WHIRLPOOL

Whirlpool.

I don't know if I could ever hear that word and not 'visually' think..and see...the Whirlpool plant in Evansville, Indiana. The huge manufacturing plant on the north side of Evansville...where refrigerators were made since the mid-1950s...just can't be missed as you enter the city. Once you near the city limits, you can't miss seeing Dress Regional Airport on your left...and just past the airport...the huge, squared, deep blue exterior building known as Whirlpool. Since I was a very young boy, I knew we were in Evansville when we drove by the easily recognizable building.

While living in Owensville as a young boy, we made many trips to Evansville. Sometimes I went with dad when he was getting something for the hardware store where he worked. My guess is, if his store didn't have it for their customer, he headed to the much larger city to get it. (Now that's...customer service. Rather than the customer driving to the 'big' city to get what they needed, the little store sent an employee to get it for them!)

But the main reason we went to Evansville (and in the process...driving by the Whirlpool plant) was to see my mom. Mom spent most of my 'growing up years' in the State Hospital there, so we would go visit her...or bring her home for short stays and then return her to the hospital.

My brother, Durward, also lived in Evansville for a while when I was small, and I stayed with him and his family for a time. Again, in that trip there and back, we had to drive by...the Whirlpool plant.

Yesterday, the Whirlpool plant closed. Like so many other businesses over recent years, the plant closed and moved its' production to Mexico.

I suppose the building, even though closed, will sit unoccupied for years and slowly deteriorate...until the city finally gets enough money to raze it...finally removing it from the landscape where it has sat for almost all the years of my life.

Even if that happens, I will still 'see' it in my mind, when I make that drive to Evansville and drive by 'that spot' where Whirlpool used to sit.


Dan