Cadillac he was doing a tune up on...he never blinked, he just told me to ask my dad if he would run him to hospital...A week later he was back out in his shop welding.

My dad was a cabinet maker. He had ALL the best tools at the time. My dad was a master cabinet maker and I learned it all from him.

But I identified with my welder uncle Lee across the road.

My dad and him had both been in prison, and my dad had straightened up, but uncle Lee didn't and he ran shine and stole stuff and was just your perfect outlaw that wasn't skeered of nuthin and he made sparks fly and made lightening into my bedroom late late late at night and he never flinched when his fingers got lopped off in front of me.

I'd drag my bed up to the window and placed my pillow in the window sill and feel asleep to the lightining flashes from his welder and hammer blows and cussing every night....He smelled like whiskey and pipe tobacco and his beard stubble always cut my face when he hugged me.

Dad would beat me and uncle Lee would hug me...then he got shot and killed when I was about 10.

Uncle Lee would really like welding tech today....what was so hard for him then would be a piece of cake.

[Braehill]

Thanks for sharing that.

There's something to be said about growing up old school. I worked in a dirt floor garage growing up and also had uncles who had rough edges. We had the house that all the neighbor kids hung out at because we had all the tools and no adult supervision. My dad had trucks and was never home and my mom worked two jobs. My dad bought tools with his extra money somehow thinking it would make life easier, it didn't.

With three older brothers I learned how to spit snuff, swear and how to work for a living in that old shop. The wiring was terrible in the shop and we thought we had died and gone to heaven when my dad bought a Miller Trailblazer off a guy he worked with. We hauled gasoline and running the Trailblazer off what you drained from the manifolds on the trailers made it very economical. It was a far cry better than the old tombstone that we had.

I learned to gas weld when I was 5 years old and still like to do it every now and then. We used bailing wire for rod most of the time because most of the neighbors were farmers and had a roll in their old farm truck when they came to get something welded. We seldom charged any money for fixing their stuff, but we never wanted for milk and eggs or chicken when they stopped laying.

I've lived in my current neighborhood since 1990 and I couldn't tell you the names of the people who live three houses down from me on either side. It sure is a different world from what is was then and I wouldn't mind seeing it go back to the day when the worst thing for your health was minding someone elses business and men had rough edges. Now I work with thumb sucking, bellyaching, crybabies that don't even know how easy they have it and complain every time they're asked to do anything.

Len

[wrinkleneck]

As soon as I could I joined navy and got on nuclear submarines and stayed gone for 20 years...after that I came home and built my dad a house next door and us a shop and filled it with cabinet making stuff.

But dad was still dad and still mean and hateful...he died a few years later and I chased skirts and worked as a boiler inspector and boiler/chiller tech...I installed a dance pole in my house and bought a few Harleys and used my shop just to wrench bikes....Gave away all the cabinet making equipment.

A few years ago I started selling off my Harleys and took up welding as a hobby.....Now it is a passion.

I discovered plenty of young men in my hood who want to learn to weld, so we do it together.

...And some nights when we get a good thunderstorm and my bedroom windows light up and flash from lightining I fall asleep thinking of my uncle Lee across the road welding.....He was always there for me then...and still is....and I think just how much he would enjoy MIG and TIG and even DC stick today.

[wrinkleneck]

Thanks for sharing that.

There's something to be said about growing up old school. I worked in a dirt floor garage growing up and also had uncles who had rough edges. We had the house that all the neighbor kids hung out at because we had all the tools and no adult supervision. My dad had trucks and was never home and my mom worked two jobs. My dad bought tools with his extra money somehow thinking it would make life easier, it didn't.

With three older brothers I learned how to spit snuff, swear and how to work for a living in that old shop. The wiring was terrible in the shop and we thought we had died and gone to heaven when my dad bought a Miller Trailblazer off a guy he worked with. We hauled gasoline and running the Trailblazer off what you drained from the manifolds on the trailers made it very economical. It was a far cry better than the old tombstone that we had.

I learned to gas weld when I was 5 years old and still like to do it every now and then. We used bailing wire for rod most of the time because most of the neighbors were farmers and had a roll in their old farm truck when they came to get something welded. We seldom charged any money for fixing their stuff, but we never wanted for milk and eggs or chicken when they stopped laying.

I've lived in my current neighborhood since 1990 and I couldn't tell you the names of the people who live three houses down from me on either side. It sure is a different world from what is was then and I wouldn't mind seeing it go back to the day when the worst thing for your health was minding someone elses business and men had rough edges. Now I work with thumb sucking, bellyaching, crybabies that don't even know how easy they have it and complain every time they're asked to do anything.

Len

Yeah...what you said....all of it.

[MinnesotaDave]

Nothing to add - brought up a lot of good memories - excellent thread

[motox]

i can relate to the growing up old school but i guess we her all born in the late 40S or 50s
my route to welding stated with my first real job after high school. married in high school
(when that was intolerable) i took the first job that would hire me. it was as for a construction
company that the owner loved to tinker and build equipment. his idea of welding was to burn
many 611 rods and the shear weight would hold it together. he was a genius with his engineering
but even an untrained eye knew his welds were crap. after several trips to the library and plenty
of nights of practice i began to understand what i was reading and my welds were getting decent.
being able to weld better than the owner allowed me enough overtime (evening and weekends)
to keep food on the table and pay the bills back then.
on occasion he would hire a professional welder ( a job site welder we knew from projects we worked on)
and he would do the fit and the first pass and let me do the additional passes. he was great help
without realizing it, never intentionally telling me anything but thats how it was back then, old school.
that was 1966 and since i have self taught (again with the help of books) to mig, tig, gas weld to keep
my own business equipment as well as all my motorcycles together.
i am not a professional welder by any means but I'm still glad i learned some welding over the years.
i only wish this site had been around in 1966.....

[TRACKRANGER]

... Now I work with thumb sucking, bellyaching, crybabies that don't even know how easy they have it and complain every time they're asked to do anything.

Len

Hallelujah! Now ain't that the truth...

[Otto Nobedder]

... Now I work with thumb sucking, bellyaching, crybabies that don't even know how easy they have it and complain every time they're asked to do anything.

Len

Hallelujah! Now ain't that the truth...

AMEN!

That type won't last here.

Steve S

[GreinTime]

... Now I work with thumb sucking, bellyaching, crybabies that don't even know how easy they have it and complain every time they're asked to do anything.

Len

Hallelujah! Now ain't that the truth...

AMEN!

That type won't last here.

Steve S

'MERICA!!!!

[Antorcha]

Nation formerly known as.........
Gotta run. Justabeaner is gonna be on Boo-Boo this morning and I need to take my Prozac because I'm depressed that Miley isn't really pregant with Ice-G'z baby.