On Thu, 8 Dec 2005 23:11:33 -0700, "Jay Beckman"
wrote:

"Roger" wrote in message
.. .
Leak?

I was raised in rural Michigan. In the 40's and 50's they used to
*spray* the gravel roads with brine and/or oil. In many places they
even used what was affectionately known as "drip". Ever hear a car
run on that stuff? :-)) When changing the oil in cars and tractors
people were encouraged to spread it on the gravel roads to keep the
dust down. The brine truck used to make at least two trips a summer
down our road.

Most of the foundation for older roads around here has two or three
heavy coats of brine.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Roger

If it weren't for brine, there'd be no Dow and if there were no Dow there'd
probably be no Midland.


If you've been back recently you would see Dow is only a shadow of
it's former self. Back in the 50's and 60's they had an hourly work
force of over 7,000. I think it was 75090 or 7600. I'd guess that
all of the current Midland work force including supervision is less
than a quarter of that.

People complain about the traffic on M-20 now, but they should have
see it in the mornings and afternoons around shift change time. It's
a 5 lane high way now. Back then it was only two lanes and no stop
lights.

http://www.geo.msu.edu/geo333/dow.html

I can still hear my boss's voice on the Corporate History piece we did:

"It was in 1897 that Herbert Dow discovered Brine buried in pockets deep
beneath the Earth..."

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ
(Production Intern - Dow Chemical Co. PR Dept. Midland, MI - '84/'85)

84 - 85 I was an Instrument man out at Hemi-Semi. Quit and went back
to college full time in 87. They are now the world's largest producer
of poly crystalline Silicon and they just announced an expansion that
will double the size of the plant. I'm not sure of the output any
more, but it's in the thousands of metric tons per year. That is a
*lot* of transistors.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com