It did not take me long to resume the role of draftsman after my army training. Business was good, and I had plenty of work. The day-to-day interfacing with my fellow workers was entertaining. We had an older man working as a draftsman, and he did a very meticulous job. A very quiet fellow, who, I found out, had a short trigger. Most of us brought our own lunch to work, usually in a paper bag. This fellow, lets call him “Bob”, also usually had a bag of potato chips with his lunch. I don’t know who started it, but when “Bob” left his desk, someone would open his drawer and crush his chips. When he found out……”WOW”!! Totally beserk. Can’t say that I blamed him, this happened several times, too. I think he finally found out who was doing it, by feigning leaving, and sneaking back. The harassment stopped.

Nearby was the Standards Department, headed up by an older fellow named Ray Hastings. They were responsible for keeping the company wide standards up-to-date. And they also ran the blueprint department, and microfilming of all the drawings and documents. The assembly lists were printed on standard perforated computer paper, then torn apart into 8-1/2″ x 11″ size and placed in three ring binders. When an assembly list became obsolete, they were microfilmed and destroyed; this saved valuable space as the microfilm could be filed away and retrieved easily if necessary. These obsolete assembly lists were microfilmed using a desktop sized unit, and feeding the lists thru one page at a time. Ray usually did this chore, but one day during the filming his string tie got caught up in the mechanism. And he couldn’t get it released. Moaning and calling for help, some of us ran over to unplug the unit so Ray wouldn’t get microfilmed…………..

It was about this time that I was asked to join the Grinder Engineering Department, headed up by Clyde Quimby. There was a definite advantage to moving, as the grinder group was located at the rear of the office, right next to the windows. So I went from sitting in the middle of the room to having a window seat. A great move, as I could work (at least in the warm months) with my window open. Never mind the dust from the parking lot, I had a view! I could watch the local railroad locomotive go by  with its load of scrap iron headed for the Springfield Foundry. And when they were pouring iron (making a casting), what a sight to behold, black smoke and flames coming right out of their roof! Another benefit was having some fresh air, as there were quite few smokers in the office (I was one of them).

J&L was a “family run” firm up until 1964, but at the end of that year there were some union problems, and then Textron bought it. This was before my arrival, so I don’t have any real details of what happened. But once Textron was aboard, they instituted a program to improve the business. They had the financial resources needed to do this. They bought some up-to-date production machinery, and hired several college-trained engineers. All employees now came under the Textron Pension Plan and Stock Plan. Once a year there would be a statement sent to me relating to my pension and what I could expect when I retired. Some of the old timers would kid me, saying “look at what you’ll receive when you retire in 2010!!” This date seemed so far away at the time, but, HERE WE ARE!!