Monday Music "Allentown" by BillyJoel

 

I am pausing the "Bugaloo" theme today because it is a Major Holiday. Labor Day,  On this  Monday Music. I am going with "Allentown" from Billy Joel, I remember a line from the song, "The jobs went away and the union people crawled away" this happened when in the video it showed a worker getting his pink slip while in the shower.  I thought about this when my job went away at Ford Motor Company. it still gives me bad feelings to see that, living through your job being cut sucks.

 Inside the door of my toolbox at home now, I kept my

Old Ford Toolbox and modified it for work until I had to take it home 

because we have tool control now*Mutter,spit*

 

                  This is what my old Ford Toolbox looked like at my employer's before I started working on it.

The pictures were inside the lid that was featured in the beginning of the article.

   This is what it looked like after "Modified it" it and repaired the toolbox and built a Sidebox

     Don't get me wrong, I understand why Ford did what they did and they treated us good in a really bad situation.  I was the only republican to hold union office, I was a heck of a good shop steward.  The rank and file knew it, I didn't hide it, and half of them voted for the GOP despite the union recommending anybody democrat.  I had my own issues with the democratic party, even back then, they treated the UAW as an ATM machine, mention "worker platitudes" and they would take our money, but they were beholding to the environmental movement.  and I knew if the environmental groups had their way, my job would be gone.  Well it went away anyway. but it was for different reasons.

 I got this from hope and change cartoons, (back in 2012, dang......) it is a cartoon but the story it tells is real life.  I have bemoaned the loss of our industrial prowess and technical skills.  All the skilled jobs are leaving and they ain't coming back.  Before I got hired at my present employer, I worked at Ford Motor Company here in Atlanta for 13 years, we built Tauruses and Sables( both good cars, I owned 3 of them)  When my plant closed down, we knew that it was coming,contractually they had to give us 30 days notice, Ford gave us 10 months notice,  Ford Motor was good to us in a bad situation, we got a good severance package, Those that wanted to transfer could transfer to other location and keep their seniority. They maintained my medical insurance on my family at no cost to me for 6 months.  I still have a pension with them.  I don't hate the company, but I did hate the position we were in, because of market share issues Ford had too many assembly plants for its North American operations.  The reasons for the plant closing was varied, no close vendor plants, outdated vehicle line, older plant, not set up for lean or flex manufacturing. Atlanta_Assembly Plant

       

SuperDownsized

Stickers on my old gun safe.

 

        I got lucky, I got hired by a local airline and am a chemtrail technician now and doing very well, unlike many of my Ford peeps who didn't transfer to another Ford plant,  they didn't do so well.  It was difficult making the adjustments.  Even now I am sensitive to the subject of "Outsourcing". 

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"Allentown" is a song by American singer Billy Joel, which first appeared on Joel's The Nylon Curtain (1982) album, accompanied by a conceptual music video. It later appeared on Joel's Greatest Hits: Volume II (1985), 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert (2000), The Essential Billy Joel (2001), and 12 Gardens Live (2006) albums. Also, it was featured in Hangover II (2011) "Allentown" is the lead track on The Nylon Curtain, which was the seventh best-selling album of the year in 1982. The song reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending six consecutive weeks at that position and certified gold. Despite the song placing no higher than #17 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was popular enough to place at #43 on the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart for 1982.
Upon its release, and especially in subsequent years, "Allentown" has emerged as an anthem of blue collar America, representing both the aspirations and frustrations of America's working class in the late 20th century.

The song's theme is of the resolve of those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry in the latter part of the 20th century. More specifically, it depicts the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the wake of Bethlehem Steel's decline and eventual closure. Joel witnessed this first-hand while performing at the Lehigh Valley's numerous music venues and colleges at the start of his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The introductory rhythm of the song is reminiscent of the sound of a rolling mill converting steel ingots into I-beams or other shapes. Such a sound was commonly heard throughout South Bethlehem when the Bethlehem Steel plant was in operation from 1857 through 1995.
     When Joel first started writing the song, it was originally named "Levittown", after the Long Island town right next to Hicksville, the town in which Joel had grown up. He had originally written a chord progression and lyrics for the song, but struggled for a topic for the song. Joel remembered reading about the decline of the steel industry in the Lehigh Valley, which included the small cities of both Bethlehem and Allentown. While the steel industry was based in Bethlehem with none of it in Allentown, Joel named the song "Allentown" because it sounded better and it was easier to find other words to rhyme with "Allentown." Although Joel started writing the song in the late 1970s, it wasn't finished until 1982.

A year after the song was released, the mayor of Allentown sent a letter to Joel about giving some of his royalties to the town. Mayor Joseph Daddona, who sent the letter, said it would help for scholarships for future musicians. On January 20, 1983, the letter was mailed to Joel, and a local paper published an article on the subject the next day, quoting Daddona as saying: "Not only would this fund be a great way to share a tiny part of your good fortune to others in Allentown, it would also help keep alive the 'Allentown' song and the Billy Joel legend (which you've already become here)."
When Joel performed the song in Leningrad during the concert recorded and later released as Концерт, he introduced the song by analogizing the situation to that faced by Soviet youths: "This song is about young people living in the Northeast of America. Their lives are miserable because the steel factories are closing down. They desperately want to leave... but they stay because they were brought up to believe that things were going to get better. Maybe that sounds familiar."

The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy and featuring choreography by Kenny Ortega, was in heavy rotation on MTV during 1982 and 1983. The original version of the video features partial male nudity when male coal workers are taking a shower at the beginning, but that part was edited when it aired on MTV. (Although it has aired uncut on both VH1 Classic and MTV Classic in recent years.)