Clyde List at BoeingsSherwood Scroll, May 1977Americans pride themselves on being very individualistic. We have always admired the single family farm for example. Thomas Jefferson wanted the whole country to be that way. One big family farm with us Americans on the inside behind the hedgerow and "Them" on the other side. Even people born and raised in the city want to get back to the farm even if they never lived on a farm. They hang pictures of the farm on their walls. I guess that's why our office buildings have so many walls instead of windows.Ten years ago I worked at Boeing Aircraft Company, in a building that had no windows. You didn't know what time of day it was or whether the weather was cloudy or bright. You couldn't see out. To get into the building, or even to walk next to it, you had to wear a special badge with your picture on it. Once you got past the security guards and inside, it was kind of nice. There was very little to distract you from doing your job. If the weather was rotten you didn't feel rotten. If it was nice out you didn't start daydreaming about being on the farm. If you decide not to work at Boeings anymore you have to turn in your badge. You go to this office on the other end of the plant where a lady with horn rimmed glasses informs you that in order to get to your car, you have to walk all the way around the fifty-some acre fence that surrounds the plant. This can be a very strange journey if you've worked there for any length of time.
The Olympic Mountains were visible above and about fifty miles beyond the hotel. The view was spectacular. But it was hard not to be distracted by what was happening at the hotel. One time I kept noticing an old man raising some sort of bottle to me. I assumed he was saluting my superior position in life, since I was on the sixth floor of my building and he was only on the thrid floor of his. There was a shoe shine parlor just next door to the hotel. Some pleasingly plump middle aged ladies with long hair worked there. One day a policeman purchased some hiking clothes at our store and we all hurried up to the Sixth Floor to watch him dicker with a lady in the shoe shine parlor doorway. After a very elaborate series of hand gestures, they shook hands. Then all hell broke loose. Police and long haired ladies were suddenly spilling across the sidewalk. One lady was waving a hammer in the air but did no damage. There was a dirty book store next to the shoe shine parlor. It had a very good cafe. We employees occasionally met there for breakfast. Some nameless fellow had eaten there just a year before, or so the story went, before he went out and got into an argument with the Seattle Police and committed suicide. We laughed with relief and no little amazement at how it must feel to be sitting here, calmly discussing sports with a person who is minutes away from killing himself. The facade of this book store eatery was decorated with large paintings imitative of the ancient artworks of the Pacific Northwest Indians. It was not unusual to see an ancient Pacific Northwest Indian or two crawling by and falling asleep in front of this tribute to his people. At certain times of the year, sunsets were so spectacular that the employees from the lower floors crowded onto the sixth floor fire escape where I worked. A fellow from the Sporting Goods Department would bring his best field glasses alomng. You would look through these lenses and see mountains bathed in the rose colored light of Autumn or Spring. They seemed more like roses than mountains. "Man, ain't that something though?" was the comment heard over and over again.
I tried to be inspired as my fellow employees were. It was a view that would cost you plenty of dollars if you enjoyed it from anywhere else in the city. Even so, instead of looking at the mountains I spent all my time focusing upon an article of women's underwear hanging in the window of the man with the whiskey bottle. I tried to get my side of the street interested in it. The guys from shipping and receiving were always talking about scenes they had viewed in the hotel windows. But not this time. Everyone was fascinated with the horizon.
"Whew! That was close!" I remember thinking. I was lucky. I quit working there before the lay-offs began. I never behaved well in an emergency, laid off situation. I could only imagine the stunned expressions on those who had been my fellow workers as they turned in their badges and went to the office on the other side of the campus and discovered how long the route was back to their cars. And this is where the lesson came in. Within a few weeks the management where I worked was laying off people too. The unemployment rate was reaching 19 percent, similar to what the United States as a whole experienced during the Great Depression. A sign appeared on the edge of town: "Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn off the lights?" It was only a matter of time before I realized that, in Seattle, it doesn't matter whether you work at Boeing Aircraft Company or not. Your turn comes anyway. I got in line at the Employment Office on Taylor Street with all the former Boeings employees. I remember thinking that being an American doesn't guarantee the satisfaction you're supposed to get when you go to an American school and the teachers open your eyes to the fact that as an American, you're an individual and nothing more. Copyright 2007 by Clyde List
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