During the first month of the job, Stan Hosmer had been hired to be the project manager. Now that the project was underway, I ceased running the field engineering and became the field superintendent. He and his wife were both in their early 60s at that time, and Margeet and I became good personal friends with them.
Stan and I worked harmoniously together in all aspects of managing the project. His construction background was working for a major electrical company in Cleveland. We had built a construction office and we shared the same office with our desks face to face.
Toward the end of the job, he decided to turn in his first petty cash report in almost three years.. He had a secretary arrange them by date, total them and send them to the Pittsburgh office for payment. The reimbursement, which was over ten thousand dollars, caused the “blank” to hit the fan when they reached Pittsburgh. After much hassling for not being timely, he finally was paid his money.
During the winter, there was no parking along residential streets from November 1st to April 1st. Vehicles had to be parked off the street or between the sidewalk and the road. This kept the streets clear for the snow plowing, which was usually done during the night. During our first year there, almost 80 inches of snow fell during the month of December. Most cars had a rubber ball at the top of the antenna to make them visible at residential intersections with piled up snow.
At the job, we worked throughout the winter despite the cold and snowy weather. During one especially heavy snowstorm in the afternoon, the country road from the site to town was getting heavily drifted over. We shut down the job early, and sent a grader and a highlift to plow the road ahead of a caravan of the worker’s cars for the several miles into town to the main roads.
For Christmas, I borrowed a pickup truck and we went out and cut a tree for decorating. With the high ceilings in our house, we cut the tallest one we could haul. We had quite a collection of Christmas ornaments and this was the first season we had a tree big enough to use them all.
We were soon settled into our new house and the job when Dave and Karen started school in September at the Frederick Leighton Elementary School - Dave in 2nd Grade and Karen in Kindergarten. They soon adjusted to the new school and were both exceptional students. the school was about a quarter mile across town through residential areas, and the route had crossing guards at each road they had to cross. At that time, there were no school buses for kids living in town.
Stan had a severe diabetic condition which he usually neglected to treat properly. His treatment of low sugar was to go out to dinner and have two servings of coconut cream pie for dessert. He was very well organized in his paper work except for his petty cash account. For almost three years, he would throw his receipts in his bottom desk drawer.
In traveling to town from the cabin, we passed by a road maintenance shed and we were amazed at the size the snowplows on the trucks. Also, along the way, all of the road culverts had poles along side them about six feet high. We were told the poles were there to keep the snowplows from hitting the culverts while plowing.
After a very heavy snowfull, the main roads in town were cleared by loading the snow into trucks which then dumped them into the Oswego River which ran through the heart of town. During our stay there, I have no recollection of seeing chains on any cars in town.