I was a chain-man in a surveying crew. I must have been 16. I learned how to "throw" a hundred foot chain. A chain was a metal measuring tape. At the end of the day the tape would be coiled up in one hand. At this time you had a coil of metal tape with about a 2 to 3 foot diameter. If you knew how, you could grasp the tape in two opposite places on the coil and twist in a way that gave you a coil of half the previous diameter This made it easier to store the tape. It took some experience, but I mastered the skill. You did not know that the old prune picker could "throw" a steel surveying tape did you?
I would venture to say that this is an obsolete skill.
After I got the government started on a solution to the natural rubber shortage I went into the Army.
I do not ever recall meeting a person who worked in Guayule. Some 10,000 people worked on the project during WW II.
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