This
song reminds me of my time at Tingstol, one of the many PCB shops that have
closed in the Chicago area. I worked there as they were moving the facility
from the Northside of Chicago, at Fullerton and Bridgeport, to the western
suburb of Elk Grove Village.
I was
working as a Quality Engineer for my friend Rich Mankiewicz (see RIP-RichMankiewicz), and was tasked with performing capability studies on some of the
new machines that were being installed in Elk Grove.
I was
really looking forward to cutting my commute in half.
After
we had completed the move, Rich proceeded to self- destruct (as he was wont to
do) and walk out one cold and wet November day. When he quit, he lost access to
a company car and so had to walk to a bus stop and wait for a ride back to his
hovel in Oak Park (I never saw it, but his description was sort of hovel-like)
My next
boss Bill N., a great guy, and fellow Steve Dahl fan. We discussed this song
and also the version Steve used to play on his radio show, with his vocal and
all the lyrics he wrote for the song. Only one line remained when Brian Wilson
recorded it (#16 - Margarita).
I found
a job at Ibiden Circuits, which was about 2 miles from our house and so I left
Bill N. and Oscar S. behind. After seven weeks of increasingly weird hours and
job duties, I called Bill and asked if he had filled my position yet. He had
not and so I snuck out of Ibiden one day, giving no notice, something I had
never done, before or since, and returned to Tingstol.
About a
year later, I had the opportunity to take a job at a plastic injection molder,
less than a mile from our house, and I left the PCB business, I thought
forever, but really about three years later Oscar S. became Quality manager at
Mosaic PCB (2 miles from home) and offered me a 20% raise to come work for him
and I was back into circuit boards, and I have never left (though 3 shops went
out of business in that 16 years.
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