Hiding place

Finally, we are closed.

We worked the last airplane and made the last retail run to the stores. We all enjoyed a last chance to be with each other at a farewell dinner. Except for six of us left behind to ship everything out everyone has scattered; some to new jobs, most to unemployment. A couple are done working for good.

So now all that is left is to load up some trucks and send forty years' equipment and payroll records and steel shelving off to other more successful shops. A group of people piles up a mountain of paperwork in that amount of time.

But not now, not with the wheels of commerce ground to a halt. It is odd now, working in a place that was once vibrant, active and loud. The hum of all the coolers is gone. The ice makers aren't dropping ice with the familiar metallic clang. The air conditioners still blow air but it is no longer very cool. They are old and porous enough that gas doesn't stay charged long and leaks away. Just like the business and the employees.

9-11 was the end of it in stations this size. Accounts were already beginning to downgrade service and the attacks merely accelerated the process. So much had already been lost. Full-service airlines became full service in name only. United distinguished itself from Southwest only by offering a reserved seat or perhaps a flight overseas.

Full service lives on in the hubs and in gateway cities with international flights. Flying back and forth to Europe, one might not notice the changes as much as in Kansas City.

I can't help wonder if the city had offered to cut the rent back that we might have been able to make a go of it. They wouldn't hear of it, although the building has been paid for several times over. They simply were satisfied letting 15 more folks go on the unemployed rolls and their building go idle.

That's OK: At least a few city employees will have a new place to hide from their supervisors--unless the supervisors are hiding in there too.