bigredbrick

I'm glad to hear that you're on the mend. You have got quite a medical history! I have been making money the hard way for over 40 years. Landscaping, firefighting and 35 years or so as a residential carpenter. My chiropractor tells me I have to do something else or wind up in a wheelchair. Its hard to change.

maybe368

Doctors don't know everything. I had an orthopedic surgeon tell me that running would cripple me. That was about 40 years and about 25000 miles ago...Mark

bigragu

BigRed, you do not want to end up in a wheelchair. My wife found one on offer up, for $40, like brand new. When I知 not out walking with my walker I知 on the chair. It is no fun. I feel bad for folks that are permanently stuck to one of these for the rest of their lifetime.

That construction is a young mans game. When I first got into the apprenticeship back in 1984 the age cut off to get in was 35. I was 21 at the time, and my instructor told me when he got in in the early 70痴 the cut off age was 25!!

With the laws of discrimination in place, the age limit factor went away. When I capped off my career as an apprenticeship instructor I was teaching brand new apprentices, and some of them were in their late 50痴 and one was 64. Knowing the type of work, and the requirements it demanded out of your body, I always wondered how these people would get their required 25 years of service in for retirement. I知 just glad I barely reached that last September, as there is no way I could go back to that line of work after I知 healed.

Tough profession, and I respect folks that choose that career path, and can finish it with all fingers and limbs in place, along with no aches and pains.

Besides the sheet metal trades, the ones I always wonder about are the iron workers. Those that do that are a different breed, I tell ya. Calling them tough is saying it lightly.

maybe368

Hi Augie, hope you are feeling better. It is the same for firefighting. I started when I was 21 and felt kind of broken when I was 47 and retired. The only good thing was that a guy could go to a desk job or the airport station (high risk, low activity, not that many plane crashes). The thing that sucks the worst is that they raised the number of years for retirement to 25 and added a minimum age of 55. The only way that might change back is if a powerful politico has a fire in his mansion and the first rig in empties out a bunch of fiftyish firefighters, it doesn't exude a bunch of confidence...Mark

bigragu

Hey, Mark! Yeah, that what ours is, 25 Service years and age 55, which I turned last July.

Rumor has it they may stretch it back out to 60 years of age like it was when I first got in, as the contractors are complaining cause all their “seasoned vets” that are running their big projects are bailing out, and the ratio of folks getting out to apprentices coming in are off.

When that topic got brought up during my teachings on Foreman Training class, I actually told the apprentices that that is a great opportunity for them, as the contractors are now forced to look to the younger group to train them earlier to run work as they would be with the contractors for a longer haul. With that kind of responsibility comes company trucks, gas cards, higher wages possibly, etc.

For some reason though, I would still get blank stares from some of these students, showing a lack of understanding on that concept, lol