A few weeks ago my Mom brought a box of my old artwork from my cartoonist years for my daughter to go through. Included in the cartoons were a couple of comic strips I had submitted to the syndicates many years ago. Although each were rejected (I still have the notices) one strip did better than the others. It was called "The Real World" and was based on a machine shop where I worked.
My daughter quickly picked out one of the characters in the strip as her favorite from the entire box. The character was "Crash" Partlo. In the strip, "Crash" was well known for crashing his jeep (see above) as well as being a bit attracted to the receptionist Sue. "Crash" was one of the easiest characters to write, so I wasn't very surprised when my daughter picked the character as her favorite and started drawing him herself.
"Crash" Partlo was based on a very real person I worked with at the time. Unlike the cartoon strip, his story was actually pretty tragic. "Crash" was a very good machinist and a very good drummer for a rock band. He even did side gigs for the band "The Cars" when they played locally. His future was looking bright. Until he got into a jeep one night with his best friend after a night out. "Crash" lived that night, his friend wasn't so lucky. "Crash" never played in a band again, at least as long as I knew him. The severe head injury took away much of what he was able to do. He could no longer work as a machinist.
The accident didn't take Crash's sense of humor away. Crash frequently suggested the material for the strips he was in. If anything, his sense of humor got even better after the accident. Maybe it was a survival skill. I really don't know.
The biggest change for me was how I viewed the owner of the machine shop after Crash came back to work. His name was Ben and he was never known for his "people skills". A "Thank you" or "Good job" from Ben was rare. He paid his workers and work was expected. Your paycheck was your thank you. I'll leave it at as business owner "Big Ben", as we called him, was tough and at times difficult to work for.
But what I remember most about Ben after these many years is that he didn't make Crash's difficulties worse. He found a job for Crash in the company that he could still handle. Yes, Crash did occasionally drive the fork lift (see the strip above, my daughter's favorite) as well as other tasks that didn't include machining centers. Ben could have laid off Crash, but he didn't. Ben was human after all, we found out.
Big Ben was a good business man, his shop always made money. More importantly, he was a good person even if he didn't always show it during business hours. Not a bad way to be remembered.
I lost touch with Crash when I went off in a different career direction. Too bad. My daughter would like to meet her favorite cartoon strip hero.
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