Centennial Construction

In 1973, three years after serving two terms in Vietnam with the Marine Corps, I took a job as a roofer in 1973 with my father-in-law, John B Chicklowski of Springfield. This was long before power ladders and nail guns. I was paid by piecework, gaining $6. 00 per square (three bundles of shingles) My father-in-law specialized in two family homes - the roofs were higher and he made more money that way. After about three years of banging nails, I realized there were no old roofers. It occurred to me that roofing was for younger men, and I decided right then and there to find some other stage of construction in which to specialize.