For everyone who does not have the book here is a quick breakdown....
Consolidated Freightways is a industry leader in every arena, they manufactured their own equipment when the best was'nt good enough...dollys, trailers and tractors. Through many mergers they became know as one of the "Big3" trucking companys in the nation. In the 80's CF had so much cash flow they figured why invest it in the company that made the money when they can open up a subpar trucking company and leach business off the parent company, hell they even figured it was a great idea to have the same board of directors run each company "separately" and added the little moniker "A CF Company" to all the equipment so customers would relate the two companys. The board even thought it was funnier when they named the company and said it was the beginning and end of
CONsolidated Freight
WAYS.
The Union even brought into the idea and thought it was great, the workers at this new company from time to time would try to become Union and the company would just move around and change the names and called it a different division, the Union laughed each time saying "they are too small, dont worry about them". Then came the late 90's and the company starts thinking "hey we have milked this POS for all we can, I think we better do something before people catch on and figure out our plan" so they came up with the great idea of letting the child (the "new" company) kick the parent (CF) out of the house. The child company told ma and dad to hit the road, so ma and dad tried to pack up what they had accumulated over their lifetime, their clothes (Road Systems) their furniture (Menlo) their cars (Emery) but the child was not going to allow that, instead the child came up with the idea that ma and dad would have to leave empty handed, the kid claimed it was a great deal as ma and dad would not be burdened with all that baggage and would be much more "free" to pursue what they wanted to do, even though ma and dad have always done what they wanted to do.
So ma and dad left home (kicked out) and along the way found out that the kid had left some "friends" behind to watch over them, to make sure they headed in the "right" direction. Well ma and dad quickly found themselves hungry (broke) and tired (old equipment) but all the stuff they had worked a lifetime to acquire was now gone.... ma and dad were slowly dying but no one cared, no one noticed. Ma and dad struggled for years but had the heart (workers) of a bull and tryed the best they could with what life had given them (:
:).Then on Labor Day 2002 ma and dads alarm clock failed to go off, the sun arose but ma and dad did not, they never awoke again. Phone calls were being made to let everyone know of the sad time. Immediately there was suspicion that somehow the kid had set ma and dad up to die, the Union claimed it would pay for a autopsy and if it found out that the kid had poisoned ma and dad, the kid would be in serious trouble they promised. Well ma and dad were buried on a cold September day, first months passed, then years..... after all this time we have never received the results of that autopsy, no one even visited the grave sites and then ma and dad realized....no one cared, no one noticed.
I think that about sums up the story.