GG’s:

Electricians like, or liked, the fact that zig-zag rules don’t conduct
electricity.  I say “liked,” because all the electricians in my family have
passed on.

When I was a boy, among the few hand tools which my father, a 55-year IBEW
electrician, did not want me to touch were his folding rules.

Years after he retired, I encountered and bought a Lufkin aluminum folding rule.
I showed this to Pop, saying that it seemed much less fragile than the wooden
ones. His reaction was “I would not use that; it conducts!”

Another folding rule anecdote from my late older brother: He said if he needed a
few moments to think about something, but had to look busy, he’d hold his rule
with a few sections unfolded and look at the ceiling as if he were planning out
an installation. This gave him a few uninterrupted moments for those inevitable
times when you have to think something through.

John R.

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