THE FACTORY SUMMER

 I have many wonderful memories growing up…and the Fall always makes me think of school...for some a beginning and for others the end of the beginning...

    Now June ‘62 I was finally a high school graduate and considered myself grownup even though I still had a lot to learn.  Now it time for me to learn the lesson of hard work. To “cut the apron strings” as grandmother Ethel would say.  She seemed to have a saying about everything I said.  I graduated on a Thursday and reported to my first real job on the midnight shift Sunday.  My two and a half days of summer vacation was over.  And my season of discontent had begun.  I would labor in a hot glass factory for three months - but it was the highest paying summer job for a student in town and I would pocket a small fortune - almost $100 bucks a week.

    Even though I moved away from my hometown almost 50 years ago I still read about Millville on-line. Yesterday there was an announcement that the Wheaton Glass plant was closing…the one time lifeblood of the city’s and it's working people…the factory.  And I think about my first day of really hard work - I ever did…

Wheaton Glass Circa 1962

…I dressed in the standard factory uniform – tan khaki’s and white tee shirt.  And had on my first pair of ‘work' shoes – hard toed heavy black ones that my dad insisted that I wear that first day.  They made my feet sweat and I felt like Frankenstein plodding around in them.  Dad worked at the same plant, one of two massive factories in “Glasstown”.  He worked in th cool AC of the “Pentagon” as the executive offices were fondly called by the unwashed.  He was a master craftsman - model maker.  His models were the first step in producing a designer's graphic idea of a bottle.  He drove me to the north gatehouse a half hour before my shift. We were going to share our only car getting to work. I joined the parade of zombies marching to their various jobs in the steamy heat.  I only recognized a couple of my school friends trudging along.  There wasn’t much conversation and very few smiles. I would grow here an learn that factory "shift workers" were much different then those in my former world of school, sports and fun - They were very serious people

    As we walked into smokey building the temperature rose from a pleasant 70’s to what seemed to be close to what hell feels like.  It had to be 110 degrees – and thus why they called this area of the plant the “hot end.”  But more than the heat the noise was deafening.  A constant dissonance;  a droning that I would learn came from the glassblowing machine, behemoths that “blew” a never ending stream of molten glass into bottles. One could actually “smell” the heat as we all hurriedly walk to packing area. I followed the line of workers to the end of some very long covered converyors belts. At the end of each out came a never ending parade of bottles. And in there midst was a small "packing house office". What I remember most is that it was air conditioned. I had been in the glass business for five minutes and alreadly a cool room was actually a bit chilly but not as much as my reception.  I was met by the “foreman” who look up from a pile of forms and scowled at me. I knew him from the outer world.  His son and I played football together.  But here in the plant he had a totally different personality.  He immediately told me he was the “boss” and no longer was a friend.  My work "orentation" - He tossed me a gate pass, and then ordered me to report to the assistant foreman out on the floo, The second in command didn't waste any words and immediately said, “See this damn %^&# mess (a six foot high cluttered bunch of torned cartons, broken pallets and other stuff I didn’t recognize). "Yes sir", I replied as I cupped my ear even though he was shouting. "Move this crap to the other end of the building, pile it up neat and then come back sweep up this area. Use that hand. Use that broom.  Mr. Wheaton likes a clean and uncluttered factory.”  And he marched away. The first real work day of my life had begun.  

    I didn’t mind this job because it was only about 96 degrees here away from the hot end. However, I did feel the task a bit below my skill level – I was now a certified a high school graduate!  Later in the lunch room I learn very quickly not to broadcast that fact as most of the workers and the few bosses resented all summer hires.

    I spent the next couple of hours moving a mountain about 100 yards to the other end of the packing house.  Twice the assistant foreman stopped by, looked, flashed a smirky smile and left without a word.  I guessed I was doing what he wanted?  When finished I still had six hours left to this sendless night - it seemed time had slowed down. I stood learning on my broom when the assistant foreman marched up to me. "Nice pile - now move all that stuff back to where you found it. The foreman said he rather have it where it was!"  I was speechless. By 4:AM I had moved this dreck to five differenct placea in the warehous.  And I discovered time was relative. My two 15 minute breaks and 1 half-hour lunch of a wilted peanut butter sandwich flew by.  Finally, the sun light tried to shine through the years of gunk on the safety glass windows. I was in the home stretch and exhauted. My legs felt like lead. A loud whistle blew and the robot packers and filed out much faster than they filed in the inferno. I learnd by the end of the week that we all couldn't wait to get out of work and get to sleep. I parked by industrial sized broom in a corner and join the herd. Dad was waiting to drive me home where I dived into bed without saying a single work and was instantly out cold. Kids love to stay up late - I a newly formed "adult" needed my sleep and I slept the enitre day away - another first. My mom woke me at supper time and I felt like I had been in bed ten minutes. Once again experiencing the mysteries of time. Between yawns I recounted "busy work" experience and the only remark from Dad was, “that’s factory work for ya!"  I reported to the assistant foreman the that night whic swiftly arrived.  He looked at me, laughed. “No more moving stuff. Tonight you're gong to learn how to soak corks." I almost fainted. I was led to a tub of water and he explained the task (which less complicated than moving crap. "Take a cork from that bin and dunk them in the water. When the tub fills with corks put them in the other bin and somebody will pick them up. That's it." He walked away assuming I "got" it.

    That night I got my first case of "dishpan hands!" soaking hundreds of corks. At first I counted them just for fun but got tired of this amusement when I hit number 2500. Sometime that night standing there I had another "Got It" An epithany. I realized that the sem–boss was making up work for me because they could not just have me standing around getting paid for nothing.

    I was an apprentice "cork soaker" until the first "real" packer took their vacation and never went back to the broom or the tub again that summer. And it was indeed a summer of learning about the way of the world. I loved my lunch break because I could listen to the constant babble of the regulars (the people I probably would have never met.)  Their standard conversation centered on baseball, horseracing or the romantic escapades of certain notorious male and female packers at the plant.  I listened to folks who had been doing this job for 40+ years. By the way my (union contract required) paid lunch was 30 mintues but it took about a 5 minute to the lunch room and back so the actual break was a whole 20 minutes.  I also got a 10 minute break every 2 hours - but didn't race to the breakroom - I sat on a pallet of boxes and enjoyed getting the feeling back in my feet. I continue this routine for the next ten weeks.  But beyond the work of a skilled packer who learn to inspect each bottle for dozens of different flaws - I learned one of the greatest lessons of my life.  

    After only a few weeks of my first sumer job I definitely knew that would study hard and graduate from college.  I lived the life of how hard some people (who weren't as smart or perhaps just not lucky as me) worked to simply live. And I learned who was the best shortstop in the National League and how the different odds are determined for a horse race.