Back in the 1960s, our little corner of western Illinois, around Macomb, was already known for its agriculture. Sometimes in August “you could almost hear the corn growing,” as people said. That’s because of the six or more inches of fertile black topsoil, but equally valuable is what lies below—abundant deposits of pure clay. This resource also led to the development of some unique industries in our town--a brick factory, a sewer pipe factory, a porcelain products factory, and even the largest art pottery facility in the world.
Illinois Electric Porcelain was where I worked. It was located in the northeast part of town, on Pearl Street. To save up for law school tuition, I needed money, and you could earn twice as much there as you could flipping burgers— my old job that paid ninety-cents per hour. So, I spent three summers “out to the Porce-leen.”
I’m sure you’ve seen electric insulators before, but you may not have paid them any attention. Just glance up at the power poles. The insulators are there--protecting against dangerous conductivity between the charged lines and the fixtures, like the wooden poles. Some of them look like inverted cups, usually brown or gray in color, or they’re like oblong hockey pucks, with the guy wires running through them. Still others resemble overgrown mushrooms on vertical stalks. Take it from one who knows. Those cups: They’re RX270’s. The mushrooms: They’re PS110’s. Even after all these years, I can rattle off those model numbers.
Here’s how things worked at the Porce-leen. The dump trucks would arrive from the clay mines, unloading huge loads into the giant hoppers. The guys working the presses would liquefy the clay and squeeze it into fifty-pound disks. The two-man pug mill crews threw the disks into their smaller hopper, producing tubes of wet clay. The racks full of tubes were transported by fork lifts into the giant whitehot kiln to be baked, and then the hardened tubes went to the molders, who would fashion them into the hockey pucks, mushrooms, and other familiar shapes. Then it was on to the glazers, and finally back to the kiln one more time for the finished product.
I worked in the ware-dusting room, assigned to the graveyard shift, starting at 11:00 p.m. and finishing at 7:00 a.m. It took me all of fifteen minutes to learn the job. I stood in a stiflingly hot room, just feet from the kiln. Armed with a rubber hose, my job was to blow the dust off the still hot ware, which had just arrived on pallets, so there wouldn’t be any bubbles formed when it was glazed. Giant fans sucked up the dust (or some of it) that we created with our high-pressure air hoses. I wore steel-toed boots, to protect my feet from dropped insulators—as well as foam ear plugs for the noise, safety glasses to protect my eyes from the little chips of porcelain that flew up in the blowing process, and finally, a respirator mask which covered my face.
The entire Porce-leen factory, but especially our work area, was permeated with dust. Despite the safety measures, my ears rang all day long, and after a few weeks I found myself coughing up muddy phlegm. It was common for veterans at the plant to suffer from silicosis—sometimes referred to as “potter’s rot.” It didn’t seem like the company cared about it, either.
During my first day on the job, the foreman introduced me to a couple of old hands, Si and Walt. They had both been ware-dusters for years, although Si had moved on to a nearby molding unit.
Even though they didn’t have to be, Si and Walt were friendly to me. Si was a slight, bald fellow with a fringe of white hair. Although he was missing a few teeth, he had a ready smile. Walt was a heavy-set, avuncular fellow. “So, you’re the new ware duster?” Si said. “Shittiest job in the whole damn place.”
I was informed by the foreman that the Porce-leen factory was an “open shop.” That meant that union membership was non-mandatory, and short-timers like me could avoid joining up. This allowed the company to dominate the workers. If the union got too “uppity,” the company could divide and conquer by firing the old hands and hiring more entry-level types like myself.
Thanks to the company’s poor treatment of the workers, spirits remained low. Instead of cheering things up with some art or posters, a blackboard hung on the wall, announcing “eighty-nine days since an accident.”
There were no employee facilities save the dirty latrines. Not even a break room. For lunch at 3:00 a.m., you had the choice of sitting next to your machine or going outside. We younger guys preferred congregating on the concrete blocks in the parking lot along the tracks. Entertainment was provided by the nocturnally-active colony of rats, at whom we would launch missiles of broken ware. We usually missed, just scattering the ugly vermin, but occasionally one could get a clean kill.
Sometimes Walt and Si would join us. They would bring along their old-fashioned, covered, wagon-style lunch boxes. Si had the yellow, tobacco-stained fingers of a confirmed smoker, and he’d always offer us one of his Camels. Walt enjoyed eating peaches right out of the can, finishing them off by guzzling the thick, sweet syrup. One day, I noticed that Walt had a paperback book in his pocket. I asked him what he was reading. “Take a look. It might do you some good,” he said.
It was a thin volume—more pictures than print—describing religious miracles that had been conferred on people. There were the expected cures of terminal cancer, but also tales of sudden riches bestowed on deserving believers. “Could happen to any of us,” Walt said. “You love the Lord, don’t you?” “Um, sure,” I responded, although I think he could detect the insincerity of one who had given up on the concept long ago.
You might think that Si and Walt would resent me for shuttling in and out of the job for the school year, while their futures were set within the dreary walls of the Porce-leen. They couldn’t have been nicer, though. They seemed proud that someone from their ranks was headed to a professional career.
One evening in my third summer I arrived for the 11:00 p.m. punch-in at the time clock. Si was walking in the opposite direction. His right arm was wrapped in gauze, and there were blood stains seeping through. He was in obvious distress. Still, he managed a friendly, though strained, smile as he passed.
Arriving at my station, I noticed two gentlemen from the front office standing next to Si’s machine. You could tell they were management by their cheap, short-sleeved dress shirts and clip-on ties. One was focusing a camera on the machine. I quietly moved behind him to sneak a glance at the scene. What did I see? Lying on the metal table, next to the lathe, were two tobacco-stained fingers, perfectly severed. Ironically, the “eighty-nine days without an accident” blackboard loomed behind the machine.
I started back to the dressing room. Si would probably be back on the job in a few days, I thought. What choice did he have? As I rigged myself up with my respirator, safety glasses, and the rest, I decided that I did have a choice. If I left,I’d miss Si and Walt. I might even miss killing the rats. But this would be my last day “out to the Porce-leen.”
