Joe was a World War II Vet.  After the war he got a job at a new factory in the maintenance department.  He started working there before the factory was operational.  43 years later in 1989 when this photo was taken, Joe was the last full-time employee of this facility.  I was a security guard for the building where Joe worked.  The factory was long since closed and security was contracted only for insurance purposes.  The only reason the building was still standing was that the EPA was overseeing a cleanup of the area.  But Joe still came to work 7 days a week--365 days a year.  Since he got up at 5:30 every morning he would come into the factory so that he could putter around without waking up his wife.  Even on Christmas he came in for the same reason.  He knew that building more intimately than most people ever get to know anything.  Joe would tell me stories of when the factory was a huge complex with several hundred workers.  He knew that his job there was finally coming to an end and told me that he was looking for a job.  "Why don't you retire?" I asked.  He was 74.  "Retire?  And do what, watch TV?  If you do that pretty soon the TV is watching you."

March 8,  2001

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"Joe"