Saturday, August 25, 2007
Nostalgia Day
The only thing I thought was on my agenda for today was celebrating that not-so-very-joyful-but-quite-useful holiday, Free Dump Weekend. The occasion was made even more festive than usual because our neighbors down the road have a puppy they are never home to play with. So Miss Smiley McFriendlyPants is always up HERE. And one of her methods of self-entertainment has been to tear into what we thought were securely stored sacks of trash and tumble the old shoes, torn out carpet and even less attractive items all over the place.
On my way to the dump site I spotted an auction sign. Kind of odd, since it was in what used to be the industrial part of town, before the bus plant closed, along with several of the smaller companies that made components for it.
After I got Dreamcloud emptied out, I took the back road from the dump site towards the street that had been marked by the auction sign. "Huh," I wondered. "Why are there so many cars parked at NEOPLAN?"
Because, of course, that's where the auction was. The old bus factory. I couldn't stop myself from pulling in so I could have a look around.
That's Final Finish, and I mostly worked way down at the far end, in one of the pits. There were two "lines" of buses. Back in the day, they would start by building the steel skeleton of the bus in the other large bay to the east of this one. As it moved along they added the sheet metal skins and the axles and such. Just before it came into the Final Finish area, it was painted. At this point, the buses didn't have wheels on yet. They rode on rails on little trolley-like carts, pushed forward by the workers.
I was an electrical installer, and worked under the bus hanging the long "harnesses" of wiring that all the components would later be plugged into. It was a dirty job, because the tarry undercoating wasn't yet fully dry. But as jobs go, I kind of liked it. I learned a lot of useful skills and got some great stories along the way.
I felt weird going back inside today, because I'm pretty sure I haven't been in there in at least 15 years, and then I was just taking a tour on an open house day.
NEOPLAN was what finally got me to commit to moving to Lamar and setting up house-keeping with the clone...I had applied for a few jobs down there before, but there just wasn't much on offer until they came to town. I met my friend Stefan from Germany there (aka The Best Ex In the World), and they gave me my first few special jobs, doing the company newsletter, semi-official company photographer, and later a few other consultant gigs.
Not to mention being in the company band and writing the company comic book.
Good times.
I didn't buy anything at the auction, though. No room in this house foranother pet more furniture.
On my way to the dump site I spotted an auction sign. Kind of odd, since it was in what used to be the industrial part of town, before the bus plant closed, along with several of the smaller companies that made components for it.
After I got Dreamcloud emptied out, I took the back road from the dump site towards the street that had been marked by the auction sign. "Huh," I wondered. "Why are there so many cars parked at NEOPLAN?"
Because, of course, that's where the auction was. The old bus factory. I couldn't stop myself from pulling in so I could have a look around.
That's Final Finish, and I mostly worked way down at the far end, in one of the pits. There were two "lines" of buses. Back in the day, they would start by building the steel skeleton of the bus in the other large bay to the east of this one. As it moved along they added the sheet metal skins and the axles and such. Just before it came into the Final Finish area, it was painted. At this point, the buses didn't have wheels on yet. They rode on rails on little trolley-like carts, pushed forward by the workers.
I was an electrical installer, and worked under the bus hanging the long "harnesses" of wiring that all the components would later be plugged into. It was a dirty job, because the tarry undercoating wasn't yet fully dry. But as jobs go, I kind of liked it. I learned a lot of useful skills and got some great stories along the way.
I felt weird going back inside today, because I'm pretty sure I haven't been in there in at least 15 years, and then I was just taking a tour on an open house day.
NEOPLAN was what finally got me to commit to moving to Lamar and setting up house-keeping with the clone...I had applied for a few jobs down there before, but there just wasn't much on offer until they came to town. I met my friend Stefan from Germany there (aka The Best Ex In the World), and they gave me my first few special jobs, doing the company newsletter, semi-official company photographer, and later a few other consultant gigs.
Not to mention being in the company band and writing the company comic book.
Good times.
I didn't buy anything at the auction, though. No room in this house for
Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
