12 of 12 - June 2008

Is it the 12th already? Looks like it. And that means that it is time for Chad Darnell's 12 of 12. (That's 12 pictures of your day on the 12th.)

Today we have a little bit of airline history, some Joni family history, the opportunity to revisit some dear friends and former coworkers and wish them farewell as they head off to retirement, and finally, at the end of the day, a chance to say a more final goodbye to a friend we lost too soon.

So - here we go.....

8:07 a.m. - Welcome to the mess on my desk. The sad thing is that it has looked this bad for over a week now. I can't seem to get one task finished before something else comes up that is more pressing. So everything else just gets piled up and pushed further down the desk. I'm really hoping to get everything you see finished, filed and forgotten about by the end of the day. (Spoiler alert - I only got about 75% of it done by the end of the day. Those little blue folders in the upper right hand corner still remain.)

11:40 a.m. - I had to run over to the Delta General Offices (The GO) today for a retirement party. Our corporate headquarters - which includes the GO, the maintenance/technical operations facilities, pilot and flight attendant training centers, operations control, Delta Technology, the employee credit union, and the Atlanta Reservations office - takes up most of the area immediately north and east of the Atlanta Airport. This particular building is called, depending on when you went to work for Delta, the A2 building or the old Res Building. I work in the new Res building, which is about 2 blocks away from the GO campus.

11:41 a.m. - The Varsity brings the truck down for a hot dog sale about once a month. Usually, it is tied in with some sort of charity function where all the profits go to something like one of Delta's Habitat for Humanity builds, the Relay for Life, etc. And wherever there is free or cheap food, there will be Delta people. (See the line down the sidewalk?)

11:45 a.m. - The retirement party was in the building connected to Hangars 1 and 2, which house the Delta Heritage Museum. So, since I was a few minutes early, I cut through the museum and snapped a few photos. This is Ship 41, Delta's first DC-3 passenger aircraft used in the 1940s and 50s. It was located and completely restored by a volunteer team of Delta retirees and mechanics over a period of 6 years back in the 90s.

11:46 a.m. - Just next to Ship 41 is the museum store. It is housed in the front half of the fuselage of an old L-1011. You can tour the cockpit of you like. (And I think that there is too much stuff to keep up with on my desk!)

11:48 a.m. - While this picture didn't come out too clear, I still had to include it, since that's my parents. They were featured on the cover of the Delta employee magazine after they were married in 1954 and this particular issue is on display just as you enter the museum store.

11:54 a.m. - This is Ship 102, also known as The Spirit of Delta. It holds a very special place in the hearts of Delta people, as the aircraft was purchased by the employees for the company back in 1982. Ship 102 was retired back in 2006 and my Dad and I were honored to be selected as 2 of the 23 employees and retirees (1 for each year it was in service) to pull the aircraft into its final home here in the museum. The interior has been reconfigured and is now an exhibit of Delta history. In fact, my good friend Dale was the artist that designed and set up the displays.

11:57 a.m. - I've spent way too much time in the museum, and I need to get going, but one last shot if you don't mind. This is a photo of the old Atlanta airport. You may be able to see "Delta Air Lines" on the building in the top middle part of the photo. That is the same hangar that I've been taking all of the above photos in. And the road running down the left hand side of the picture is the same road with all the people lined up for Varsity hot dogs a few shots above, and is also the same road that I live on. My house is in the neighborhood that you can barely see just above and behind the Delta hangar.

12:02 p.m. - I finally make it to the retirement party. (29 people out of 45 from my old department are taking the early retirement packages that Delta recently offered. It makes for a pretty large retirement party.) That's me and my Dad. He always claims he can smell a retirement cake from the highway anytime he passes Delta. Seriously though, the people in my old department loved my Dad. When I left the department, I actually had people say, "We will miss seeing your Dad when he comes up to take you to lunch." But missing me? Not so much.

12:37 p.m. - This is "The Row." Me, Stan, Glenda and Grady. The four of us, and a couple of others that couldn't make the party, at one time all had offices on the same hallway, and over several years, we became the best of friends. Since the glory days of The Row, Glenda was the last one left in the department and she is now retiring. Grady retired in 2001, Kim (not present) left in 2002 after the birth of her 3rd child, Stan transferred to the airport in 2004, and I moved to my current position in 2006, and Renee (also not present) moved to Texas last year. But in spite of no longer working together, we email each other often, meet up for dinner every few months, and get together whenever we have something to celebrate. When you hear people speak of the Delta Family, this is what they are talking about. These people are my Delta Family.

12:43 p.m. - This is my good friend Tammi. She's also retiring and is moving back home to Texas where she started out. She is part of my "Lost" discussion group, a group of former coworkers that spends the better part of the late evening and early morning after each new episode of "Lost" discussing and analyzing what just happened, what it all means, and exactly how hot Sawyer looked without his shirt. You know, important stuff.

5:34 p.m. - After work, I went to the funeral home with some coworkers for visitation for my friend Mechia. She passed away very suddenly this past Sunday morning from an asthma attack. She and I worked together about 10 years ago, and we stayed in touch. When I started my current job, we were happy to find that we were working just down the hall from each other again. I had just seen her on Friday, and we stopped and talked for a few minutes about her youngest daughter who was about to leave for Paris to study at the Cordon Bleu. She was such a proud mother. I'm glad that she had something to be so happy about in what would be her last days. She was a sweet lady and I'll miss her.