THE RETIREMENT PARTY STORY
This is a MILL story.
People have asked me to write more of them, and I said I would, if they up-graded to paid…but no one would. So, as a result, ALL of my mill stories go up behind the PAYWALL. They are long, funny, and a little out there in left field; they are Politically Incorrect, have a lot of swearing, drugs, sex, and drinking on the job. They are not meant for a younger crowd.
I’m not writing a memoir. I write novellas and novelettes. I write serial novels. The mill stories are just a nostalgic look back at a youth I don’t really want to relive. I’ll write them for you, just not for FREE…
The Retirement Party Story
4:00 pm
Driving in on a lovely afternoon…
Driving out to Langley on the Freeway with the windows rolled down and the iPod blasting through the speakers is a pretty good way to travel. The sun was out, the sky a clear blue, and it was warm. You can see Mount Baker when you head east on the Freeway. It is an amazing sight, really. It’s snow covered year round. It’s like looking at Fuji, I imagine; but you take it for granted…like the rest of the scenery around here. When you grow up with mountains and the ocean, you just assume it’s the same everywhere else — all green grass with daffodils and dogwoods growing among the fir trees.
I’m sure Saskatoon is nice.
Anyway, I pull into the parking lot and the first person I see is Bernie. He’s happy to see me, but like almost everyone else, he doesn’t really know what to say, or how he should react. It’s the accident thing. We all loved Steve. He would’ve been here, but for that. In fact, we probably would have drove in together — him with his rum and coke between his legs while he’s driving. (He even taught his kid to drive with a rum and coke in his hand, but that’s another story, isn’t it?) But Bernie’s standing outside having a smoke. I asked him why he’s outside? Isn’t there anybody here? More importantly, is there any food? And then the big one…
>I guess you’re not working then, are you?<
“I just turned 55. I’m taking the Buy Out.”
>Are they still offering it?<
The “Buy out” is the BC Gov’t trying to encourage older workers in the labour market to retire, the logic being that way the younger generation can get into the work force. It’s a Gov’t thing, and has nothing to do with the Union, or the Company, except that the Company has the right to tell you when you can retire. It’s all based on the needs of the Company. I said congrats to him. He’s looking at making at least $75,000, or something like that. I was 65 when they offered it to me. I’d already told the company I was retiring at the end of 2022, and then, when the accident with Steve happened, I had the entire year off on Compensation. I applied and they offered me a substantial dollar amount, but not even close to what he was getting. I was already 65…ish.
And then Richard showed up. The first thing he said was happy belated birthday.
“I thought of it two days after,” he said with that lop-sided grin he has.
>Same with me man.< (His birthday is in January.) >I thought about it when it was Peter’s.< (He was my ex-brother-in-law/ex-roommate/Best Man/best friend. Yes, he died, too.)
Richard is pretty well the last of “our” generation. He’s 62. His body has gone through hell. It was not unusual to go down to the Boom Shack and find him laying on the floor trying to work out the kinks in his back. He was always in physio, or getting massage therapy, or trying acupuncture. Old age is not looking good for him, but we never thought about getting older when we were working, did we? We did things the Safety Committee balked at. That’s why I’m missing a fingertip and my fuck finger is at a 45º angle.
Rumour #1
“Burn that mother down!” (Disco Inferno.)
Let’s just say it. The mill burnt. I haven’t gone down there to take a look at what sort of damage was done, and to be honest, I don’t know if I will. I’m not saying that it “burnt down,” because it did that back in the 80’s. That’s when it burnt right down to the ground — melted, with yawning girders of steel looking like cold pasta — that type of damage. That could have been life changing, for me; it should have been. We’d just had our second child and were living in a basement suite. My wife said she’d go out and get a job if she had to. I think she was dying to get out of the house, to be honest. We were worried for a while because we didn’t know what was going on. But they decided to rebuild the mill, and once that happened, my wife said she’d go out and get a job. I could stay home and take car of the kids. Who’s gonna say no to that? I could collect unemployment and look after the kids? A new born and a two year old? That’s a no-brainer.
Anyway, they told me it was the Dry Shed. That’s a roofed in area where they take the kiln-dried lumber and stack the packages up, waiting to run it through the planer. The idea is to keep it out of the rain. No one would have thought anything of it, if not for the jerry cans they found after. Bernie told me they found fourteen different little fires all over the mill. Richard said it was nine. Bernie said one of the bosses was there, but no one seemed to back that up, so who knows. I think Richard told me they’d done it before, but it may have been someone else.
>So it’s arson?<
“Yeah, and they couldn’t even do that right.”
“But maybe we’ll get a severance package,” Bernie said. “Unless they fuck us out of that, too.”
He says that, because they’re the worst owners yet. We thought Interfor was bad because we were a little company and they were a big company and had no qualms about shutting the mill down for different reasons. But these guys? These guys weren’t paying their bills. When you buy logs, you actually have to pay for them. They were always late. They couldn’t sell the lumber. The mill went from making money, to shutting down for a week at a time, and then working four days a week, and then three days, and then down for three weeks and then work for three days. They once had a list of personnel that numbered in the hundreds. Now they were down to a list of about forty. Who can stay on a job that only runs 4-5 days a pay period?
So burning the mill down makes sense all around…from a business point of view — if you don’t get caught.
Into the Hall…
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