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Classic cars and the old work place!

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Contributed by: Linda Mustion on 9/12/2007

Last Sunday, Sept. 9, my friends Ron Richardson of North Hollywood, Hunter Seagraves, Leroy Vannoy and myself, who all reside in Burbank, all met at the Community Chevrolet Classic Car Show.

We went there for two reasons.

The first reason was to check out all the classic cars that were on display and to take pictures of some of them. I am not really into cars, but a lot of really nice looking cars and trucks.

The cars were all lined up by years, 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's and 1960's. They were all spotless and waxed and just shined in the afternoon sun. You could tell a lot of pride and hard work and expense went into keeping these cars and trucks looking good!

Leroy was telling us how they would go down to the River Road (now Forest Lawn Drive) and race their cars in the 1960's. Leroy, Ron and Hunter could recognize the different cars from afar, but I had to get up close and read the sign in the window as to what kind it was and what year it was.

There was music, balloons, food and drinks. You could purchase raffle tickets and, if you were lucky, you might win a prize. They had a lot of good prizes to give out. The guys were all looking under the hoods and checking out the engines and having a good time.

The second reason that we all got together was to check out the Community Chevrolet Indoor Showroom next door that once, use to be the old work place, where we all once worked, when it use to be Drewry Photocolor, Crest Photo and Qualex Photo.

Drewry Photocolor was first located in Glendale and then came to the Burbank location at 211 South Lake St. next to Community Chevrolet. It was a full size photo lab own by the Drewry family.

In the Drewry days, we had our own fleet of cars and a gas pump in the parking lot for the drivers. The drivers would go out to all the stores and pick up our work and bring it back to the lab. Later years we used a courier service and got rid of the cars and gas pump.

The receiving department would sort the film by size and type, 135, 126, 120, 127, 110, Disc, Super 8 Movie and 16mm Movie Film, color print, slides, black and white, etc.

After sorting the film, it got spliced in the darkroom, but later years we used daylight splicers. After splicing the film, would go to the film processing department and be processed in the dark and it would go through the chemicals and come out into the light.

If it was slide film it would go to mounting department and the slides would be mounted and packaged.

If it was color or B & W, it would go to the print room for printing and then to paper processing to process the printed paper into the chemicals. Then the developed paper and film and envelopes would go to the packaged department to be matched up and packaged.

The last step would be the packaged order would then go to the billing and pricing department and then to the shipping department and put in the route bags for the drivers to pick up the next morning.

In about 1988, we were bought out by American Stores, Osco, Sav-On and we were now Crest Photo where we remained for about eight years. In October 1996 Qualex (a part of Kodak) brought us out.

We then became Qualex Photo, where we remained until they closed down the lab on Sept. 15, 2004 and we were all out of a job.

Hunter, Ron and Leroy, left the company while it was still Drewry Photocolor; I was the only one who stayed until the end. I spent almost 33 years of my life in that place. Now we all wanted to see what Community Chevrolet had done to our old work place.

We went into what was once our storage room and that is now the their classic car showroom. The walls were painted Yellow and Blue. Hunter said: " Hey Linda, isn't that the Drewry Photocolor colors", I said: " Yes, It sure is".

We then went into what were once our old work place and looking from the shipping area, all the way down to the other end, nothing but rows of trucks, SUV's and cars.

There were trucks and SUV everywhere in where once was our lunchroom, our QC area, Our film and paper processors once stood all now with new vehicles. In the receiving area there was even a boat.

Our once spotless and shiny floors were all marked up with tire marks.

Hunter, Ron, Leroy and I all worked in the film processing department in the Drewry days, so I showed them where the film dock once was and when Hunter looked up there were our infrared darkroom light still on the ceiling.

Hunter went crazy and wanted those lights. He plans on coming back and asking if he can have the lights. We will see what happens!

That night as I went to bed, I got to thinking of all the blood, sweat and tears I put into that place. They say you can never go back again, but we did, even through it was bitter sweet.

Our old work place is now just a car lot, but then you think of all the friendships that were made over the years in that old work place and all the memories you will always have and LIFE GOES ON!

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Submitted By: Ken Moffitt

posted on 12/14/2007 @ 2:18:03 PM

(Not Rated)

Hi Linda, You trained me in paper processing during my brief career at Drewry in 1973-74. Tom Goodman and then Joe Soto were the supervisors. I became a good paper splicer (staplegun slinger) before transferring to the Super 8 crew (graveyard shift) after a couple of months. Within a year, I quit to finish my education. Ken Moffitt, Vevey, Switzerland

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Linda Mustion

Burbank , CA

Linda Mustion has posted 13 stories and 10 comments since joining on 4/7/2007. Linda Mustion 's average story rating is 4.95.

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