Of jobs and the river

For eight years my commute came with a dollop of splendid scenery, along state Route 32 in Bucks County, Pa. The narrow road hugs the west bank of the Delaware River, and to travel it regularly is to become familiar with every aspect of the river's appearance, in fair weather and foul, when the water is low or high.

Winter can bring ice floes; that's one detail the artist who showed George Washington in the boat (the general and his men crossed about 4 miles north of where we lived in the little borough of Yardley) got right. A couple of times I saw the river frozen from bank to bank, although only a fool would test his luck on foot.

For old times' sake we retraced that link on Route 32 the other day during a northeastern swing, crossing the river on the antique Calhoun Street Bridge at Trenton, N.J. (the two-lane bridge, about a quarter-mile long with graceful ironwork, dates to 1884) and turning north toward Yardley, 3 miles upstream.

Little swirls in the river emphasize the current, and it pleased me to see, at the lower end of large, forested Rotary Island, the water still tumbling over a sand bar in its familiar pattern.

North of Yardley and the community of Washington Crossing is the artsy town of New Hope - think Hillsborough gone to heaven. This is the Bucks County of stone farmhouses and quaint riverside inns and writers' retreats.

In the other direction, below the Delaware's modest falls at Trenton, the character of the river corridor and the region known as the Delaware Valley changes. Communities there don't do quaint. They are emblematic of the places where skilled blue-collar workers long have lived their version of the American dream - a dream that's proving more and more elusive.

Trenton once was one of the country's industrial hubs - steel, rubber, ceramics. Another bridge over the river (U.S. 1 Business) still sports the famous slogan in red neon, "Trenton Makes - The World Takes," familiar to train travelers. It is a proud boast but an obsolete one. A few miles farther down on the Pennsylvania side, U.S. Steel operated its gigantic Fairless Works, now for the most part defunct.

The river's course diverges from southeast to southwest, then slices toward the Delaware Valley's great metropolis, Philadelphia. And it was there that the newspaper's front page carried a lead story that seemed to encapsulate the troubles besetting so many parts of the country where old-line heavy industries were dominant, where thousands of families could live good lives on the strength of one wage-earner's paycheck from the factory or mill.

Or refinery. The broad lower Delaware, as anyone who's visited that area knows, has been home to a cluster of oil refineries for decades. The oil companies have taken advantage of the river's suitability for tankers and the region's proximity to the densely populated northeastern states. Making gasoline near so many customers has made sense.

Times have changed. As the once-mighty Philadelphia Inquirer (now in bankruptcy!) reported, the nation's largest refiner, Texas-based Valero Energy Corp., was shutting down its major riverfront facility in Delaware City, Del., about 40 miles to the south. Workers were summoned at 9:30 on the fateful morning and ordered to be off the premises by 10:00. Three dozen state troopers were on hand to keep order. At the refinery itself, 590 jobs were lost. The surrounding community went into shock.

Just weeks before, Sunoco, a Philadelphia-area mainstay for generations, had mothballed its refinery in West Deptford, N.J. That left five refineries still in operation along the river, but this was a sector obviously in retrenchment. The Inquirer cited falling demand for gasoline, caused by a combination of more fuel-efficient cars, higher prices at the pump and the pall of recession. The Valero refinery had been losing $1 million a day, the paper said.

On our trip south, heading for U.S. 301 and the shortcut across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, we caught sight of the doomed Valero operation rising out of the Delaware shoreline flatlands. Environmentalists were glad to see it go, as the Inquirer noted, but several hundred families were in for a gloomy Thanksgiving.

We North Carolinians have had our share of somber news on the economic front, related both to the recession and longer-term shifts away from the state's old standbys of tobacco, textiles and furniture. Yet there is much to be thankful for in a state that continues to be so attractive to business.

Our universities and community colleges have provided a critical mass of well-educated workers that allows companies like SAS, Cree, Talecris and Novartis to shine even amid recessionary gloom. Thousands of Tar Heels can enjoy their commute to such workplaces, scenery or no, with confidence that their jobs that won't be ones that float away on the currents of change. Our challenge is to help extend that good fortune to all.

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