MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

1967 - New Jersey Year

American Can Company (continued)

It was a heady time, but the job entailed a lot of travel. All of my projects were back in the Midwest or in the South. The week went something like this: I would go into the office on Monday morning, file a few reports and pick up my tickets for air travel for the week; I would go home for lunch, pack my bag and the limo would pick me up and take me to the airport. I often flew first class, rented a car, stayed in very nice hotels, ate in great restaurants, and no one questioned my expense account. I would get home on Friday evening either via a limo from the airport or Winnie and the children would come to the airport to meet me. Charles and Margaret called the road from the Newark airport to home, ‘the stinky highway’, as we went by the refiners in Bayonne.

After a year of this, it started to wear a little thin. Winnie and I went through my old expense reports and discovered that I was out of the office 66% of the working days and away from home 18% of the Saturdays, Sundays, and Holidays. Something had to change and it did. I had become involved in a computer project for the bleach plant in our paper mill in of all places in Naheola, Alabama. I wanted to work on the project, I wanted out of the rat race in New Jersey. So after much discussion we accepted the job in Alabama and the company again moved us lock, stock, and sailboat to Butler, Alabama.