Saturday, 27 April 2013

This morning was going through the calendar for 2007 as to when I had medical procedures when I saw in the Christmas letter that I had started a Blog and the name of it ..

So decided to update the Blog and perhaps to use this means to stay in contact with our extended family members .

And decided that I would start by reminiscing about our lives as young married couple living in the Tri-Cities in 1960s & 1970s.

Looks like the Government Budget Cuts/Furloughs-impacted procedures are really, really affecting the recreational options of Americans across this Land. 

 We are still not sure when we will start volunteering at Ice Harbor Dam as the US Army Corps of Engineers Volunteer Ranger has emailed us that they still do not have firm dates and budgets in place.

AND in our driving around the Tri-Cities we see posters advertising "Furlough Loans Available" .. When we were young and had our families to raise, we heard of ROFs (Reduction of Forces) Layoffs .. and VROF - Voluntary Reduction of Forces which allowed those who could or had another job, to take a Voluntary Leave, thus allowing their co-workers to keep their jobs.  ROFs could get unemployment benefits, VROFs could not.

Then there were Union Contract Strikes .. whenever HAMTAC (Hanford Atomic Metals Trade Council) All Unions Reps and Contractors would negotiate for a new yearly contracts - if the Unions voted to not accept the new contracts, then we had Hanford-wide Union Strikes ! 

These Strikes would affect all our jobs as our jobs depended on Hanford Project continuing to function and to do required Union Workers (or so they thought).  So when Hanford-Wide Union Strikes happened, many on the Hanford Project who were non-union workers lost their jobs.  

And those who were willing to cross the Picket Lines would go to work in vans or station wagons with as many as they could get in the vehicles.  Now this would be known as Carpooling.  And this was before Carpooling was even heard, but then it was done for Safety reasons, and for 'protection in numbers' .. even then some men were 'roughed up' or their car tires were slashed. And along with all this some upper management would stay at their posts 24/7 or rotate off/on ..

Can you even imagine the consequences of such actions now ?  Talk about Internet Clogging now with massive disasters, or a political affair !  

BTW political lives issues were not even talked, discussed, or mentioned in the news media in the 1960s .. not until the Kennedy auto accident which left one person dead.

Well it is time to begin the day ... Shalom.