In 1981 I was living with my grandparents in Front Royal, a small Virginia town that was making the rough transition from 'factory town' to EPA Superfund Clean-Up site- this somewhat rosy portrayal of the Avtex plant mentions the loss of jobs, but it omits the fact that for decades the Shenandoah River ( brown stripe to the right in pic) was so polluted that you couldn't swim or fish in it. ( The baseball diamond in the upper-left corner is my old school- the factory is gone, but you can see how large it was) Owing to an unlucky combination of corporate greed and small-town desperation, the plant operated for several years after it was declared an environmental disaster site. Some of the life-long residents of Front Royal went nearly berserk when the EPA finally announced it was closing it forever- I believe one woman actually chained herself to the smokestack, ironically adopting 'Green'-style protest tactics in her zealous support of PCB emissions and the airborne dispersal of asbestos fibers. Plans are underway to convert it into an office park. Bring bottled water to work.

About the author: Allan is a musician, FM radio DJ and day-time file clerk. This is one of his many desperate attempts to pay for gasoline.