The summer of 1970 is waning into dust. Labor Day has passed; the kids are back at school; and three of the four pennant races are essentially over.
And in Norwalk, Connecticut, a work career that began in the Calvin Coolidge administration has reached its last day.
September 16, 1970.
I’ve traced my grandpa’s employment history pretty thoroughly in this space. Heck, I’ve even posted the resume he prepared for himself in late 1970, when he still thought he was going to land another job.
(That resume only takes his work history back to 1931. But in this sound clip from another post, he reminiscences about being laid off in 1929 — when he was 19 — and not going back to work full-time until 1931. So he was in the workplace at some point in the late 1920s, before the Great Depression.)
Another, less severe economic slump ended his working days for good more than 40 years later.
As his resume details, he was let go by Time-Life early in 1970 when they cut back their Springdale, Conn., operations.
In April, he landed a job with John McAdams and Sons in Norwalk, doing what he called “automatic graphic arts machinery design drafting.”
I went to Google to see what I could find out about my grandpa’s final employer. There wasn’t much. In fact, several of the top matches for John McAdams and Sons are previous Hope Street entries.
Apparently the company made printing equipment, and was still in business as recently as 1984. State business records describe the company as “forfeited,” leading me to believe it’s no longer around.
One of the family partners, George McAdams, left the company around the same time my grandpa did. He moved to Long Island in his retirement and lived to be almost 105.
But back to our regularly scheduled timeline:
In September 1970, when business slowed down, my grandpa was laid off again. He was unsuccessful in finding work throughout late 1970 and early 1971, despite turning to the local unemployment office for help. And a heart attack he suffered in May 1971 ended his job-searching — and working — days for good.
(My dad has told me he thought the McAdams job was never supposed to be permanent. That may be, but my grandpa’s resume suggests he expected it to last longer than it did.)
This calendar entry, then, marks the last day my grandpa would ever work.
I wonder if he did anything to celebrate, or if he was too on edge about being laid off to feel much of any happiness.
I wonder whether his final co-workers remembered him for very long, or whether he faded into obscurity after six months: That desk over there? That was where what’s-his-name sat. Bill something. The skinny old guy. He was only here for a couple months. Nice enough guy.
And I wonder when and where my last day of work will be. I wonder whether it will surprise me, or whether I’ll have the luxury of planning it in advance. Maybe I won’t be able to afford to retire, but will do something menial until I’m too blind or stooped to carry on.
Or perhaps my last day of work will coincide with my last day of life, as it does for some people.
Kurt something. Wrote about his family a lot. Nice enough guy.
Kurt, as always this piece was insightful and thought provoking. I will confirm that you are a nice enough guy, but also much more memorable than you give yourself credit for. I bet your grandfather was no different.
Thank you! You are too kind. And thanks as always for reading.
I remember my last day (out of 32 years) at Kodak in 1998. I had been working very hard that week on a project re: equipment manufacturing systems integrated with corporate systems (said project was rendered unnecessary within a couple years, as all of equipment manufacturing was reorganized and folded into another organization). On my last day I went to lunch at a favorite restaurant with two special Kodak people. One was the guy who was succeeding me, and the other was a woman whom we both liked who was both an extremely effective worker and a great human being.
Can’t remember anything we talked about, probably our respective futures. I might have had two beers, they one drink, had a nice lunch and went back to work about 1:30. I had already packed up everything I was taking (minimal), and had intended to spend the afternoon writing soupy “it’s been great to work with you” letters to several folks on the internal Kodak email system. But I couldn’t log on; at 1:30 on my last day Kodak had already deleted my internal email account! I thought “— this!”, said goodbye to a couple folks and took off before 2, never to return.
If there’s any point to this ramble, it’s that I’m betting your last day will be anticlimactic, wherever and whenever it occurs.
Strange coincidence with the timing of your blog on “Punching Out”… I hadn’t seen either of my “last lunch” partners in the last 16 years until a chance meeting with the woman at a restaurant 6 weeks ago. We traded email addresses, she put me in touch with the guy, and we (and our spouses, plus our mutual big boss and wife) will all be getting together at our new house this Sunday! Looking forward to catching up. They are both 10-15 years younger than me, and still work for (different) Kodak spin-offs.
Ex-KodakMan
Thanks for the reminiscence. It does make a point.
Now, your *real* last-ever day of work would have been at Bay Trail, no? Do you remember that?
I remember. I gave a short farewell speech comparing working in business versus working in public schools (you can’t fire a student, you have to give them countless second chances and it’s incumbent on you to find a way to entice him/her to perform) to a teachers’ meeting. Other career teachers (read “burned out”) gave far less meaningful speeches; they were clearly glad to be getting the heck out.
But my whole last 4-5 months were anticlimactic, as the teacher I had formed a great rapport with (I thought of each class as a Johnny Carson show, where she was Johnny and I was a combination of Ed and Doc) was on long-term disability with a vocal cord problem and we had a young sub the whole time. Wasn’t the same fun I had the rest of my second career.
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