250313 The Phone

I don't usually spend a lot of time on my phone.

Today was very different; it seemed like I was on the phone most of the day. I had business calls I needed to make and when I wasn’t on line with that, I received calls.

I had a long call with Kevin, my old friend from the Burroughs days. We hadn’t spoken for a long time so we made up for lost time talking about everything under the sun. He has a lot going on in his life with family and friends and his elderly contacts. He and his wife Kathleen live in a community with a lot of elderly people around. Kevin being who he is, he helps all the old people with their technology problems and even does some minor maintenance for them. Kevin knows everything about Microsoft Windows computers. He is the wizard of Windows. He also pointed out a mistake I made signing off on a recent post. I ended the post with the phrase Pox Vibiscum, instead of the correct phrase Pax Vobiscum. Pox Vobiscum means “the plague on you”. Where Pax Vobiscum means “peace be with you.” Sorry about that one. I took 2 years of Latin in high school. All I remembered was Pax Vobiscum. I took two years of Spanish in high school and all I remember is Dos Equis Por Favor, translated as two Dos Equis beers please.

The next caller shocked me. The call was from Kelly Hampton, better known as Maintenance Man Super Hero from the Litton days. I worked there for 19 years and 6 months when the plant shut down. I think that was 2006 or 2007 and that was the last time we talked. 19 years ago and Kelly called out of the blue. You Litton workers all remember Kelly and Bill Taylor. Those years at Litton were some of the best of my life. That’s when the “Sentinel News” started and Kelly, Bill T. Rob Painter, Alex Meadows, and the young lady from personnel. I don’t remember her name, but she was in a lot of the stories. If I remember, we took a picture of her standing on a chair with a large, long Christmas stocking. It looked like she was inside the stocking as a Christmas gift for a happy guy. We acted out the stories up on the roof, took lots of pictures and I wrote the stories that night to send out to the world. I remember they went out to the workers at the plant and many of you read them.
We had a lot of fun back then. My wife Joyce once said, “I don’t know how you keep your job.”
It seemed like the whole workforce back then was a tight knit group. We worked hard, and played hard. We worked together. I remember so many people I met as I was sent to different areas in the plant. I remember a lot of happy faces but not many of their names anymore. I can still picture every area there. I had planned to work at Litton until I was 75 or when they booted me out.