Dennis:

I'm having a hard time with that nickel a foot thing. Either the Canadian dollar was worth alot more then or you're 110 years old...hehe.

Kevin:

That's the way I was taught. Using cleats to side nail without even drilling. I recall the first nail down was a White Oak and working in a kitchen. The boss went out to lunch, came back and saw piles of bent cleats all over the floor, asked what was up. Those guys had the touch, I didn't. They could drive one of those things with one or two whacks and it was home with one more whack with the side of a screwdriver to "set" it.

Man, you guys must be old. You use that mens hair dye stuff?

Lol Ken, ya as a matter of fact, our dollar was worth more than your greenback way back then. As I recall, minimum wage back then was about a buck and a half an hour, and I was churning out 15 to 20 bucks a day, so felt pretty good with myself. The time era I am talking about is mid sixties. I laid my first floor for profit in 1961, went to night school after completing high school at a community college that had decent woodworking and wood technology/design courses. Fooled around on my own for a while, but never liked having to depend on the likes of me to generate the work needed to get a paycheck. Went into furniture industry for a while to see whether that would work for me, but no.
Accidentally hooked up with the company I am now employed by in 1971 and been with them ever since. At the time, there was myself and one other guy as installers, and two sanding crews, plus the boss of course. Now, the company is probably one of the biggest hardwood flooring companies in Canada, with office staff of 20 odd, warehouse of 3, 4 full time delivery guys (for our retail dept.) 18 installation crews, mostly 2 man, some 3. And 4 full time service guys. And back to only two sanding crews, but not the same ones as back in the early days, lol.