At the Plant with Bob

I first made acquaintance with Bob a few weeks ago when he reached out via email. He was interested in making a return to the plant (he had visited three times previously). I am always ready to head over, but when the prospect of doing so with a true tour guide – a real life Acme employee – I clear my schedule.

We had a lengthy correspondence via email which I spun into a Q&A that scratched the surface of what Bob had to offer this website and the world at large. He followed that up with two stories that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and he submitted those unsolicited. You can be damn sure I am going to press him for more! There is a small pool of people who have these stories to tell and a tiny subgroup that has the ability to articulate it this well.

We scheduled our visit for 10am on a Saturday. As usual, I rode up from Hegewisch via bike. Bob parked on Torrence/109th and walked down. Nervously, I waited inside the plant, waiting to see the front door to the gate house open up. We hung out there, just beyond the gate house, for a bit and got introductions out of the way, then began what would be a three hour walk around the grounds.

We first headed over to the main office. We hung out in the ground floor lab for a while as Bob told me some previously top secret stories – you won’t find these in written (or any other) form, anywhere. I listened intently and probably asked some stupid questions. But Bob is a good guy and tolerated my excitement.

From there we moved to coal handling. Most of those structures are torn down so Bob dug into 20 years of memory and pointed out the likely locations of some of the main buildings and conveyor belts. From there we headed south, toward the ovens department.

The calm morning had now turned into near monsoon levels of wind. Bob lost his hat and I nearly did also. At times it was difficult to hear anything, much less each other. We watched a dust devil whip up leaves and other debris on the coke side of battery #1. We headed into the control room of the coal bunker to escape the noise.

Inside it was dark, cool and quiet. Bob pointed out the access panels in the floor were the home of the reversing machines for the batteries – something I was never clear on. He revealed the answers to some other mysteries that I had long puzzled over. Bob is a Rosetta Stone in a world where few are available.

We headed back north toward the gate house. Bob had commented on the pipe wrench I had taken from battery #1 basement and restored last year. I immediately told him that if he was interested, I would not hesitate to hand it over. He said he would like to have it. So in a circular turn of events, the wrench which had sat in the wet sandy floor of the basement for 20 years – but then removed – was now taken back to the plant and put into the hands of a real deal, true to life heater helper. There is no greater privilege for a historian like myself.

We sat outside the gate house for a spell and relaxed. The wind hadn’t let up but it was pleasantly warm. Bob talked – and I listened. I will surely never even get any real feel for what a day – or an hour – at the coke plant was like, no matter how many documents I study. But this is as close as anyone is going to get, so I soaked it up. Three hours after he arrived, we said our farewells (for now) and with our shift at the plant now over, we headed home.

With Bob’s permission I recorded some of our interactions throughout the day. I put together about a 13 minute video from footage at least twice as long. Often times, those kind of editing projects are tedious and drive me to madness. But this went by in a flash – more than once I marveled at the fact that I had actually captured some of the day. Then the shock set in that I had actually fulfilled a goal (or perhaps a dream) to meet a real Acme employee. And not just meet them, but get to walk around this place I like to call home.

Thanks Bob – I owe you one.