The End of Something

Today, I was called back in the dye manufacturing area of our facility to look at some old lab equipment, papers, etc. These things were all that was left in the dye factory from 50 years of being in the colorants business. I remember the stories behind each section of that factory. When it was built. Why it was built. How we financed it. How big of a risk it was. The meetings and late nights spent in the design for each section and how important it seemed at the time. I remember how proud we all were of each section as it went up. More so than my Dad's empty office, the sadness of seeing this facility sit quietly makes me yearn for those days to return.

Now it is empty, a shell of a building where Mr. Gilliam worked until he died at 83. Where Mr. Boone repackaged dye for 25 years. Where "RED Man" got his name and where my brother in law decided to try and cool a blend of malachite green with dry ice while blending it and blew green crystals everywhere. Where Thomas Watkins jumped off the tow motor because of a black snake... and the tow motor just kept on going until it fell out of the building. I remember the back corner, among the sodium sulfate, where you could sneak a nap right after lunch, and the shipping desk where I witnessed many an ass chewing by my Pop, as he would jump up and down about some shipping problem or another. There was also the corner, where for many years, a Friday afternoon poker game ran long into the night. This was place where many a summer intern or new employee learned never to draw to a inside straight. So many memories, so many people, so many customers that are all gone. Most of each are just plain dead.

The skeleton's of the blenders remain, their empty shells stained by tons of dye as they passed through standardization. They look like large inverted "Y's" their discharge nozzles all askew. The dust collection system is being removed, the blenders will be sold, and Schumpeter's cycle of "creative destruction" will be completed.

There are two sides of this story for me. There is the rational businessman side. This side is happy to see this cash monster close down and the empty facility made ready for (hopefully) a new task. The personal family side of me sees the end of something that was good for so many people for 50 years. It was the thing my Dad spent his life building. Seeing it being emptied is just as heart wrenching as watching them lower his casket into the ground. A business is not a thing, it is people that make it go, the customers, the suppliers, the employees. When a business dies, some part of all those people, who had a hand in making it successful, dies along with it. We should all never forget that.