Norfolk Ford plant workers now assemble for breakfast

CHESAPEAKE

"Bobby Spruill, how the hell are you?"

"Easy money!"

The salutations often came with hugs and handshakes at the get-together Monday, though some of the participants had seen one another just a few weeks before.

It was the monthly breakfast gathering of retirees of the Ford Motor Co. plant in Norfolk, which closed in 2007. Theron Koon, a former supervisor on the trim line, started the tradition 23 years ago. The 76-year-old from Chesapeake was tired of waiting for the next funeral to see his former colleagues.

Last week, more than 60 showed at the Shoney's restaurant on Battlefield Boulevard, spilling over from the meeting room to the

tables near the breakfast bar.

"It's almost like Thanksgiving or Christmas every month when you come in here and see everybody," said James Hoggard, 66, of Virginia Beach, who worked at the plant for 31 years.

"We spent a lifetime there," said George Williams, 69, of Chesapeake, a former quality assurance manager. "There are people here I know longer than most of my family."

It wasn't all automotive talk.

Over biscuits, bacon and eggs, they covered their golf games and latest surgeries. Family updates. The Norfolk State-Old Dominion football game.

When the plant came up, the chatter mostly remained light and easy.

James Hoggard's wife, Mary, who spent 13 years at the plant, two driving a forklift, recalled how she and her husband met. "One day he came up and offered me a Tootsie Pop," she said. "I'm a sucker for Tootsie Pops."

Most of Hoggard's former colleagues don't call him "James." He goes by "Cowboy," for his love of rodeo. Others also got pegged with nicknames whether they liked them or not: Shorty, Mophead, Mulehead.

And there was some good-natured ribbing. Jim Bussey, 75, of Chesapeake, a 40-year plant veteran who did inspections, gave Guy Harris, a retired 72-year-old electrician from Chesapeake, a hard time.

"There's a big difference being an electrician and working on the line," Bussey said. "Electricians got to sit down once in a while. We had to keep moving."

Really, the retirees said, they all worked hard, but were rewarded well by Ford.

"It was the best job in town if you didn't have a college education," said Wade Price, 67, of Chesapeake, who worked in the data department for most of his 40 years. Wade said he started at $3.54 an hour and ended at $26.

"You made that good money," Mary Hoggard said, "but you paid for it with parts of your body." She displayed indentations on both of her wrists - evidence of surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome.

She'd race back and forth to scoop up parts to use on the line. "You only had 60, 70 seconds to do the job," she said. "I had no trouble staying skinny in that shift."

Wade's brother, Larry, a former manager in trim and chassis, said: "Some days were really bad. You'd come home with a few more gray hairs. But at the end of the day - and I know it sounds hokey - you were satisfied that you helped build 500 trucks. It felt like an accomplishment."

When they spoke of the plant's shutdown, it was with regret, not recrimination.

The Price brothers left before it closed. But Larry had two sons working there at the end. "It took them awhile to get back on their feet," said Price, 63, of Chesapeake, "but they're doing fine now.

"From a business standpoint, I understand why they did it," he said. But it still doesn't make sense to him. "We built the best quality vehicles in the world."

Ford offered $100,000 buyouts to each of the more than 1,000 workers at the plant.

"They did right by people," Mary Hoggard said. "I think they took care of everybody."

The former workers came from as far as Suffolk and North Carolina, though fewer are traveling from out of state since gas prices have shot up, Koon said.

Anyone who worked at the plant can join the breakfasts, which meet the first Monday of every month, he said. Most range in age from their 60s to 80s.

Near the end of the breakfast, Koon, struggling to be heard over the din of still lively conversation, read the names of six workers who had died within the last month.

That doesn't mean the breakfast club is dying, Koon said. The showing Monday was stronger than usual. "This is Christmastime - everybody wanted to be there," Koon said.

He plans on it continuing for a long while. He's designated a successor "if anything happens to me."

Koon's own Ford story started with a romance.

He won a football scholarship to Fairmont State University in West Virginia. He decided to stay home to marry his girlfriend after she graduated. His grandfather, brothers and uncles worked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, but he signed on with Ford because of the better benefits and pay.

Koon started work in the body shop the Monday after he graduated from high school.

With the chance to work 10 hours a day, six days a week, "I could make three times as much money as they did," he said.

Koon stayed for 35 years, retiring in 1988. In addition to organizing the breakfasts, he founded a club for local Ford Thunderbird owners in 2004.

Without Ford, "I wouldn't have nothing," Koon said. "I paid my home off 10 years before I retired. Ford has helped my whole family. I don't have any complaints with Ford Motor Co."

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com