In today's newspaper obituaries, I see that yet another former co-worker of mine has passed away. This one I worked with starting 30 years ago this month, for four years...or, more correctly, for four "seasons," since work at the old W. R. Grace granular fertilizer plant was nothing if not seasonal.
Larry was 53.
The Grace plant sat on a site now occupied by a WAL-MART Supercenter in New Albany, IN. On the shipping dock, we bagged and loaded tons of fertilizer onto everything from 1-ton grain trucks to large flatbed semi trailers. I was a bagger operator, and Larry was either a bucket tractor operator--we had a small fleet of Hough/IH bucket tractors, about the size of your average Bobcat, and one John Deere articulated bucket tractor--or a truck loader.
The tractor operators would load the particular variety--maybe 6-24-24 this time, or 10-40-10 the next, or 12-12-12 the next--into the hopper, where it would make its way through the elevatoes and screens until it ended up in the supply hopper for the bagger. The bagger operator would place a bag on the chute, making sure not to clamp his hand in the process, fill the bag, drop it down onto the chain conveyor, and repeat the process. The bag would next go to the sewing machine, where it was stitched shut,and then continue down the line to the belt conveyor, where it was routed uphill until it started back down the roller conveyor, out the door, and onto the truck. There it was stacked, either onto pallets or directly onto the floor of the truck, in an interlocking fashion so that the load would be less likely to shift as the truck made its way to its destination.
For the shipping dock, the "official" shift was from 7 am until 3:30 pm, with a morning break of 15 minutes whenever the "roach coach" showed up, and with a 30-minute lunch from 12 to 12:30. an ACTUAL shift was from 7 am until the last scheduled truck was loaded...which is how I came to spend my first wedding anniversary working until 10:30 pm, arriving home at about 11, just in time to shower and go to bed so I could do it all again the next day.
Larry's sense of humor helped me cope with that disappointment, and he always seemed to be smiling. Larry was known to go out at lunchtime on occasion and "cruise a quart," as we called it, making a trip to the liquor store about a half-mile down the road and having finished a "liquid lunch" of St. Louis' or Milwaukee's best-known product by the time the rest of us were clocking back in. And he might've been there when some of the guys "passed around a fat one" as well, as some of the guys were known to do. But none of it appeared to have a negative effect on his work, as he was always one of the first to retake his position when lunch was over.
After four seasons at Grace, I lost track of Larry. We were different enough that we didn't hang out together, and I have no idea where his life's journey took him this past 26 years. But for a time we were co-workers, and he was one I could count on to get the job done on either side of me.
And so it's difficult to know that another person I'd been able to count on at one point in my life is gone. The obituary was short, with no details concerning survivors, so I don't know whether he has any family to mourn his passing or not. But I wanted to take this opportunity to let people know that folks like Larry don't pass from this world unnoticed, or unappreciated.
