Met a Ford worker
 

My job takes me to retirement homes, and a few Alzheimer facilities.
I met a fellow at one such facility named Ed, who is a year away from 100 big ones.
He doesn't remember what he had for breakfast, but vividly recalls his time working at Ford on the "A models".
I was eager to hear some stories, and had my chance last visit. Unfortunately my expectations of learning about some pin striping secrets, or assembly procedures was dashed, because he worked in the coke ovens. Still some good tails, mostly about burns and smashed fingers, but entertaining nonetheless.
So, if you have a '31 built at the Rouge Plant in Detroit, my buddy Ed poured the steel. A nice window on the past that will likely soon close.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

It is unfortunate for most of us, including me, that I wasted many opportunities to talk to older, seasoned and experienced persons to learn of their life, their lessons, experiences, and history as seen through their eyes. It is frustrating to me to hear my own kids almost refusing to listen to older people as they judge them irrelevant. The younger generation seems to hang onto the words of their generation as though they want to figure out what has already been figured out, starting all over again with each generation.

I dearly regret all those opportunities that I missed. Had I paid attention when I was young and talked to a 85-year old person who would have been at least 20 years old at the time of the era, I could have had a first hand account of the turn of the last century, the phase out of the horse and buggy and the first car they remember in their home town. A 67-year old person could have told me about the Great War, a 50-year old could talk about the depression, a 40-year old person could talk about WWII and my friends big brother could have been killed in Vietnam.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

How true is that! My Great Aunt is 99 and she took flying lessons in the early days, sailed clipper ship in the china sea. As an engineer with the anaconda copper company developed the charts still used today for determining the sag and stress on the poles for high tension wires with different size wires (all well before computers). She built PT boats during WWII. Lots of stories I never heard as well.

Sorry for being off topic.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

I loved hearing the stories from older guys! In one shop we had a retired painter from the GM plant in Linden, NJ before and during WW2. This plant was located directly across rt 1 from Linden airport where the new Wildcats were test flown. He used to tell how sometimes he would hear one that screamed especially loud and long and everyone would lift their heads, just before the plane and pilot would bore into the ground. And then there was my Father in law who was born in 1902 and could recall life in the USA before Prohibition. Granpa's family owned a moving company in Montclair, NJ and they bought the second truck bought in the town of Montclair. It was a 1910 International.
Then there was my father's cousin, Les. Les had many jobs before settling down on the Farm. At one point, he use to take a train with a bunch of other guys out to Detroit and they would drive newly built Fords (Model T's) back to NJ. Stories about the past always fascinated me.
Terry

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

My Grand Pa was born in 1902 and went to work at a Ford plant in 1916 instaling the steering gears on the T. At lunch one day the fellas said they were gonna rat him out for being under age (14) so he left out of there and never picked up his last pay check! Growing up all I heard were his Model A and T stories,in damp weather you had to brush a little kerosene on the A's plug wires so she would hit on all 4.
@1990 I left a 1 cyl. garden tractor over his house so I could work his garden spot. The engine had a Mag. on the side. Well one day he adjusted the mag points? and fooled with some other stuff. Oh no I thought...Tractor ran it's best after he Fooled with it!!! My Aunt 5 years ago gave me a small tool box that was his inside I found Ford wrench's and a couple z wrenches,feeler guage for Mag. I still remember playing with a big box of Champion spark plugs there.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

When I was 19 I got a job in a "screw machine shop" packing the parts in boxes. I worked 1 on 1 with this "Old Man" (he must a been all of 55) , He had about 1 years worth of stories from growing up on the farm during the depression to begging his parents to let him go to war(WWII) Doing the math I think he was born in about 1927. He had several Model A stories but the one that got me was, His dad had him get his drivers license on his 12th birthday to chauffeur him and his mother around because dad didn't want to learn how to drive with that new transmission. I wish i would have written all his stories down so many were great windows into the past.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

that is happening very fast with WWII veterans

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

My Dad is now 94 years old. I was introduced to Model A's very early as that was the car he brought me & Mom home from the hospital when I was born. He introduced me to working on Model A's when I was 9 years old, along with his stories over the years about his early days and working on and driving these cars. He is really anxious to hear about every wrench I turn on my PU and is saddened by the fact that he can't be right there working on it with me all the time (he lives 6,000 miles away).

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

I too have regrets. My dad (born 1907) once told me about my granfather's trucking business in Toronto which was the first to switch from horse and buggy trucking to the new trucks powered by gasoline. He told of a time he was driving one of the trucks down a hill in Toronto near the Tip Top Taylors building when he saw a wheel rolling down the road beside him. He thought some poor soul had lost his wheel. He soon learned it was his. I don't know but it must have been Model T trucks if the switch over was from wagons. So many lost opportunities. Bill G

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

Another story,My Dad was born in 1933 in his late teens he and his buddies would go to Riverside drive (Richmond Va.) and sit on a bluff over looking a sharp curve on Fri-Sat. night and watch the Model A's race thru the tight curves You allways saw at least one Roll over every night. Then over to Cherokee road to watch them get in the Air when they crest the hill!
As a Kid Daddy took me thru those curves in a 71 Cuda'!!

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

If there is any chance, and you feel comfortable doing it, ask him if you can tape or video record a conversation with him as he reminisces about his youth.

We did this with a friend's Grandfather before he passed in the 80's.

I asked him if he had met anyone famous during the War.

Turns out he was in uniform (Ensign) passing through Washington, and running into Admiral Ernest King (CNO) late one evening at a train station was invited by the Admiral to have a drink. They met up with J. Edgar Hoover, but the Grandfather was loyal to his word forty years later not to reveal the conversation!

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

Around a year ago my dad and I went to visit my Aunt (by marriage) and while visiting with her, A show about the Kennedy assassination was on. When the footage of the shooting came one their was a secret serve man jumped on the trunk. My aunt says, That's my Cousin. And we went on visiting. On the way home my dad says. Did she say what I think she said about that being her cousin.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

Ask this guy if he remembers the coke ovens that Edsel had built that Henry tore down as soon as they were completed.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

The upholstery in my 30 RPU was done in the 70's by a guy who installed them when new.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

My Dad was an engineer for Western Electric in Kearny, NJ. The plant was in the Jersey meadows (Today, Meadowlands) Right next to the old Ford Mod. A factory on Fishhouse road. This was near the Pulaski sky way. The Jersey Meadows was a very interesting place.
My Father in law Remembered driving a horse drawn moving van through the Holland tunnel when it was first built. His father liked horses too much too switch the entire company over to gas power. Besides, The horses were great with the men. They could come home late, stop in the gin mill around the corner. When they passed out , the barman would have them placed on the back of the wagon, untie the team and send them home. The horses knew the way and they would wake up, in the yard. Ready to go to work in the morning. Can't get a DUI that way!
Terry

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

We don't want to lose these oldtimer's wisdom, for sure !
When I was first out of high school, I got a job with the State Road Commission, working at a roadside park.
One of the jobs was to mow the river bank with cicles, this was before weedeaters. My partner, a man of 67 years of age, was mowing circles around me. I could not understand how this "old" man could do so much better than a strong, young man. He let me work for quite a while before he taught me the secret. I was swinging my cicle like a baseball bat trying to kill that tall grass ! He taught me to lift the tool and just let the weight of it, cut the grass. I lasted much longer, then. I was a city boy, after all.
MIKE :) (mikeburch)

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

I remember the story's my dad would tell me about the model A 's and how he had to work on them during the depression. My best storing I remember him telling me was, When I was born in 1946 , I was born at home and he had 2 1935 Fords , and he had to sell one to Pay for me. Could be that's why I like old Fords.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

good trade off!!:D

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

yes.
seize the moment if you have it.
my great-grandfather, Fred McMillen, lived until I was 16 years old.
If I had not been so damn stupid, I would have spent some afternoons with him and a tape recorder.
The stories he could have told me! his grandfather fled the Irish potato famine in 1841.

Re: Met a Ford worker
 

We all still have those chances when we are out with our cars. Take the time to let folks see and hear and even smell them and they will appreciate what we have and we can even start the conversation sometimes.