Bob Shoemaker
“I often wondered. All the steel we handled on a given shift, where does all this steel go? Thirty-five years of moving steel, round the clock, where on earth could all this steel be going? But when we go out to all these various shopping malls, and ah, to the older ones, in Reading, that’s all constructed with older steel. I always look for the Bethlehem Steel mark, Bethlehem USA. It had to go somewhere; cause I know it didn’t all rust away. I always admired our steel. It was always superior to other steel companies that I have seen. The steel we always shipped out was always perfect. If it were a little twisted or just a little bit what they call gagged, why they’d reject it. I am always proud of that. In fact, if you go out where I was born, you’ll see a steel bridge there. And that steel bridge has Bethlehem Steel in it. In Kernsville, and that’s there since 1929, and it’s still standing. When we were kids we crawled up and down these beams, never thinking I would be working at the steel company. I would like to look at the plant now, and walk through the gate and go down through the tunnel, and walk what we used to call the "other world". Like going down to 'The Wizard of Oz' or 'Alice in Wonderland' where you walk through the tunnel to another world. Another language down there too! I’d rather not elaborate on it. That was another world.”