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Company man pays tribute to Endicott Johnson
Valerie Zehl's neighbors, Press & Sun-Bulletin - 22 May 2010
"EJ made these golf balls, right here in Endicott," says Sal Poliziano of Johnson City, holding aloft the metal form into which rubber was poured. "Not many people know that."
He's standing in a suite of rooms temporarily dedicated to his vast and varied collection of memorabilia from his former employer of four decades, Endicott Johnson.
A tall steel scale and tiny chairs from "EJ Medical," where employees and their families received low-cost examinations and treatment.
Battered bowling pins, retrieved from the Recreation Center when it closed.
Company newsletters packed with photos of smiling employees.
"If you sneezed, EJ would take a picture," Sal says, pointing to one showing him, as supervisor in the rubber mill, giving an award to an employee.
A sled like the one given at Christmastime to boys by the patriarchal company.
A loose-leaf notebook of fliers distributed by unions to EJ workers.
"It was a bunch of baloney," Sal says. "George F. Johnson was the ultimate philanthropist for the good of the workers."
Photos of the man are also in good supply here.
Signs. Cards. Buttons. To catalog all these items could easily take another 40 years.
And of course Sal has tables full of items used in producing the company's premier product -- footwear.
Wooden shoe lasts by the dozen. Metal plates. Wire brushes to rough up the leather or rubber soles. Cards from the bottoms of shoe boxes.
And a table full of shoes and boots themselves, not only from EJ but earlier versions used in shoemaking demonstrations -- ones made of tree bark, turn-of-the-last-century children's shoes fastened with minuscule leather-clad buttons.
And then there are yellowed newspapers, with headlines blaring the company's slow slide into local extinction.
He's not sure what he'll do with this colossal collection, which usually resides in cardboard boxes. Maybe sell it. Maybe donate it to a local museum.
Thousands of bits of EJ from years long gone, but the best ones can't be shown. They must be heard.
They're Sal's memories.
He was working for the Botnick family on Griswold Street in Binghamton when his new father-in-law, Paul Prusik, pressed him to look into working for EJ.
"Paul, who worked in the Challenge factory as a beam cutter -- hard, dangerous work -- thought EJ was heaven on earth," Sal says. More to keep peace in the family than for any other reason, Sal put in his application -- the smartest thing he ever did, he says now.
If ever there was a company man hard-pressed to find anything negative to say about his job or his employer, Sal was and is that fellow.
He knew the writing was on the wall for the company when a newly hired chemist didn't seem to care nearly as much as the previous one had.
And that was one thing about EJ, he says: the employees genuinely cared. They didn't just put in their time.
And he even remembers the days before he was old enough to hold a job, when his brother-in-law Leo Senio would go to an EJ outing and come home with leftovers -- baskets full of hotdogs, hamburgers, corn and clams.
EJ always took good care of its workers and their families, Sal says.
His and wife Rose's five kids -- Lee, Thomas, Paula, Mary and Fred -- all were cared for by Dr. Raeburn Wharton, the EJ baby doctor.
EJ money later put all five through college.
It was a good life. A good living.
And now, with this collection dedicated to All Things EJ, Sal Poliziano is paying his respects.