52” Floor, Hot Strip Finishing
The Rust Jungle--Photographic Preservation-- Images by Paul Grilli
http://www.therustjungle.com/rustjungle/mittal-steel-coke-works-renco-steel-warren
From 1950 until he retired in 1985, my Dad was a steelworker at Republic Steel. It was good work for a kid from the outskirts of Pittsburgh who worked one week in a coal mine before deciding that his life would not be spent underground. With that decision made, it was relatively easy for my Dad to quit that job in the mine, move to Ohio, and take his place at Republic Steel.
Steel paid good money to a man who had only an 8th grade education. Yes, it was dirty. Yes, working “turns” (a week each of day, afternoon, and midnight shifts...over and over again) was grueling. Yes, winters were bitter cold and summers simmered. But my Dad—like so many other men and women from The Greatest Generation—kept his expectations low. Work was supposed to be hard, and he definitely was not looking for satisfaction. He needed a steady paycheck to keep a roof over the heads of his family, and that’s what he got from Republic Steel.
As a child, I remember my Dad leaving for work, telling my two sisters and me that—should there be unexpected “trouble” between the time that he left and our Mom came home from her job—we should call the mill and “Ask for Daddy. 52-inch floor. Hot-Strip Finishing.” His verbal instructions were solidified by the phone number to Republic Steel—inked directly onto the wall above the phone in the kitchen.
We never needed to place a call to Dad in the hour or two that we were home alone. But we had what we needed to summon him, and that was a comfort.
Dad retired from the mill after 35 years when he was 61. He would have continued working, but Mom had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, so he quit to care for her in the last months of her life. Once again, he did not expect thanks or praise or satisfaction. He just did what needed to be done.
After she died, Dad took to scanning obituaries in the local newspaper—The Tribune Chronicle —to see which of his fellow steelworkers had died. He counted the number of years worked against the number of years retired, knowing that he was lucky to get that pension check (and Social Security) every month. Then—almost a dozen years after he retired from Republic Steel—he passed away.
Right now I am reading Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit by Eliese Colette Goldbach. In her memoir, Goldbach recounts her own journey as a steelworker in Cleveland. With every page I read, I am reminded of my Dad—his exhaustion at the end of a hard day—his pride in doing good work—and his determination to support his family. If I could spend an afternoon with just one person who has passed from my life, my Dad is the one I’d choose.
See the Dead Man
by Pam Anderson
See the dead man rising from the street rising
with the steam from below. He carries
his property on his frame his flesh hangs
from safety pins fastened to muscle
that is fastened to bone.
The sole from his shoe parts
and sucks in air. He sucks in air
through the space in his mouth. His open jaw
reminds me of the blast furnace
in Republic Steel’s Hot Strip Finishing; 52” Floor.
It is an immeasurable red hole.
For 35 years, my father worked shifts there.
The dead man standing could be my father
his thin hair is gray, and the hot metal dust
has etched vertical lines down
his face. His squinting eyes fill and wash
with the emptiness of an abandoned mill.
Now this man is almost a free man.
Like the rusted steel girders that puncture
the blue of the sky, only the slimmest
of tendons hold his swinging body
to the line of existence.
Credit JennyMag
