Nostalgia for Evil Empires past

Someone at UMB sent me a link to this video, made by the corporation most of our neighbors where I grew up considered the font of all blessings. At college, we called it the Evil Empire, even while the man who would found the present Evil Empire was living and scheming only one floor above me.

As I drove back today from visiting my father, it occurred to me that Endicott, NY has twice been a center of corporate paternalism; first there was George F. Johnson's Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company, which gave its name to the neighboring villages of Endicott and Johnson City and bequeathed to the area a number of parks with carousels, one of which is a mere half mile from my father's house.

But one of Endicott's principal streets is named Watson Boulevard, after Thomas J. Watson, the long time CEO of IBM, which for many years made its headquarters in Endicott.

And I really like this video. Someone invested a lot of talent and effort in it.