Best not to allow one’s mind to wander in an aluminum slitting plant.Ī sense of vocation began to form in me during those long summer months, though not yet in a deeply Christian sense. In fact, I didn’t realize I’d been cut until an adjacent slitting machine operator, a kind, gentle soul with a mild, homespun sense of humor said, “You might want to take a look at that.” A three-inch cut creased my right forearm. The blade was so thin and spinning so quickly that I felt no pain as it sliced into my arm. The heavy roll swiftly pushed my right arm into a rotating razor blade. Suddenly the roll on my hand trolley shifted as I was transferring it to a slitting machine. I was mid-way through a twelve-hour shift and repetitively loading large rolls of aluminum foil on to a series of slitting machines. Sustained attention, particularly when I was tired and tempted to distraction and day-dreaming, was essential.
I learned some valuable lessons that summer at the slitting plant. The hours were grueling midnight to noon, six days a week. As the weeks passed, though, I was increasingly tired. The job sounded interesting to me and would be a good way to make some sorely needed bucks over the summer.
The aluminum foil you buy in your local grocery store comes directly from aluminum foil slitting plants. These machines are basically a series of round, rapidly rotating razor blades designed to cut the foil into smaller sections. This foil was produced and printed on large, heavy rolls which were then attached to slitting machines. I was assigned to the slitting department, and my job was to keep slitting machine operators supplied with uncut aluminum foil. My dad, an executive with Reynolds Aluminum, had lined up a job for me at a Reynolds aluminum foil plant. It can get real hot in Richmond, and real humid. My parents had moved from southern New Jersey to Richmond, Virginia the previous year, and I was to experience my first summer in Richmond. I think the physically hardest job I’ve ever had was in the summer of 1969.
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Hard manual labor can remarkably clarify the mind and help to settle one’s sense of vocation.
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