TSTINC

You see an ad of a two-man saw for sale. Write a story about the people who have used it.

TSTINC

Approx 2,504 words

Arlene Minsky stood in the broiling sun beneath a cloudless August sky in southern Nevada. The temperature was 106° in the shade; but there was no shade. The limo driving her guest paused a moment at the security gate before Walter was allowed to proceed. A few moments later the shiny gray car with dark tinted windows pulled to a stop in front of her. Arlene waited while Walter quickly turned off the engine and moved around the car to open the rear passenger door next to the walk.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Weston,” Arlene said as a short, impeccably dressed, man with gray hair stepped from the limo. Weston was immediately followed by a tall red-head with flashing emerald eyes. The red-head quickly shaded her eyes from the sudden brightness. “I’m Arlene Minsky, Executive Assistant to Mr. Renquist. Unfortunately, he is temporarily detained by urgent business, but he asked me to greet you and show you to the executive suites.”

Sam Weston grasped the hand Arlene extended and smiled warmly. “Thank you so much, Miss Minsky. I guess people do get used to the heat here, but I don’t see how you do it. This is Miss Brodin, my personal assistant,” he said by way of introduction.

The red-head smiled and nodded. “Call me Irene,” she said quietly.

“If you’ll just follow me, sir, we’ll have you inside before you can work up a sweat.” Arlene began leading him to the entrance while Brodin collected two cases, probably his and hers brief cases, Arlene thought. Walter would take any luggage to the VIP apartments so she needn’t worry herself about that.

As they followed the long walk leading to the entrance of TSTINC Corporate Headquarters, Weston chuckled. Arlene gave him a quizzical glance and a lifted eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he said. “I know what the abbreviation stands for, Tomorrow’s Solutions Today, Inc., but the logo took me by surprise. It looks like a two man buck-saw; forevermore, why?” The huge logo had been painted above the main entrance, forty feet wide and eight feet high. Beneath the logo were painted the words, “Through this door pass the most creative minds in America.”

“That’s a complicated story, Mr. Weston. As soon as we’re seated with something cool and refreshing to drink, I’ll be happy to tell it to you.” A polite doorman wearing the TSTINC security uniform held the door while Arlene escorted the two visitors to the executive elevator, swiped her access card, and took her guests to the fourth floor at the top of the sprawling building.

Entering the foyer to the Executive Offices, Arlene approached the receptionist and said, “Mr. Weston of NASA, and his assistant, Miss Brodin.” The receptionist flipped a page in her visitor’s book and checked off Weston’s name.

“Mr. Renquist has just returned from IT. He’s expecting you,” she said.

Arlene led the way down a hall and showed the two guests into a large office furnished with an oversize mahogany desk, a large leather covered sofa with two matching chairs, a couple attractive end tables, lamps, with a fifty-two inch television screen opposite the sofa. Upon the wall adjacent to the large screen TV was the 10-foot buck saw from which the corporate logo had been designed. Deane Renquist stood quickly and came around the desk to shake hands.

“Mr. Weston and Miss Brodin,” Arlene said. “I’ll be back in a moment with some refreshments. Would you prefer iced tea, soda, or something stronger, Mr.Weston?

“Iced tea would be wonderful, with lo-cal and lemon if you have it,” he said.

“May I have the same?” the red-head asked.

“Of course. I’ll be right back,” Arlene said.

“Please, set here,” Deane indicated the two comfortable chairs to his guests.

“Thank you, Mr. Renquist…”

“Call me Deane. We’re a little less formal out west than you folks back east. I’ve just come from IT with a presentation I hope will please you. As soon as Arlene returns, we can begin.”

“That’s certainly great news, Deane. It’s been a long flight, a long drive from the airport, and the sooner we can begin, the sooner Miss Brodin and I can rest up for tomorrow. We’ve been up three hours longer than you have,” he said by way of explanation. “While we’re waiting, your assistant was going to tell us the story behind your corporate logo; you know, the buck saw on the wall there?”

“Oh, that’s an old story for sure,” Renquist said. He moved to the west wall of his office and closed the blinds to avoid the afternoon sun just beginning to slant in the window.

“As the story goes, the saw was originally purchased in Finland back in the 1800’s by a woodsman named Lundgren. When he was nineteen, he was hired by an American lumber company; they did a lot of recruiting in Europe in those days, and emmigrated to the US to begin working for the company in Wisconsin. He brought his saw with him of course, it was a valuable and important tool of the trade back in those days. Shortly after arriving, Pyotr Lundgren changed his name and became Peter Lund.

“Unfortunately for Mr. Lund, logging has always been a hazardous business. He and his partner on the other end of that saw were both killed in a logging accident in Georgia.”

“Civil War?” Weston asked.

“No, this was after the war. The company he worked for had secured a government contract and was acquiring timber for reconstruction of Confederate railroads. As was the custom in those days, after his accident, the loggers held a raffle of personal effects and the saw was won by a hard-working Irishman nameed Doyle.

“Doyle soon left Georgia to work for the Union Pacific building west from Omaha. Work had begun on the transcontinental railroad in 1863 at the height of the war, and continued up to 1869 when the Central Pacific, building east from California, joined with the Union Pacific at Promontory Point in Utah. Doyle was still with them at that time, but he continued west and took another timber job in Reno. He still had our famous saw with him, although it was much the worse after several hard years. A year later, Doyle and the saw were in Oregon, still cutting timber, but that’s where his luck ran out. He was also killed in a logging accident and the saw acquired the nickname ‘Widow Maker.’ None of the loggers wanted it after learning the story, but it was purchased for two silver dollars by a rancher in Roseburg and it stayed on his ranch until 1916 when he went off to France and never returned.

“The saw ended up in an antique store when the estate was settled. About this time, novelty music swept the country. You know, bands playing instruments made from wash tubs, whiskey jugs, cow bells, and such. The saw was picked up, polished up, and took to the road with a small band. When the novelty music fad passed in the 40’s, the saw ended up in a pawnshop in Tuscon where it lay for several years.”

Arlene Minsky quietly entered the office with a small tray. She set glasses of iced-tea in front of Weston and Brodin, one on Renquist’s desk, and took hers to the sofa and seated herself.

“Thank you, Arlene. I’ve been telling our guests the story behind the saw and had gotten as far as Tuscon. But you tell it so much better than I, why don’t you take over?”

Arlene blushed slightly, set her tea on the end table and smoothed her skirt. “There is a large population of sculptors, potters, and artists in Tuscon. I guess it’s an entertaining past-time when folks are retired. The saw was purchased from that pawnshop by an artist who had been experimenting painting on odd canvases. His first efforts were circular saw blades, but he had a concept for the desert horizon you see on our wall. Steve Cunningham, who founded TSTINC was very into recycling, even back in the 60’s, besides, he liked the artwork and bought the saw after hearing of it’s unique history as a working tool, a musical instrument, and finally as a piece of art. He could think of nothing better to identify with his concept of recycling and chose it as the corporate logo.”

“I should have let Arlene tell it from the beginning,” Renquist said. “She really evokes images of the piney woods when she talks about Wisconsin, Georgia, the prairies crossing the US and the Sierra mountains from Nevada to Oregon.”

“I was very interested,” Miss Brodin said. “Now I understand the symbolism your founder put into that saw, but I’m a little in the dark about the company name… TSTINC; it sounds modestly offensive to me.”

Renquist chuckled. “I think old man Cunningham meant it to be. It was his way of telling the world to take a flying leap. We’re good at what we do, better than anyone I like to think, so it’s a name they’ll just have to accept because we’re proud of it.”

“Exactly what is it you do,” Brodin asked?

“We find uses for things no one wants,” Renquist replied. “When oil was first discovered in Pennsylvania, industry looked at it as a replacement for whale oil which was becoming a scarce commodity, even back in the 1800’s. The internal combustion engine had not yet been invented, so the oil was valuable but the gasoline removed during the refining process was considered a nuisance and a waste. Often it was dumped in rivers.”

“My land,” Brodin said. “They simply polluted the countryside with it?”

“Yes, but not for long. With the invention of the gasoline engine, and later the diesel, oil became more important as a source of fuel than as a lubricant. The rest is history. Homes are heated with oil, ships use oil fired boilers, the plastics industry depends upon petroleum byproducts, and there is the endless demand by consumers around the world. While gasoline used to sell for nine cents a gallon across the country, now you’re lucky to find it for three dollars and nine cents, if you can find it!”

“Tires are made from synthetic rubber derived from oil. We develop processes to recycle old tires and use them to produce electricity to meet the residential and industrial demand. We also recycle them into an ingredient for highway construction, to make highways last longer and reduce the cost of maintenance.

Weston took this opportunity to insert his comments. “One of the reasons we came to TSTINC, Irene, is because they have always been innovators in acquiring waste from one part of industry, and developing processes to make that waste useful, even valuable, to another area industry. Of course, TSTINC makes a tidy profit too!

“In the late 1900’s, nuclear waste began accumulating in dangerous quantities all around the country. The government wanted to bury it at the Nuclear Test Site in Nevada and, quite naturally, most of Nevada opposed the idea, even though the land targeted for the high level waste repository was right smack in the middle of land already contaminated by more than 900 nuclear detonations and would remain unusable much longer than the possible life-time of this nation. Opposing the nuclear waste repository was the way politician’s courted votes, year after year, and an ignorant electorate kept voting to spend tax dollars fighting an unwinnable battle in the courts. The waste had to go somewhere, didn’t it? With the federal government exercising the right of eminent domain, it was inevitable it would be dumped in Nevada.

“Besides, the government looked at it as a boost for the economy in various manufacturing states where the containers to storE the waste would be manufactured. There were also the unions who would load it onto trucks or trains and transport it across the country. Disposal of nuclear waste would mean enormous profits for everyone in the country who produced the nuclear waste or the means to dispose of it, except for Nevada with no nuclear power plants and no manufacturing to speak of. They would simply get dumped on.

Weston took a long sip of his tea. “Then along came Cunningham. He did a miraculous job convincing the state legislature to unconditionally accept the radioactive waste from the rest of the country. No one could conceive of the idea Cunninham had, but he put it into action almost immediately. The incentive, of course, was financial. Cunningham persuaded the state legislature to charge a storage fee for the lifetime the waste would be stored in our state. He also insisted the county establish an inspection team to oversee storage, periodically inspectaing the containers and giving their stamp of approval. Politicians, of course, always welcome new sources of revenue and to hell with the wants and needs of the voters.

“Within three years, TSTINC was manufacturing TEG power supplies…”

“TEG?” Irene asked.

“Thermal Electric Generator. NASA had been using them to provide power in deep space probes, but they seldom needed more than one or two devices each year. Now that TSTINC had a free, and nearly endless supply of raw material, Cunningham pioneered the manufacture of indestructible units encapsulated in ABS plastic and stainless steel. A typical unit, about the size of your kitchen waste basket, could power five average homes for a hundred years, with virtually no maintenance because it had no moving parts!”

Brodin whistled to herself. “I am impressed!”

“Yes,” Weston said, “and even though the unit cost as much as two luxury cars, when five families split the cost, they ended up saving money for their electrical needs. The first units were produced in 2008, and by 2018 there was hardly enough nuclear waste in the country to keep up with the production demands for TEG power supplies. Fortunately, the nuclear power plants continue to produce waste, and that waste is being recycled to reduce the need to construct more plants. Eventually, it became necessary to use breeder reactors, which produce more radioactive fuel than they use, to create the raw materials for the TEG units, to deliver nuclear power cheaply and safely to meet the needs of the consumer. Some of the major power companies became threatened by competion when they had always enjoyed a virtual monopoly, but they had no legal means of stopping it.”

“I can see that now, sir, but what does that have to do with us?” Irene asked.

“Miss Brodin,” Deane Renquist said, “NASA approached me eleven months ago with a little problem they had. Earthmen have made six voyages to Mars so far, but voyages to the farther planets and the asteroids, require a new source of power, both to get the ships there and to provide power for living while traveling in space. At TSTINC, we’re going to provide the solution to that need.” Deane Renquist smiled with satisfaction. “We’re going to the farthest planets, and beyond!”