Humor: Page 24

Tales From the Front: Slithery Suspect on a Job Site

Chris Finley of Finley’s Wood Floors in Jonesboro, Ark., recalls one wood flooring job that had an unusual visitor. His company had done a lot of work for a contractor who does restorations of old historic structures, such as courthouses, and on this job they were hired to put antique heart pine into an old schoolhouse in Earle, Ark. The job site had minimal modern conveniences, and there were still holes in the subfloor around the perimeter of the structure. Finley and his crew sanded the floor and put the first coat on, and when they came back the next day, there were little squiggly marks all over the floor. “Well, the blame game started until we noticed a strange sight on the far side of the room that was noticeably stuck and struggling,” Finley recalls. “It was a king snake that was trying to get warm from the cool nights and found that opening; he must have struggled all night. I went and picked him up. We tried to clean him off and turned him loose.”

photo of recycled wood floor

Tales From the Front: In Hot Pursuit

Shutterstock.com | Fenton

Tales from the Front: Bear-Proof Your Floor Installation

Back before David Old, president at Las Vegas, N.M.-based Old Wood LLC was in the wood flooring business, he decided he would sand and refinish the Doug fir floors at the family's historic log cabin on their 2,400-acre ranch in the mountains.

photo of a bear that broke into a home

Photo Contest: Create a Caption for This Kährs Hunk

This photo, courtesy of Kährs International Inc., was taken in the company's factory in Nybro, Sweden, in-we're guessing-the mid-'70s. We are asking you, dear readers, to provide a caption worthy of his chiseled jaw and golden locks. The winner will receive a coveted Hardwood Floors magazine T-shirt, as well as fame and notoriety among his or her peers. Send (printable) entries to [email protected].

photo of a Kährs International Inc. factory worker

Tales from the Front: Stain Surprise

Shutterstock.com | InnaFelker

Tales From the Front: Son Learns Wisdom of Floor-Man Father

This issue's Tale comes from Steve Matthews of J & J Floor Service in Paden City, W.V., in his own words: "When I was 16, my father let me bid my first sand-and-finish job. Since I am a third-generation floor man, I already had four years' experience by then, and I thought I was quite accomplished. I got the job, so on day one I packed the machines in the back of my '63 Chevy and drove 25 miles of West Virginia back roads to get to the house. I have to say that the owner was pretty nervous when he realized my dad wasn't going to be there. He looked on as I fumbled around, trying to get the belts on the old American Super 8. After what seemed to be an hour or so, I was ready to start sanding the floor-until I realized I had forgotten the power cord for the machine. Now I think my immaturity is starting to show, and I sheepishly tell him I'll be back in an hour to get to work. I got in my truck and floored it down the road, and to my great surprise my dad was sitting about a half mile away, waiting for me. When I pulled up, he asked, 'Did you forget something?' I saw the cord on the seat beside him and knew I was in for a lecture. That was a lesson well-learned. In the 39 years since that day, I have never arrived on the job unprepared. One of the first lessons I taught my three sons is to check and doublecheck. Dad was a good floor man and the consummate pro. By the way, he went back to that job with me and we finished it together."

photo of a hand with a post-it note on the finger

Tales from the Front: Buzzed Helpers Contemplate Flight

Back in his contracting days, Josh Frink (now corporate accounts manager at Basic Coatings) left two helpers on a job to finish up putting a coat of shellac quick-dry sealer on a wood floor while he went to get the poly for the following coats. The helpers coated a set of stairs and an upper foyer with the shellac sealer and only then realized they had painted themselves into a corner and couldn't use the steps. "When I returned with the poly, they had both climbed out a window and were sitting on the edge of the roof of the house laughing like crazy, buzzed out of their minds daring each other to jump off. They had not been wearing their respirators," Frink recalls. "They had a really nice headache by the end of the job." But that wasn't all, Frink says: "It was a bad week: A few days after they were buzzed and contemplating jumping off the roof, they put a Square Buff sander in my trailer without emptying the dust bag. On the drive home this guy pulls up beside us and is hollering, 'Hey man, your trailer is on fire!'" Frink says that thankfully they weren't hurt, but "it made me realize not to let them take the simple things for granted, like wearing a respirator and emptying a dust bag."

photo of a man wearing a hazmat suit

Tales from the Front: Lacking Lubrication

Lloyd Karsenbarg of Burnaby, B.C.'s Deltaquip Supplies Ltd. answered our request for funny wood flooring stories with this response: "It's more a 'stupid' than 'funny' story. Some years ago, American Lincoln used to market their American Lincoln green paint in the same type of cans as their edger gear housing grease. We inadvertently sold the customer a can of paint, and you guessed it, the customer came back about a week later complaining of a funny 'burned paint' smell. Luckily he hadn't let it run for too long, and things were returned back to normal."

photo of someone sneezing

Tales from the Front: Hard of Hearing?

Kevin Mullany of Benchmark Wood Floors in Albuquerque, N.M., recalls a recent job in which he ended up being "in" on the husband's secret for marital harmony. The job was for an elderly couple named Marge and Al. "When I went out for the estimate, Marge ran the show. She also informed me that Al was hard of hearing, and we adopted her custom of yelling when speaking to Al. On the second day, Marge had to leave on an errand. I asked my co-worker a question in a normal voice, and from 30 feet away, Al answered. I know I looked surprised. Al said, 'Oh, my hearing's just fine.' Later that day, we heard Marge yelling, 'Al! Al! Al!' from the bedroom. I looked up, and Al was standing nearby. He put his index finger to his lips, smiled, and went the opposite direction toward the garage," Mullany recalls.

photo of tree with shhing mouth

Tales from the Front: Repeat That?

Brandon Spearman, now president/CEO of Spearhead Marketing Inc. in Langly, B.C., recalls an amazing call he got back during his days working for a hardwood flooring distributor in Vancouver, B.C. He had sold some Brazilian cherry shorts to a customer and had told the customer several times that the lengths were between 1 and 3 feet. Additionally, the lengths were even highlighted on the packing list and on the invoice. Spearman was at the NWFA show in Fort Lauderdale having an adult beverage on a balcony when his phone rang. It was the wood contractor calling him. "He said, 'The shorts are too short!' I asked him to repeat what he said, and he repeated, 'The shorts are too short,'" Spearman recalls. "I told him to purchase a wood extender!"

photo of yardstick

Tales From the Front

Tales From the Front: Hey Big Fella ...

Kathleen Freeman remembers an incident when another worker on an wood flooring job site mistook her baby for a beer belly.

Tales Hey Big Fella

Tales From the Front

Tales from the Front: Plumber Fans Filler Fire

Back in 1980, David Gleason of Clackamas, Ore.-based Masterpiece Wood Floors was sanding a floor in a "rather grand" three-story new home construction project. Typical of the times, he was using "Goop On" as filler and cutting it with lacquer thinner in order to trowel. When he was about done troweling a large family room, the GC decided to add heat by putting an electric space heater next to the floor without telling him. Back then, wearing a respirator for that task was not common practice, so Gleason was somewhat light-headed when he heard a loud "poof" and saw a wall of flame headed toward him. He had the presence of mind to grab the gallon of lacquer thinner and the Goop On and run into the garage. Since that sort of flame is just a flash, the only remaining flames when he re-entered were the thick spots of filler, which were easily extinguished by stepping on them. That was working fine until an excitable plumber came around the corner, yelled "Fire!" and whipped off his nylon jacket to start swatting at the spots of flame. "He was not in a teachable moment, so he wouldn't listen to my suggestion of simply stepping on them," Gleason recalls. Of course, the sticking filler caught his jacket on fire, and as he waved the jacket around it threw bits of flaming nylon onto the drywall, turning a "no big deal incident" into some actual damage. "The worst part of the story was that when I returned to final-coat the job, the owner strongly admonished me for not buying the plumber a new coat after he had saved the house!" Gleason says.

photo of flames

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