Buckle-up: 1987 Kodak #44 Boiler, Building 321

Eastman Kodak Company, Limited Edition Boiler #44 Commemorative Buckle circa 1987.

My father recently passed away. A few days after making funeral preparations, my mother asked me if there was anything of my father's that I wanted as a memento.

At first thought, nothing came to mind, but the following day as I was getting dressed and tightening my belt with a Civil War replica buckle, it came to me. At that moment, I was reminded of two buckles that I recalled my father having worn when my brother and I were children: one that we had bought him that said simply "Dan" (his name) and a second that had been acquired while he worked at Eastman Kodak during the early 1980s. While driving to work that morning I called my mother and asked that if she could find either, I would like to have them. The first to come to light was the Eastman Kodak Power Plant buckle pictured above.

Back in its heyday, it was not uncommon for members of a department at Eastman Kodak to purchase wearable paraphernalia such as baseball hats and tee shirts as a means of celebrating their efforts and, I suppose, to share in the company's success.  A simple reading of the buckle would seem to suggest that in 1987, Building 321, the location of Boiler #44, had an upgrade of sorts and a buckle was designed to commemorate this.

Raised type on the back of the buckle (pictured below) adds some specifics details to the celebratory buckle's purpose, though it was clearly written for those professionals, such as my father, who would know what it meant. Though I have a vague understanding of some measures, such as PSI and the boiler energy source (coal), the rest of the information is fairly alien to me.

Boiler
Combustion Engineering Boiler
Type: VU40
MCR: 550,00#/hr @900 degrees
Pulverized Coal @ MCR 24 tons/hr
Initial Startup-June 14, 1987

Turbine
General Electric Turbine/Generator
25MW
1400 PSI Throttle
280 PSI Extraction
10 PSI Exhaust
Initial Startup-8/27/87

Back of the buckle.

This buckle was likely part of an exclusive series as it is inscribed with the "No. 51" at the bottom of back. It is not difficult to imagine the old Kodak having these made and shared with its employees. When I was a child, Kodak was a big, friendly company that annually invited families of employees in to tour the buildings, including the areas where my father worked. When I went to college, I spent two summers also working at Kodak Park, though in a different part of the complex.

Unfortunately for most, a post about Kodak's past and present has to end on a somber caveat. The current history of Kodak is not nearly as rosy. Now, sadly, after my father's many years of service (and that of my grandfather before him), this belt buckle is pretty much all we have left from Kodak. Though some of the shine is off that relationship, I am very glad to have this shiny buckle as a remembrance of my father.


The only online image I could find of a VU40 Combustion Engineering Boiler.

Comic Book Beard: Superman

The Adventures of Superman #455 (1987) by Jerry Ordway and Dan Jurgens.

It was not the first or last time that Superman sported a beard in comics, but it was among my favorite runs in modern Superman Comics. So this edition of No Shave November Comic Book Beards allows me to reflect briefly on Supes circa 1987, while honoring the superest beard of them all...

From Superman (Vol 2) #32 (1987),
story by Roger Stern with
art by Kerry Gammill and Dennis Janke.

Though it had been previously established (thanks to Jim Croce) that one should definitely not tug on Superman's cape, there was also a brief moment in time when pulling on his whiskers would be a social faux pax, too. During my senior year in high school, the unimaginable occurred in the pages of all three Superman comics published by DC at the time (Superman, The Adventures of Superman and Action Comics) when Kal-El, while on a self-imposed exile in outer space, let his hippie flag fly and grew a beard.

I miss this Superman, the one brought to life by the writing of Jerry Ordway, Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern and others. A Superman who felt such an intense responsibility to humanity that he left Earth rather than stay due to the risk his own inner turmoil created. Upon leaving his adopted home planet, Kal-El found more adventure and action among the stars, first, battling on Mongul's War World and later getting further in touch with his Kryptonian roots by meeting the Cleric and finding the Eradicator. Sooo many seeds for great stories that followed were sewn in these issues.

Interestingly, Superman's beard runs contrary to many comic book facial hair growth in that his does not represent a descent into madness, but rather a return to clarity. The events leading up to his exile were initiated when Superman made the conscious choice, for the first and only time, to kill (by exposing three Kryptonian villains who had threatened to destroy our Earth after eliminating one from a pocket universe to Kryptonite). These events of John Byrne's classic Superman #22 (1987) led to schism his psyche resulting in the development of a second heroic persona. Ultimately, Supes left and found himself... and embraced his hairier side.

Upon returning to Earth he returned to his clean shaving ways, but at least we'll always have War World.

Music Monday: Help Save the Youth of America

"A nation with their freezers full,
are dancing in their seats,
while outside another nation
is sleeping in the streets."

Released in 1986, I remember purchasing this recording on cassette tape in the late summer of 1987 just prior to leaving for my freshman year of college. While I dug the music on Billy Bragg's Talking with the Taxman About Poetry, I had little idea (yet) of just what he was so bent out of shape about--things seemed pretty hunky-dory in my neck of the woods. It didn't take too many weeks in college to begin to realize that not only was there a whole wide world outside my neighborhood, but also that it could be an unfriendly and sad place for many.

The logical question which one might ask next is "so, what did you do about it?" At the time, like most my age, other than having a head full of vitriol (and participating in the occasional letter-writing campaign) the answer would  be "not much." Of course, things would never change at all, even incrementally, if the answer was the same for each of those who ask themselves the same question. Fortunately, better folks than I attempted to make inroads, but to just what effect is debatable.

As for Billy, he continues to try to open minds with his music. The video above is from Bragg's 1987 tour of the Soviet Union... years before glasnost. Even if you don't care for the music, the footage is fascinating, especially in light of our current understanding of the Soviet Union.

Perhaps it is once again time to ask oneself the question, "What am I doing about it?"