Gene the Grillin' Machine

Tonight Gene cooked dinner.  No big deal.  Gene has done about half of the cooking for most of our marriage.  I was never sure if it was because I was so lazy or if he sort of enjoyed cooking.  We worked different shifts probably 1/4 of our working years.  So cooking for family meals fell to whoever was home for that meal.

When we worked for Litton we had lots of mutual friends at work.  One mutual friend was a young man I met during the months I worked 3rd shift alone in the old Camera department.  Greg Emerson was a dispatcher.  His job was to move the product (panels of printed circuit boards) from one department to the next. Greg made it his personal job to check on me to make sure I was okay.  That I had not fallen in the darkroom or fallen off a stool.  The latter could happen if I fell asleep while looking through the bifocal scope touching up artwork for printed circuit boards.

While Greg did catch me asleep on the scope once, I never did fall off the stool!  Greg was the president of the employees' association.  Sharon (Smitty) Smith, quality control for Camera, some how finagled it to where I became one of the officers with her and Greg.  It was during that time I was the bunny rabbit for the annual egg hunt on the lawn at Litton.  Working together on the employees association helped Greg, Sharon and I become acquainted with each other's families.  Greg always referred to Gene as Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine.

In later years, Greg and I worked together when he was in the sales department for Litton.  Eventually Greg moved to Alabama where he represented Litton to the Chrysler manufacturing facility.  Our company made the circuit boards for the cruise controls for Chrysler products in the 1990's.  I made at  least one trip to help trouble shoot some technical issues.

I have not heard from Greg in a couple of years now. But I thought of him tonight when Gene started grilling.  Gene is recovering so quickly from the surgery.  He is going to drive himself to PT tomorrow.  Tonight for the first time in a few months, he became Gene, Gene the Grilling Machine.