Flashback to 1979...

The summer of 1979 found me working as a "special projects assistant" for my dad at the family foundry. With my freshman year of engineering college behind me, I was ready to attempt some unusual things that my dad hoped would keep the brass, bronze, zinc, and aluminum foundry competitive in face of ever increasing expenses and governmental regulation.

Every area of the foundry was open to improvement, improvements in safety, air quality, water quality, material handling, and reduction in hazardous materials and waste. Given a free hand, I explored things like exposure to lead dust, noise (think air hammers and the roar of a blast furnace), and other things and one of the first things I recall doing was installing overhead halogen lights that enabled everyone to actually see the floor for the first time since the building was converted into a foundry in 1918.

Foundry sand is jet black. It starts out white but after being mixed with used sand, black binders (to make it hold its shape when molded) and burned, it turns very black. A fine layer of it coated just about everything (and everyone) - there wasn't much to be done for that.

Another project I remember doing was designing and building an aluminum pre-heater oven, used to heat up a finned-steel tube about a foot in diameter and ten feet long and filled with smaller steel tubes welded inside it, up to 1,220 degrees F. This was done so that the large tube could be filled with molten aluminum and slowly cooled. The smaller tubes inside were then filled with electric heater coils - much like the things that glow fiery red in your oven at home.

The whole apparatus was then used to heat the oil in those big oil refinery tanks in the winter so that the wax that naturally occurs in crude oil wouldn't form and clog up the plumbing. Later they used the same gizmo to stir the oil in such away they could separate out the wax and paraffin so it could be used in a million different ways - such as candle wax, cosmetics, paper coating, inks, fabrics, and even on our foods.

But my most difficult special project assignment happened one day when I thought I'd be able to just take it easy and enjoy the countryside. I was to deliver a small, two pound, hush-hush casting to a customer near Sumneytown, PA. The brass alloy it was made from was a very expensive one - I recall it costing about 100 times what a "regular" bit of brass would have cost since it had a lot of silver, tin and other pricey metals in it.

To add to the expense, the customer insisted that a complete chemical and physical analysis be made of the heat (the batch of metal poured from the furnace pot) that made the part. The set up of the tooling cost around $500 and the laboratory analysis work cost about $500 (in 1979) so the chunk of formed metal I had in my hand when I walked out to the truck was going to be billed at well over $750 a pound.

The paperwork I was given said, "Ward Ch., 29xx Geryville Pike" for the address and the special instructions said, "Ring bell on far left door 3 times, turn around and wait until someone rang the door bell before turning around to collect signed paperwork".

Most odd I thought. Well, I knew from my Boy Scouting experience that Geryville Pike was only about four miles long from end to end and near the middle of it was Camp Delmont, where I spend many a day camping as a scout.

So off I went, and soon found myself zigging zagging on one of Pennsylvania's twisty back country roads, looking for a sign and a building with a street address that might be "Ward Ch., 29xx Geryville Pike". It was a hot summer day, and the delivery truck had no air conditioning, nor did the windows roll down. I drove up Geryville Pike at the speed limit (maybe 35 mph) and saw nothing that suggested "Ward Ch.". I turned around and headed back down the road... and again, saw nothing. Getting a little exasperated, I decided I would ask the guys at a truck repair place at the other end of the Pike if I missed it the third time. And I missed it the third time.

Pulling in at the truck repair place, drenched in sweat, and a little ... "unhappy" with things, I stormed into the office and asked, "Does anyone here know where Ward Chhhh" is? The guy at the desk said, "Huh?"

So I showed him my paperwork and he said, "29xx? is that like 2900-something? or 29 unit XX?"

I shrugged my shouldered to express "H*ll if I know."

The guys says, "Hang on, I'll call (someone), he lives on this road." So he did and the very odd look growing on his face as his conversation grew lengthy made me wonder more and more what I had gotten in to. Finally he says, "He thinks this place is the white building next to the Rheinland Inn, but the Inn doesn't even have a street address. Go back down the pike, it's about a tenth of a mile from the other end on your left."

So off I went, and off course, drove past it once more - but this time noticing where the Rheinland Inn was, so when I turned around, I pulled in to... this building...


Relieved that I had at long last found the place, I went to the 'far left third' door, put the $1,500+ casting on the paperwork on the ground and rang the bell and turned around and waited. And waited and waited. Finally, I decided that perhaps this wasn't the right place after all - but before leaving (please remember this was long before cellphones) I decided to try the other 'far left door'. This time I heard the door open almost immediately, the paper rustling, the door slam shut and a bell ring. I picked up the paperwork to be sure the part had been signed for, and noticed it had been stamped, "Ward Chocolate, Makers of Fine Chocolate Making Machines".

To this day, I have no idea what went on in that building, or even if anything still does, because even after hours of google searches, I can find nothing...nothing at all on the Internet regarding this building. The Rheinland Inn, located next door, on the other hand, while still without a street address, has gone out of business and is currently for sale, shows up in hundreds of web pages in one form or another.

*cue Twilight Zone theme*

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.

- Submitted for your enjoyment, Iggy 'Serling' -