SALEM, Ore. — No blueprint could have prepared Clint Lamkey for what he found in the SAIF Corp. building under renovation in Salem, Ore.
He was working on the layout of the second floor, measuring and marking where the walls will go, when he looked up at the otherwise bare concrete wall and saw the foot-high initials M.L. written with glue that was used to hang sheetrock.
Something about the curlicue before the first arch of the M and the small rounded loops of the L looked remarkably familiar. His late father had those same initials.
He snapped a photo with his cell phone and texted it to his mother. Neither professes to be a handwriting expert, but the nuances of the two letters were so recognizable.
“It’s him alright,” mom Jo Lamkey replied, attaching a copy of a bank statement with her husband’s signature to compare. “Look how he made his M and his L.”
Clint Lamkey knew his father worked in construction, but had no idea he had worked on the same SAIF building, which was built in 1974. It has been gutted to make seismic, electrical and plumbing upgrades and to integrate flood protection measures because of its proximity to Pringle Creek, and is scheduled to be completed in April 2018.
As Clint Lamkey worked his way through the 185,000-square-foot building and up to the fifth floor, he made a second discovery. There, on another concrete wall, in giant cursive writing, was his father’s name, Melvin Lamkey. Same M. Same L.
Clint Lamkey is proud to be a carpenter, just like his dad, but a revelation like this gives new meaning to the clich? “following in his father’s footsteps.”
Maybe it was fate. How else do you explain it? What were the chances of him doing construction work on the same building, more than four decades later, let alone seeing the initials and signature before they were once again covered with sheetrock?
Besides, 100 or so construction workers are on the site any given day, and he isn’t the only carpenter working on the project.
“I should’ve went and bought a lottery ticket or something,” Clint Lamkey said.
Consider also that he only recently began working for Mid-Valley Commercial Construction, one of the subcontractors on the SAIF project. He had been with his previous company for 26 years.
“This kind of justified and solidified my choice to move,” Clint Lamkey said. “I would never have found them.”
The father-son connection with the initials and signature has created a buzz among the crew at the construction site and among employees at SAIF, Oregon’s not-for-profit, state-chartered workers’ compensation insurance company. People say Lamkey’s story was one of the most-read stories on the company intranet.
