As a member of the "Global Technology Team" for a large multinational mining, chemical, and steel making company, my job involves working on various projects in new product development, process improvement, and tech support for the five plants worldwide that are in the particular business division that I am employed in. In past years, this often meant that there was a lot of travel between the plants in question to get more of an up close and personal, hands on feel for the difference processes and the people who control them. In the years since I've been here, however, the economy has been such that most of that travel has been curtailed for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary, and as a result, I hadn't actually gotten to travel to any of the other plants that I was involved in carrying out projects and experiments for.
A few weeks ago, however, I started on a project that could be very important to the future of two of our plants, one in the U.S. and one in China, which are basically twin plants that make the same product. As always, we set up a miniature, lab-scale version of the process at these two plants, and started conducting some testing. For the last several months, my boss had been making her opinion known that after almost six years, I was overdue to make my first visit to one of the other facilities, and this project was a perfect opportunity to see the full scale version of the process I was working on, given its importance to the future of the two plants in question. The department manager agreed that I needed to make this trip, but they surely weren't paying to send me all the way to the plant in China. That meant that I was going to be headed to...New Johnsonville, Tennesee...
Never heard of New Johnsonville? Well, no shame there; I sure hadn't heard of it either before I started this job. It's a town of fewer than 2000 people, in the northwestern part of the state. "What's it near?" was a question I asked people in the company who had traveled there before, and that friends asked me when they found out I was headed there. The answer to that question: NOTHING..."And what is there to do in New Johnsonville?", I asked my boss, who worked there prior to transferring to Baltimore. Same answer..."But it's nice and peaceful down there. And there are plenty of opportunities for promotion there, if you're interested; they've had a lot of good people leave over the last few years." Hmmm, you mean people like YOU? You're not exactly doing a good job of selling me on the place..In any event, since she was familiar with the plant and the town, it was decided that my boss would be travelling along with me to make all the proper introductions and help to give me a feel for the operation up close and personal. While we were there, we would meet up with my boss' boss and the tech from our Pilot Lab (the last stop in experiments before they get tried out in the plant), who were heading down the day before us for some meetings.
So off I went to Tennessee; it was an interesting trip, to say the least...
“What does it mean to pre-board? Do you get on before you get on?” -- George Carlin
My boss and I have a 6:25 AM flight from Baltimore to Nashville. Nashville's airport is about 90 miles from New Johnsonville, but that's the closest we're going to get by flying. My dear mother drops me off at the Southwest Airline terminal (thank you, Ma, for getting up that early!)
It doesn't take too long before I become very popular at the Homeland Security checkpoint. After having removed my belt and shoes and taking my laptop out of its bag, and putting all of it on the conveyor belt to be scanner, I walk myself through the scanner, only to be alerted that something was amiss, which tends to happen when you forget to empty your pockets before being scanned...I go back on the other side of the scanner, throw all my crap into one of the provided bins (why the hell did I scoop all these coins out of my change jar anyway???), and try to avoid all the people mean mugging me because my absent mindedness is holding shit up (hey, it's 6 o' freakin' clock, and this is my first flight in 7 years; whaddaya want from me?) Eventually I make it through the checkpoints, gulp down a quick breakfast, board the plane, pull out some reading material, open to the first page, and ZZZZZZZZZZZZ...the magazine reads ME pretty much all the way to Tennessee...
I wake up just in time to remember how much I dislike the descent and landing of airplanes I'm on. Thankfully, however, we touched down without a problem. Welcome to Nashville! I turn on my phone, and I start getting all these texts asking me what time I was leaving, because it's about to storm like nobody's business back in Baltimore. Hmmm, I guess that 6:25 AM flight wasn't a bad idea after all...
“I'm not stubborn. My way is just better.” ― Maya Banks, "Rush"
My boss and I pick up our rental car, which is in her name, since she's only going to be there for the day and is heading back to Baltimore that night. She's doing the driving because a) she worked at the Tennessee plant for a couple years, and is (sort of) still familiar with the territory, and b) you can't tell her SHIT, which I came to find out includes driving directions. We got into the rental, which was only a few parking spaces to the left of the exit gate out of the garage; a quick right turn, pass through the gate, and we're on our way...or at least that's the way it SHOULD have happened...What happened instead was that (after wasting five minutes trying to convince her that the GPS she was trying to program wasn't working because we were in a garage, my boss finally decided on her own, as if I had never said anything that "I think it's not picking up a signal because we're in the garage". Ya think?) the boss put the car in drive and - despite the big "EXIT" sign, complete with arrow pointing to the right, and despite my almost yelling that she had to go right - turned left. From there she almost ran over a poor employee who was frantically waving his flags left trying to get her to make two lefts to get back in the direction she needed to go - of course, while she was in the midst of turning right and heading up to the next level of the garage. This is going to be a loooong drive...
Eventually, we made it out of the garage - without running into anyone or anything - and then :
"What the herrrrr?"
See, my boss is from China, and she has an affinity for English curse words, all of which are hilarious sounding coming from an under 5 foot tall, barely 100 pound, squeaky-voiced, heavily accented woman. "What the hell (or "herrrr" as she says it) is her absolute favorite expression, and one that never fails to amuse me. Only this time when she said, it was not so funny, as we stared out into the teeth of some horrific rush hour traffic. Geeez, I had it in my mind that Nashville was this laid back city, but this gridlock was as bad as anything I had ever seen in Baltimore - or anywhere else.
"It's okay", my boss said. "I know alternate way to go from when I used to work down here."
UH OH...
Two and a half hours later - after repeatedly ignoring the instructions of the GPS to get back onto Interstate 40 (why exactly did we haggle over programming the damn thing?), and instead taking single lane back roads through a gazillion dots on the Tennessee map, passing by all manor of trailer park, shacks, farms, and plantation-styled McMansions along the way - as well as three different businesses that sell metal and fiberglass carports - we finally arrived in New Johnsonville...
(Why on earth would there need to be three carport dealers so near to each other, on this stretch of teeny tiny towns? But then when I started paying attention, I realized every damn building - even the most run down, rickety shack - had one of them thar carports next to it. All right, so I was bored - sue me...) -
"There is no 'there' there"
-Gertrude Stein, writer
We made our way down New Johnsonville's "main drag" - which consisted of well...I don't know, not much? A trucking company, a gas station, a nondescript little grocery where my boss says everyone in town does their shopping when they don't feel like driving to the Walmart in the next town. That was about it for the main drag. Oh wait: as we sat at red light waiting to make a left turn onto the road where our plant was located - a road that also included a DuPont plant, and 2 or 3 other chemical plants - I looked to the left, and saw what passed for the local Fire Department: a converted gas station with two trucks parked in the garage bay and not much else. Lord only knows what would happen if there were a major fire at one of these facilities...
We turned onto the road where the plant is located, and drove another couple of miles down mostly gravel until we finally made it to the entrance of the plant. On first glance, it looked pretty much like any other chemical plant - well maybe except for the mailbox planted smack in the front of the main building:
How charming and oh so quaint! Then we walked inside, into the plant's lobby:
I actually waited until no one was in here to take this picture. When we first arrived, there were a few engineers and managers hanging out here with their feet up on the table shooting the breeze; I half expected there to be a spittoon somewhere nearby...
Dr. King Schultz: What's everybody staring at?
Django: They ain't never seen no nigger on a horse before.
-"Django Unchained"
After my boss and I got said our hellos, we met up with my boss' boss and the Pilot Lab Tech, who had come down the day before, and a couple of the engineers to talk about some of their processes, and a new furnace they had just gotten installed. Then after that meeting, we got on our hard hats and steel toed shoes so we could get a tour of the plant.
Now I was acquainted with the engineers and managers for the most part, because they traveled up to our facility a few times a year. My boss, as I said, had worked at that plant before transferring to Baltimore. The other two have been with the company for over 30 years each and had made this trip. I, on the other hand, was the newbie on site, and well...how should I say this? I don't think I'd seen a single Black person since leaving Nashville, and I certainly not in New Johnsonville; and I guess if I hadn't seen any Black people here, then - judging from some of the reactions of people laying eyes on me - neither had any of them...I mean, the good ol' boys were doing double takes, backtracking in their steps to take another look. One guy who was working at pulling electrodes out of an reactor cell with a hoist almost smacked his partner with one of those electrodes. When we walked into the Operations Control Room, I felt for a second like Reggie Hammond walking into Torchy's (You Eddie Murphy fans will no doubt get that reference; anyone else, Google it): everything just STOPPED for a few seconds before people picked their jaws off the floor and slowly either went back into their conversations, or started to engage us in conversation and give us a tutorial of what they were doing.
New Johnsonville has no restaurants, so for lunch, the engineers drove us a few miles to the original town of Johnsonville - or "Old" Johnsonville, as they call it in those parts. "Old" Johnsonville (named after President Andrew Johnson) was abandoned and leveled by the Tennessee Valley Authority after a dam they built 80 miles away permanently raised the Tennessee River in that area to permanent flood levels. Eventually, some of the locals built New Johnsonville three miles upstream of "Old" Johnsonville, but in doing so, built absolutely nothing of interest there, although they were able to open a couple of parks, restaurants, and such in the old town, which is why we rode there for lunch, which was right on the same river whose flood levels forced Johnsonville's inhabitants to leave town decades ago, but which apparently now was safe. The restaurant featured a pier on which you could dine, shoot the breeze, catch a breeze, and drop bread or crackers into the river and watch some big ol' catfish come up and have a snack. It was all very peaceful and relaxing. I could almost get used to --- wait, what am I saying? Aside from hunting and fishing, this was probably about as good as it gets for activity in these parts without having to drive to Nashville or Memphis, neither of which is around the corner. Even for an angry nerd like me who doesn't go out much, this place was just a bit remote for my liking...
After lunch, we headed back to the plant for a meeting, and some time spent in Engineering going through their process control panels to get a better feel for how things worked. Then at the end of the day, we said our goodbyes, and my boss and her GPS left to make her way back to the Nashville airport to head back to Baltimore. In the end, everyone was friendly and helpful. Despite their initial reactions, there were no haters or racists apparent, from what I could tell, anyway; they were just...confused...
- Mona Lisa: What?
- Vinny: Nothing, you stick out like a sore thumb around here.
- Mona Lisa: Me? What about you?
- Vinny: I fit in better than you. At least I'm wearing cowboy boots.
- Mona Lisa: Oh, yeah, you blend.
- -"My Cousin Vinny"
Since my boss was headed back home, I hopped in the rental with her boss, and with the Pilot Lab Tech, and we made our way to the hotel. Since New Johnsonville also has no hotels, that meant driving to the metropolis of Camden (twice as large as New Johnsonville, although that's still only about 3800 people), which about 15-20 minutes away. As we got close to the hotel, I looked out of the window and saw a sign that said "Nathan B. Forrest State Park". Immediately my Jeopardy senses started tingling; Nathan B. Forrest, Nathan B. Forrest, I know that name...
And then it hit me: Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate General in the Civil War, and the Founder of the Ku Klux Klan. And they have a state park named after him right around the corner from where I'd be laying my head for the night. Lovely...When I posted this fact on Facebook, I got some responses about how Forrest eventually renounced his affiliation with the KKK and publicly sought racial reconciliation. I get that, I really do, but it was still...I don't know, a little strange seeing his name commemorated on a state park.
My boss' boss dropped me off in front of the hotel, and then went to park. As I was about to enter into the lobby, I saw this sign in the window:
Then, displayed prominently on a lobby wall:
"Where you from?" asked the oh so bubbly woman checking me in. "Oh, I'm from Baltimore, Maryland", I replied.
"Really? My husband is travelling up y'all's way this week."
"Oh really? Where's he headed?" I asked.
"Oh he's driving to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Dee-troit"
UGGGGH!!!
I started - and stopped myself - a couple times to tell her that those cities are NOT in Baltimore's area, but somehow I got the feeling that for her, North was NORTH, so I left it alone...
Just as I was finishing up my registration, in come my boss' boss and the Pilot Lab Tech - two old White guys.
"So, what room are you in?" My boss' boss asked, rather brusquely.
The desk clerk - not realizing we were all together - immediately put her bubbly demeanor on hold. Standing directly in front of her, I could see her very subtly shift a little closer to the counter's edge and slide her right hand underneath it. UH OH...
I quickly turned to my boss' boss and told him my room number (to let the clerk know we were there together), then turned back to her and said as much. Back came her smile and her hand from under the counter, and we were on our way. PHEW...
"She didn't like me asking you what room you were in, did she?" my boss' boss asked, laughing.
Hey, no shit, Sherlock. I bet you wouldn't be laughing if she had come up from under that counter with a gun pointed at ya...
A half hour later, we met back at the rental car to head down the road to Smokehouse, a steak and BBQ joint, for dinner. The restaurant is L-shaped, and we - arriving just ahead of the dinner crowd - were seated in the leg of the "L" that was in the front of the joint, facing out onto the main road. While waiting on our orders, the restaurant began to fill up, yet every single person who came in after us was seated to the branch of the L that was off to the side, leaving us sitting by ourselves in the front. Finally, three teenaged / young adult couples came in, were seated at a long table between us and the front window, and began to talk and laugh and not pay us any attention whatsoever. Then a few minutes, in came an older woman who looked like she could have been the mother of a couple of the youngsters. She sat down, looked up, and:
"Waitress!"
Next thing you know, that group was joining everyone else on the other side of the restaurant, because - as mom made it a point to loudly claim - the setting sun was casting too bright a glare where they were seated (never mind that she had sat down with her back to the window; she was just looking out for her kids. Such a concerned mother...). And so it was that we spent our meal in the solitude of a crowded restaurant...
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a gas station, where I loaded up on munchies and drinks for the night. Nothing short of a fire was getting me out of my room after dark...
***
The next morning, we met in the lobby for breakfast. There was a sweet old lady who looked to be about 106, but who made the biggest - and maybe the best - waffles I've ever had. I mean, they must have custom made a waffle iron to make waffles that big! Man, some chicken would be awesome with this waffle,
I thought, but for some reason, I wasn't trying to ask anybody in here for some fried chicken...
After we ate, we checked out - with the same woman we had our little near incident with the day before. And you know, it seemed like she still had a little 'tude with him. We got the hell out of Dodge as fast as we could, and made our way over to the plant.
Following a tour of their laboratory, the Pilot Lab Tech and I had some free time while my boss' boss had another meeting to go to before we hit the road. We decided to make another walk through of the plant, just us two, to get a closer look at things. Having visited the Plant many times before, the Pilot Lab Tech knew his way around pretty well, and had plenty of stories about old equipment and assorted mishaps and tech support projects that our department has worked on for the plant over the years. As we walked around, we got a few sideways looks, but at this point people knew who we were, so we were pretty much left alone.
Then, just as we were finishing up our walkaround, we came upon a most unusual sight: there, in the far end of the plant, with a shovel and barrels, digging out some trenches, was a BLACK MAN! Well, Glory be, there were indeed some Black folk in this neck of the woods (a little over 1% in the county, as I found out later). But why was ol' boy out here doing this shit job by himself? Was he a company employee? A contractor? They couldn't give him any help? Shoot, it was already blazing out there at 10 AM; I was sweating just looking at the poor guy; but what did I know? He might have been contracted to dig that crap up, for more money than I was making standing there looking at him. At any rate, he was doing his thing, and whistling while he worked, so what could I say?
Then, just as we were finishing up our walkaround, we came upon a most unusual sight: there, in the far end of the plant, with a shovel and barrels, digging out some trenches, was a BLACK MAN! Well, Glory be, there were indeed some Black folk in this neck of the woods (a little over 1% in the county, as I found out later). But why was ol' boy out here doing this shit job by himself? Was he a company employee? A contractor? They couldn't give him any help? Shoot, it was already blazing out there at 10 AM; I was sweating just looking at the poor guy; but what did I know? He might have been contracted to dig that crap up, for more money than I was making standing there looking at him. At any rate, he was doing his thing, and whistling while he worked, so what could I say?
"Take me to another place,
Take me to another land"
- Arrested Development, "Tennessee"
After the boss' boss made it out of his meeting, we said our goodbyes and got ready to make the drive back to Nashville. Before leaving, more than one of the engineers made not-so-subtle hints that the plant had trouble keeping personnel in New Johnsonville (gee, and it's such a lovely place with so much to do, can't imagine why anyone would want to leave) and that they could always use some good people to come down and work. Considering these other two that were with me are getting close to retirement, that left me as the target of the sales pitch. Hmmm, thanks, but...I don't think so...
And with that, we were off to Nashville to catch a flight home. Since I riding with someone that actually follows directions, the drive took almost an hour less than when my boss was driving. Before I knew we were in the air, and less than two hours later back in Baltimore. I hopped on the Light Rail to ride from the airport back into town, at just about the time when people were getting off of work and ready to start the weekend. With each stop, as the train filled with people - all White - leaving their jobs, as well as some Boston Red Sox fans - all White - in town to attend the games their hated team were playing against the Orioles, a funny thing happened: even as the train became jam packed, not a one of them would sit next to me. Even at full capacity, they all preferred to stand - away from where I was - rather than sit by me. And as we all rode into downtown Baltimore, the only thing I could think, with an empty seat beside me, a halo of empty floor space next to my seat, and a crowd of people sitting and standing elbow to elbow, hip to hip everywhere else, was that maybe New Johnsonville and Camden, Tennessee were so bad after all - or at least not all that different...
