The Lee Way – Part 2

The Lee Way Part-2

By Jack Coll

8-28-14

     The Lee Way was a company newsletter put out monthly and sometimes bi-monthly by the former Lee Tire Company once located on Hector Street and North Lane.  Lee Tire & Rubber Company as it was known printed these company newsletters from the late 1960’s through the early 1980’s and would cover all the company news including promotions, information on their product, company sporting events and company outings such a picnics and Christmas parties.  The Lee Way newsletter would also throw in little antidotes from time to time like a little poem,  little sayings, or just humorous information.  I managed to get my hands on a couple of these newsletters and thought it would be interesting to share mostly the little antidotes for your reading pleasure.  If you didn’t see the first “The Lee Way”, here is the link – https://conshystuff.com/the-lee-way-some-pretty-interesting-stuff/

Each little segment will be dated from the newsletter it came from.  ENJOY!

The Lee Way

April 1969

Remember The ‘Good Old Days’

Think there are too many rules and regulations for motorist these days?  Well, consider some of the rules of the road adopted by the Farmers’ Anti-Auto Society back in 1909:

*****The speed limit on country roads this year will be secret, and the penalty for violation will be $10.00 for every mile an offender is caught going in excess of it.

*****Automobiles running on country roads at night must send up a red rocket every mile, and must wait 10 minutes for the road to clear.  They may then proceed carefully, blowing their horns and shooting Roman Candles.

*****All members of the society will give up Sunday to chasing automobiles, shooting and shouting at them, making arrest, and otherwise discouraging country touring on that day.

April 1969

New Employees

Recently hired employees over the past month include: Elizabeth Tierney, Philip Januzelli, Michael McDonnell, John Marchetti, Martin Swintowsky, Bobby Williams, Emerson McCollum, Michael Dramis, Render Brunson, Charles Ivester, John Pearce, Joe McCausland, James Dickerson, Samuel Rhyne, William Green, Bobby Lockley, William Frisco, James Banks, and Richard Burns.

October 1980

Was it a busy day in the United States today? You decide.

Here are some of the things that happen on a typical day in the U. S., according to the Washington Star;

10,930,000 cows are milked

500 million cups of coffee are drunk

School children ride 12,720,000  miles on school buses

10,205 people give blood

One of every six Americans sits down with a good book

Three million people go to the movies

9,077 babies are born, including about 360 twins

or triplets.  1,282 of them are illegitimate.

Four square miles of good farmland are take over for housing, roads or shopping centers

679 million telephone conversations occur, 50 million of which are long distance.

5,962 couples are wed, and before the sun sets 2,986 couples divorce

People smoke 1.6 billion cigarettes.

People drink 90 million cans of beer.

191,952 clothespins are manufactured.

5,041 people observe their 65^th birthday.

2,740 kids run away from home.

438 immigrants become U. S. citizens.

88 million people watch prime-time television.

63, 288 cars crash, killing 129 people

Amateurs take 19,178,000 snapshots

Each one of us produces nearly six

pounds of garbage.

One that the newspaper didn’t include that we’d like to add:  Every day 516,712 new auto tires are put on the road.

The Lee Way

July 1979

As Children See Us

In late May, students from Eagleville Elementary School (near Norristown) toured our production facilities and stopped for lunch before returning to the classroom.  One of the tour guides was Sam Webster, maintenance department retiree.  After their experience at Lee, some of the youngsters put pencil to paper and wrote what they saw and felt.  Two letters in particular are noteworthy for their simplicity and straightforward approach:

“Dear Sam,

“I enjoyed Lee Tires.  It was better than McDonalds.  I liked the thin peaces of rubber you gave me.   From Tony Balkus.”

“Dear Sam,

“Thank you for taking us through Lee Tires.  I enjoyed watching that man put the layers on the tires. I wished we could take a tire home with us. Buy a Lee Tire.    Yours Truly, Steve Riemer”

The Lee Way

July 1979

Summer Reverie

July is the year at high noon, a young matron with hazel eyes, sun-bleached golden hair and a cloud-filmy red, white and blue scarf with spangles.

July is festival and celebration and long-remembered holiday as well as full moon and fireflies and smell of sweet clover at the roadside.

July is get-up-and-go, vacation time, at the shore, the lake, the country, anywhere but home.  July is hot afternoons and sultry nights, and mornings when it’s a joy just to be alive.  It’s fresh cherry pie: it’s the first sweet corn.

July is a picnic and a red canoe and a sunburned neck and a softball game and ice tinkling in a tall glass.

July is a blind date with summer.

The Lee Way

July 1979

Where is the country we used to know?

In America of yesterday you paid your debts as quickly as possible, and went without things to do it.

You disciplined your children—but disciplined yourself first.

You spent less than you earned and demanded your government do the same.

You went to church, your children to Sunday School, you held daily prayers—and no court would have dared to impose any law into your private religion.

You would have been horrified at (and quick to change) men in high places who made “deals”

You expected to prosper only by doing a better and better job.

You obeyed the law—but took active enough part in government to see that the laws were just.

You “walked softly but carried a big stick.”

And that was the character which brought this country victory in three wars in our lifetime, built it back from a shattering depression and fed and saved the civilized world.

Is there enough of it left to do it again?

The Lee Way

July 1979

Will gas prices give us pains?

If Europe’s history is any example, dollar-a-gallon gasoline probably won’t make much of a change in the driving habits of American motorists, according to Fred J. Kovac, director of Goodyear International’s Technical Center in Luxembourg.

Kovac cited this sampling of the price per gallon abroad:

West Germany…………$2.02

Spain………………………….2.15

Denmark…………………..2.19

Belgium…………………….2.23

Italy…………………………..2.34

France……………….……..2.50

Despite such prices, he said, “Europeans are driving more miles than ever before, they do very little car-poling and they travel at speeds that usually make the United States’ 55 mph limit look tame.”

He said that in Italy, a motorist can drive legally at 87 mph; in Austria, France and Switzerland at 81 mph; in Belgium, Luxembourg and Finland at 75 mph; in the United Kingdom at 70 mph, and in Demark at 68 mph.

“The European experience would seem to belie the belief that higher prices—whether as the result of deregulation or other causes—cause a significant change in driving habits,” Kovac said.

*******************

Your car delivers zero miles to the gallon when the motor is running and the wheels are not.  It takes less gasoline to restart a car than to let it idle for 30 seconds or more.  In winter, remember that the modern engine does not require a warming period.

The Lee Way

February 1974

Tired? No Wonder

The next time people ask you why you are so tired, tell them.  Your exhaustion is fully justified and you can prove it by a few simple statistics.

*The U. S. has a population of 200 million.  Of these, 72 million are over 65 leaving 128 million people to do the work.  When you subtract the 75 million people under 21 years of age, you get 53 million.

There also are 27,471,002 employed by the federal government  in one capacity or another which leaves 25,528,998 to do the work.

The eight million in the armed forces leave only 17,528,998 to do the work, and when you subtract from this the 15 million on state and city payrolls, and the 1,520,000 in hospitals, mental institutions and similar places the work force is reduced to 1,008,998.

Fine—but there are an estimated 800,500 bums, vagrants and others with a pathological fear of work.  That leaves 208,489 people to carry the national workload, 208,496 of whom are presently behind bars.

Which brother, leaves you and me.  And I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired!

The Lee way

November 1975

No Ivory Tower

“It has become more and more obvious, over the past decade,

that all the answers to the diverse problems of our towns and

cities and other communities are not going to be found in some

marble monument overlooking the Potomac.

“Too often in the past, some functionary from Washington,

who probably came from St. Louis, would tell the people

in Fort Worth that a program that was good for

San Francisco ought to work in Detroit.”

(–Rogers C. B. Morton, Secretary of Commerce.)

The Lee Way

November 1975

One Little Rose

I would rather have one little rose

From the garden of a friend

Than to have the choicest flowers

When my stay on earth must end.

I would rather have one pleasant word

In kindness said to me

Than flattery when my heart is still

And life has ceased to be.

I would rather have a loving smile

From friends I know are true

Than tears shed ‘round my casket

When this world I’ve bid adieu.

Bring me all your flowers today-

Whether pink, or white or red;

I’d rather have one blossom now,

Than a truckload when I’m dead.

       –Author unknown

The Lee Way

January 1970

The Value Of A Smile

It costs nothing, but creates much.  It enriches those who receive without impoverishing those who give.

It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes last forever.

None are so rich that they can get along without it and none are so poor but are richer for a smile.

It creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in a business and is the countersign of friends.

It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad and nature’s best antidote for trouble.

And if it ever happens that some people should be too tired to give you a smile, why not leave one of yours?

For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give.

The Lee Way

March 1968

Green Meets Governor To Discuss Traffic In Conshohocken

Lee president Wilson O. Green was one of several local business and government officials who met with Governor Raymond P. Shafer in Gladwyne last month to discuss Conshohocken’s traffic congestion problems.

Talks centered around daily tie-ups at the lower end of Fayette Street and at the south end of the bridge in West Conshohocken.

“Specific projects to facilitate traffic flow will be started as soon as practicable, we were told,” Green said.

Lee’s concern in this matter is not limited to employee vehicles, scores of which cross the bridge every day to and from work.

“Like many industries in the area, we rely heavily on truck transportation to deliver raw materials, fuel and other supplies to the plant and to ship our finished tires.”

An average of 35 trucks, mostly semi-trailers which have difficulty negotiating the sharp corner at the intersection of Fayette and Hector, enter and leave the plant every day, Green added.

After completion of the formal portion of the meeting, Gov. Shafer told Green how impressed he was with the revitalization of Lee in the past three years.

“The governor was especially pleased that the company has been able to provide jobs for more than 800 people,” Green noted.

(Editor’s Note:)

(Hey Wilson, we’re waiting for you guys to implement your traffic plan any day now, it’s been 45 years now, how about-it)

The Lee Way

March 1968

(The march edition of The Lee Way highlighted an employee named Dave Michniewicz, who happened to write poetry at the time, and the company newsletter published a number of his poems.  We thought it might be nice to end this week’s The Lee way with one of Dave’s poems, enjoy:

A Soldier’s Prayer

By Dave Michniewicz

Oh God, we thank you for strength that you gave,

Which helps us through these rugged days.

Our work is rough and never any play,

But we do our job and live day by day.

Although in battle let us pray,

We are here to spend Christmas Day.

And remember those across the sea,

Whom we fight for to keep free.

Your protective hand which guides us through,

The many tasks we must do.

And as time comes near to the end of our day,

Dear Lord bless us all in a special way.

The Lee Way Newsletter recap has been brought to you by:

Tone Zone Fitness Studio &

Noele Stinson, Coldwell Banker