60 years at Harnischfeger and all he got was a gold watch

Back in the day, I did some time at Lackie Brothers, the Kitchener-based mill-wrighting and heavy-haul contractor that enjoyed its heyday when southern Ontario had a booming industrial economy. Then NAFTA came in, and it wasn’t long before they went tits up. But that’s another story. Our crew was dispatched to a mini-mill under construction out in Courtice, on the other side of Toronto. Steel mini-mills were a coming attraction at the time; they would allegedly produce steel at a lower cost than the big guys like Stelco and Dofasco. Our assignment was to install the overhead crane that serviced the main bay of the mill. The crane itself came from Harnischfeger in Milwaukee. That was one of the big names in American industrial equipment at the time. But then NAFTA came in, and it wasn’t long before they went tits up. Who needs industrial equipment in a country de-industrializing? But that’s another story. So Milwaukee sent this old dude to supervise the install. He wasn’t the kind of project supervisor who sat in an air-conditioned trailer all day. No sir, this was a hands-on guy! In fact, he told us he’d been with Harnischfeger for 60 years! He’d recently come back to work after a quadruple by-pass, and apologized profusely for having to “go easy.” Not sure what he meant by that. He was up and down the ladders and clambering across the structural beams like everybody else. When we’re swinging various parts into place he’s hanging onto a rope like everybody else. When we’re sitting in the middle of the bridge part of the bridge-and-trolley crane having a smoke break, he’s flicking his cigarette ashes to the shop floor, forty feet below, like everybody else. I find myself remembering this guy more, now that I’m retired. Obviously, he could have been retired, but he chose to keep working. If you like what you do and you’re good at it, why stop when you’re 65?