My dad, George Robert Martin, worked for many years for a company called Visking (now Viskase). At one point, there were a few plants around the country, but now it's a global corporation. The plant he worked at made casings for skinless hot dogs. I never understood what that meant because how could you have a casing if the hot dog was skinless?
I found a copy of a 1956 paycheck in a box of stuff after he died. It was for a whopping $93.85 after they took out deductions, including social security, taxes, union dues, and insurance.
For most of his work life, my dad was an extrusion operator (or supervised other extrusion operators), meaning he operated the machines that formed the casings. These were long tubes of a cellulose material called "viscose," which is obviously where the company name came from. The casing would be sold to companies like Oscar Mayer, who then use it to form their hot dogs. (Before the invention of viscose, people used the intestines of animals to create their sausages.)
My dad always worked three shifts -- four to twelve, the day shift, and the night shift. We always liked the 4-12 shift because things were much more casual in the evenings when he was gone. The night shift was the hardest, especially in the summer when we'd have to tiptoe around the house all day so we wouldn't wake him up.
At one point, Visking sent my dad to work in Puerto Rico for several months. I still remember going to O'Hare airport to pick him up and waiting patiently for him - and he never arrived. For some reason, our wires got crossed, and he was apparently having us paged, which we never heard. We drove home, and he ended up taking a costly taxi ride from O'Hare to our home in Oak forest.
Later in life, he transferred to a plant in Arkansas, and he, my mom, and two of my youngest siblings moved to Osceola. They stayed there for several years before moving back to the Chicago area.
The plant where my dad worked for most of his working life was in the Clearing neighborhood of Chicago. This was just southwest of Midway Airport. It was an incorporated town, but it became part of the city of Chicago. While it is a typical Chicago neighborhood in many ways, at one point, it was a huge industrial area with numerous industries making their homes there.
The last thing I remember about my dad's job was the Visking Magazine that came every month. It always had a story about some production area, but what I remember is the notes about the various locations and what people were doing there. I always looked to see if my dad was mentioned!!
I didn't know there was a casing for skinless hot dogs. I rather like the dogs with skins and the crunch they make. We used to make Swedish potato sausage and used sheep intestines that were packed in salt. We had to spend time rinsing them before they could be used.
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