Steadfast John Moore
The Original Electric Horseman
A version of this article originally appeared in the January 6, 2023 issue of the Carmel Pine Cone.The chances are good that John Moore has lived in Carmel longer than the average resident has. The chances are excellent that he began work as an electrician before you were born. And it’s almost certain that he was born before you were.
Moore has lived in Carmel for 47 years, since 1975. He took up the electrician’s trade in 1944.
During the “Great” (as in large and significant) Depression that lasted from 1929 to 1939, John Moore of Carmel was a boy residing in upstate New York. In fact, John was born in 1929, the first year of that drastic economic downturn. He first saw the light of day in Chatham, a small town of about 3,000 people at the time (now around 4,000) located 133 miles north of the Big Apple. Moore’s uncle, an electrical contractor, lived next door. In those lean times Moore’s father, a carpenter, seldom had work; as Moore put it, during that challenging period his father spent a lot of time merely “looking out the window.”
Moore’s uncle, on the other hand, always seemed to be busy. That convinced young Moore that it would be better for him to follow in his uncle’s footsteps rather than his father’s as to choice of trade. And so, in 1944, while in his early teens, Moore began an apprenticeship with his uncle.
Moore did the electrical work on his high school shop teacher’s house, leading that educator to refer those in his class with practical questions on wiring to his student and their fellow classmate, John.
Although Moore plied his trade for several decades, his life experience is not limited to working as an electrician. He also delivered milk, was a Cold War-era soldier stationed in Germany, and served as a caregiver to his wife and almost immediately thereafter to his mother at the end of their lives.
Moore’s time delivering milk preceded his foray into the electrical field. After school, John worked as a milkman’s helper, riding along in the milk truck and delivering glass bottles of the cargo to the homes on the route while the driver cooled his heels in the truck. On weekends, being able to start work earlier, John washed bottles at the dairy in the morning before embarking on the normal routine of milk delivery.
In 1951, six years after the end of World War 2 and early on in the Cold War with Russia and its allies, John was drafted into the U.S. Army. Already being an electrician, Uncle Sam trained him further in electrical repair. He was then assigned to work in the Signal Corps in two locations in Germany: Hanau, not far from Frankfurt, and then at Husterhoeh Kaserne in Pirmasens, in the mountains of Rhineland-Palatinate near the French border.
After serving his two years in the military, Moore returned to upstate New York for several years, returning to his life as a civilian electrician. In 1960, he had finally had enough of New York’s ice, snow, slush, and the “dog days of August,” when it was oppressively humid, and sought a change of locale. He visited his brother, who had moved to Los Angeles, but John soon realized he wanted no part of the Big Orange. He came north and settled on the Monterey Peninsula.
Moore was an employee of an electrical contractor until one day when he, the lead electrician on a project, was dressed down in front of the whole crew for storing specific information about the project in his head rather than having it all down on paper. Moore said that he got chewed out “up one side, down the other, and back up the first side again.” He took a night to think about it, and then tendered his resignation the next morning, telling his boss he’d better find someone before noon to take his place, as he would be leaving at that time.
Thus Moore began his own electrical contracting business, John Moore Electric.
Shortly after Moore had started his own business, he bid on a large project, managing to outbid his previous employer, coming in a mere $10 under the competing bid. Later, he snagged another large job right from under the nose, so to speak, of his former employer — that particular project was located right across from the street from the office of his previous employer.
For the first eight years in the area, Moore lived in Seaside. During that time, he met his future wife at his house: Moore needed some sewing work done, and engaged a seamstress, requesting that she bring her sewing machine along and do the work at his house. She did that, but also brought something — or someone — else, an employee of hers, who ultimately became Moore’s wife.
After Seaside, the Moores moved to Marina for 3 1/2 years, until the fog was more than they wanted to put up with, and they relocated a few miles southeast to Toro Park. After seven years there, the Moores relocated for the last time, in 1975, to Carmel.
Moore ran his electrical contracting business from 1970-2011, when he turned over the reins to his son so that he could care for his ill wife until she passed away. Two months later, he returned to New York for several months to perform the same end-of-life care for his mother.
A memorable episode from Moore’s professional life was when he worked on actress Betty White and game show host Allen Ludden’s home. When the project was finished, White and Ludden threw a party for all the tradesmen and their wives. Moore remembers them as gracious and down-to-earth hosts. White greeted them all at the door and later saw them off in the same way. Although Ludden was seriously ill with cancer, and spent most of the evening resting in his bedroom, he made the effort to come out and mingle briefly on two separate occasions.
Carmel is Moore’s favorite spot on earth. When asked where he would want to live if he couldn’t live in Carmel, he paused awhile, then said that it would have to be somewhere else on the Monterey peninsula. He mentioned Monterey and Pacific Grove as possibilities, but only as a theoretical mental exercise, for just as Moore stuck with the electrical trade until he retired, and took care of his wife and then his mother until they died, there is nary a chance that he will ever abandon his home of Carmel.
Read or download other writings of mine here.