Last time you talked about various work-study assignments.
Yes, and, believe it or not, I finally settled down. I took a permanent position at the Westinghouse plant in Newark, New Jersey. As a Manufacturing and Test Engineer. At their Meter Division. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first let me set it up.
Okay.
I looked around for a map of the area to show you, and I came up with this one.
It’s not the best, but it gives the layout of the New York metro area: New Jersey, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and such.
Right
You can see the eastern part of Newark. But the city stretches west quite a ways. I lived there. Any further west and I’d be in another town. Lived in a complex called the Ivy Hill Apartments.
Seventh floor. Had a nice view of New York on a clear day. Took a train in.
It dropped me off right at the plant. You remember I showed you the plant during my temp assignment?
I remember it.
Now here’s a shocker about food prices. Remember, this was back in 1953. And, when I got off the train, there by the building was a food truck.
It sold box lunches.
In each box was a sandwich, some kind of fruit, and a pastry of some kind. That was enough for me. But get the low prices for all that.
I’m ready.
The difference was in the meat. If you wanted a so-called high-price sandwich — roast beef or ham — the price was 50 cents for the whole box. But if you wanted a lower-priced meat — salami, for instance — the price was 35 cents.
Wow.
Yeah. Hard to believe now. But that’s what it was back then. In 1953.
Well, that was just a sidelight. Thought you’d be interested. Now let’s go inside the plant. I’ll take you on a virtual tour.
Okay.
It was called the Westinghouse Meter Division. They made two kinds of products. One was the large kind of voltmeters and ammeters used in industry.
I didn’t work on that side of the plant. I was concerned with the manufacture and test of the watt-hour meters you see mounted on the sides of houses.
At least I hope you see Westinghouse meters — like this one — instead of our competitors. Like GE. And Duncan. And Sangamo.
Tough competition?
Oh, yeah. Whenever it was convenient while touring in the outside world, I would check out the meters I came across. Hoping they were Westinghouse. Sometimes they were. Guess you can’t win ’em all.
Anyway, my job was to troubleshoot any problems that came up. After the meters were assembled, they would be tested and calibrated so they would read power consumption accurately. So I would be available to help out along that line.
That’s not our plant, but you get the idea.
Sure.
So I’d be on the lookout for problems and try to correct the source. Sometimes the insulation on a wire might be cut. Or the finish on an item might be scarred. I’d check it out. One source might be in stacking the tote pans incorrectly.
And do you know what helped me a lot in analyzing many of the problems?
What?
A simple eye loupe.
It could give me a better picture of what happened. And would you believe I still have it? True confession time. I kept it when I left the job. So sue me already.
A souvenir from the job.
Yep. Anyway, things were getting interesting around then. What had been only a rumor was becoming reality. The Westinghouse Meter Division was going to close in Newark and move to a new plant being built in Raleigh, North Carolina. So the employees were all talking about what to do. Move with the job to Raleigh? Find a new job around Newark?
So what did you do?
Someone else made my decision for me.
Who?
Uncle Sam.
The draft board had been breathing down my neck ever since graduation in 1952. But Westinghouse had been getting me deferments. At least until late ’54. By then it appeared inevitable that I would be drafted. So I volunteered for the draft. To get it over with.
And so it wasn’t any surprise when I finally received my draft notice. But — ham that I am — I couldn’t resist hoking it up a little with this shot of me reading my “Greetings.”
I received it in December and I was inducted into the Army in January 1955.
But my fellow employees at the plant gave me a nice going-away present.
What was that?
It so happened that my desk was the one nearest to the men’s room. So any visitors to the area — one engineer in particular — would leave his briefcase on my desk while he went in.
On my last day at the plant, I came back to my desk and found a briefcase on it. A nice-looking one too.
I didn’t think much about it, but, as I was thinking about some work-related problem,, and as my eyes wandered around while I thought — I tend to do that — I happened to notice some initials on the briefcase. They read “SDC.” My initials. What’s this? I wouldn’t normally look inside someone else’s briefcase, but I was too curious. I looked. And there was just the usual tissue paper the stores stuff into new items.
Nice.
It was. Well, as I went around the shop to say goodbye to my friends there, I also thanked them for their generosity. After all, I had been there for only 2 years or so. It was a very emotional parting.