By Jim Hagarty
2013
Every night I walk down Oxford Street past a factory that takes up an entire city block.
Half that space is parking lot, storage for trucks, etc., and the other half is this great building that looks like what I imagine the largest ship in the sea must look like at night. Lights everywhere, inside and out. And the noise that comes from the open windows is a calming, nice sound, not jarring at all. It is the sound of human beings making things. From stacks on the roof rises some sort of mist, whether smoke or steam, I can’t tell. But that just makes it even more like an old ship.
On the grounds outside under a bunch of young trees is a picnic table and on nice evenings there are usually workers on their breaks, laughing, having a cigarette, eating a snack. It makes me feel good to see this scene every night as I march by on my life-saving trek.
I worked in a couple of factories when I was young and I have to say, I don’t think I had the pleasant feelings about them that I do about the factory near my home in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. And it makes me feel bad that come the end of this year, this big, beautiful ship will be pulling into the harbour for the last time, never to go sailing again.
FRAM, which makes auto filters, has been in Stratford for longer than I’ve been alive but you know how it goes – bought by a big company a few years ago and we all know what big companies do. They go where they can pay people less and where the environmental rules are more lax, in this case, Tennessee and Mexico.
What a shame for the people who will be left behind by these profit-seeking nomads. My neighbour across the street has worked there for years but she saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and has been preparing for a second career. Still, you can tell she’d rather not have to move on.
And soon I’ll have to walk by a big darkened building and watch the windows get smashed one by one and the graffiti appear along with the grass in the cracks of the parking lot pavement. And no more smokers at their picnic table. Some of those women were not too hard on the eyes. (I didn’t just write that.)
But the only thing that never changes is that everything always changes so I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and keep on walking and not dying.
(Update 2016: The factory was torn down, in remarkably short order, given the size and sturdiness of it. Out of the ashes has arisen a construction company headquarters, an emergency vehicles centre, and an impressive new medical centre. There is lots of land left and there is talk of apartment buildings and perhaps a small commercial strip. Like a wild animal carcass, every bone and sinew has been picked clean, nothing was wasted. When everything is completed, the developer, who always does fine work, will have given the community a wonderful replacement for the old factory. But here’s a bit of irony. I have heard reports that car makers are not happy with the filters coming out of Tennessee and Mexico.)
