Chapter 10

We drove all the way south to Bakersfield and got a Motel room. The next morning we went to the PG&E's Construction Crew's show-up which was trailers in a sub-station yard. We turned in our paperwork and they said we had to have a drug test and another physical. So off we went to their Company Doctor's Clinic. There was a nurse there that just fell head over heels for Jerry. But he was always a "chick magnet" everywhere we went. She saw we were newly hired from the paperwork and asked me where Jerry and I were staying. I told her that we were in a Motel for now but we needed to find a place to rent. She said she had a 2-Bedroom condo with a pool and we could rent the 2nd Bedroom from her. I said I would talk this over with Jerry. I went to Jerry and said "That nurse "Permie" wants to rent us a bedroom in her condo and it has a pool." Jerry said "Who is Permie?" I said that I didn't know her name so I had given her that nickname. He went to her and said "Permie, how much is your rent?" She turned red and started stuttering. She told him and he said that we would take it. Permie later asked me why we always called her "Permie". I said "It's just the name that fits you."

After we were with Permie for a while, I noticed that she had added 2 standing mirrors in the hallway that connected our bedrooms. They were angled and I saw that she had them set up so she could see us (mostly Jerry I think) when both bedroom doors were open. She was funny that way!

We both started off on Overhead Crews. Some of the old downtown Bakersfield was still on the very old 2,400 volt system. We needed to change out the insulators to the new 21 kV insulators and replace any poles and crossarms that needed it. We also needed to string in a new conductor for the neutral (ground) wire. The old system worked by hooking up the transformers between 2 hot phase wires. The new system worked by hooking up the transformers between 1 phase wire and the new neutral wire. The old system is called a "Delta" System and the new system is called a "Wye" System. Most of the Lineman there had worked most of their careers with PG&E and we soon found out that most of them had never worked on a Wye System before.

The GF (General Foreman) separated us and put us on the Crews doing the transformer connections. We taught the other Lineman how to do this correctly. There were a few equipment accidents due to wiring it up wrong, but the job went pretty smoothly overall. We worked all over Bakersfield and its suburbs. North of Bakersfield is Oildale which is pretty famous itself. The citizens of Bakersfield looked down on those living in Oildale. They were like oil and water, just couldn't mix them together.

There was one UG (Underground Crew) and when the GF found out my background he put me on it. They also weren't familiar with a System that used the neutral wire. The neutral wire can carry a lot of amperage and electricity. It is what keeps the System in balance by carrying the unbalanced Current back to the Low-Transmission transformers that provided power to the System.

I showed them how to build a "ring buss" which was a loop that kept all of the neutrals connected together in the transformer vaults. A few Crews had either broken or cut these into and it can cause a lot of arcing and fires.

One of the other Tramps hired was from the U. P. (Upper Peninsula, Michigan). When it started getting hot weather, he just couldn't stand it. He said he had to go back home as he missed the trees and clean, cool air. (Sound familiar?) He had bought a house and moved his family there. In just a few months later he sold that house at a loss and left town. Another tramp was from Alaska and he didn't stay long either. He said he could make a lot of more money going back to Alaska and working on the Northern Slope.

Jerry went back to Iowa and moved his family back to Bakersfield. He brought his toys also. He had an old Jeep but he had to work on it a lot to keep it running.

About the time that Jerry moved his family here, PG&E started on one of their many down slides trying to cut costs. There were rumors about Line Crews being transferred to their northern territory and/or even layoffs. They worked on the seniority system so I was one of the Tramps at the bottom. There was a posting of a Lineman position open at PG&E's District Yard in Taft, CA about 30 miles southwest of Bakersfield so I put in for this job and was awarded it.

Taft is really a sandy, desert area to me. Taft was originally named Moron by the railroad company but that was before that word had today's definition. Taft is situated in a major petroleum and natural gas production region in California and is one of the few remaining towns in the United States which exist exclusively because of nearby oil reserves. Many of the people living there are descendants of the Dust Bowl "Oakie" migration west in the 1930's.

The local Linemen that I worked with were shocked and stunned when I told them I had taken the District Lineman job in Taft. Most of their reactions were like "Are you crazy? The only people that live in Taft are people from Bakersfield that couldn't make it in Oildale!" If you're familiar with that area you'll get their wicked, twisted sense of humor. If not, I apologize for going astray.

I was assigned to be the Lineman on a 3-Man Overhead Crew. Most of our work was either in the oilfields or on the irrigation wells that the farmers used to pump water on their crops. The Foreman / Lead Lineman had started there as an Apprentice and worked his way up. PG&E went by seniority so I was way down for any Foreman or Troubleman jobs that opened when the one in place retired. Our Grunt / Helper was very funny. One day when I was up the pole with my Foreman working I told him to take a strain on the handline. He got his foot caught in a loop of the rope handline. As he started pulling on the downline that was the working part of the handline, his foot would go up. He did this several times then yelled at us to "Quit pulling on the rope! My foot is caught!" He was always good for laughs!