Loose Laces

Part Three...

Some more background...
Tennessee Eastman Company at the time (1965) was a subsidiary of Eastman Chemicals, Inc., which in turn was a division of Eastman Kodak Company. Tennessee Eastman was and is a sprawling multi-building facility along the banks of the Holston River in Kingsport, Tenn. I mean a whole lot of factories in one huge compound. It was started around 1915 or so, and when I began work there it was on the construction of building number 255. This should give you an idea of how large the place is, and it is till growing.
They manufactured various chemicals, acids, and solvents for industrial use, plus such things as food additives and preservatives, synthetic yarns, and dyes for the textile industry. At the time, there were about 11,000 thousand employees working there, plus several thousand outside contractor workers. They were Tennessee's largest employer and had their own RR yard, complete with maintenance facilities that rivaled any in the free world. They had their own water filtration department and waste water treatment plants. They generated their own electricity and steam from three different multi-turbine power plants. They had their own fire and police departments, a refrigeration plant that was huge, two large cafeterias that served excellent food at prices that even I could afford on a few occasions, movie theaters and recreation facilities that were state-of-the-art, and much more. They had their own research and development labs and pilot plants that were larger than most normal factories. As an inside subsidiary, they had their own construction outfit called Bay's Mountain Construction Company that had the finest equipment and as well trained employees as any in the world. Eastman was completely independent from outside needs as possible, except for raw materials and coal to fire the powerhouse boilers. They also paid their employees a much higher wage and benefit package than any company around the area, and they gave them a bonus each March that could be up to $10k and often more.
Into this stepped a 6'5" and very lean 150 pound and twenty-year-old kid that knew exactly squat about anything. Ignorant doesn't come close to whom I was, and especially how I felt. Did I mention that I was extremely shy and self-conscious about being skinny and long-legged? My eye glasses with the black frames added to my nerdish looks. I was required to wear a yellow hardhat, and that didn't help my self esteem knowing I looked like a world class doofus because my head was always one or two sizes smaller than a normal persons. I suppose I looked something like Darth Vader at a starvation convention.
The first journeyman I worked with had just "topped out" from the apprenticeship program, and had never been turned loose on a job where he had all the responsibility. He was a very good guy, and he lived in Johnson City, so we were able to car pool with three other journeymen from Elizabethton. Well, he was a good guy except for one thing; he had a hell of a temper. When things didn't go like he wanted, he started throwing things. Hickeys (hand-held conduit benders), hand tools, even tripod pipe vices were sent flying. Only one time was I hit by one of his missiles; a section of half-inch conduit that wasn't bending to his will. The worst it could have done was knock me off the top of the eight-foot step ladder I was standing on, but it was a glancing blow and I figured no harm, no foul.
Damn, I'm having fun remembering and writing about this part of my life. Later on, my memory won't be so good because of the alcohol and drug fog I forced my brain to live in.