Joe added:

Greetings to all of you! I hope life is good!
 

   I left Bristol in May, 1974 and drove to El Paso, Texas for NCOES School TDY. I drove back to Etna Maine for 2 weeks leave, and then drove to Anchorage, Alaska. I was a Spec 4. I signed in the middle of July, 1974. I was stationed on top of MT. Gordon, at Site Summit.  I loved duty at Site Summit. 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off. The area reminds me of the State of Maine and so much more.  All my time off, I fished and hunted the area 200 miles around Site Summit. Because of my new marriage and child on the way, and the closing of Bristol, I got out of the Military under breach of contract on 11/24/1974. I had re-enlisted for 3 years and was guaranteed 24 months in the Boston area. After a short time there, I was sent TDY to Texas and then to Alaska.  I could not bring my dependents with me, so out I went with 3 years, 3 months, 8 days in the Army. Some of the best years of my life, and I enjoyed all of it. I was a volunteer when I turned 17 years old.

    After the military, I moved back to Etna, Maine where I have lived ever since. I love the outdoors and the people. I own 115 acres of land here and all of my 3 brothers, my son, several nieces, mother and many more live on a total of 219 acres.

    My work for most of the years since getting out has been in the Textile Field. I worked for several companies over the years as a machinery repair person. I quickly moved into Supervision of Carding, Spinning, and Cone Winding. I managed a large company of that sort in the 1980's for a number of years.

    In 1997 a local mill only seven miles from here went out of business (like most textile mills do). My younger brother Gary and I thought it might work if we bought up some of the equipment and tried our hand at textiles. I was well known in the industry, so I had the contacts to make it work.

   We spent 1 Year moving equipment and building our 1st 12,000 square foot building. Our 1st yarn went out in Feb, 1998.

    We are still in business today. For the past 6 years we have been producing the yarn that is used on all tennis balls in the world. We produced enough yarn to cover 5.5 million balls per week. We make all the tournament balls for Wimbledon and the like. We employed 23 full time employees up to this year. Our business has dropped off substantially and we now employ only 8 workers.

   The yarn we make today only goes to large companies. Our customers include such companies as Lockheed, McDonald Douglas,  L. L. Bean, Lands End, Sears, and all 4000, A380 Air-Bus  Jumbo Jets are done entirely with our yarn which is fire-proof.

    My business name is Family Yarns Inc.  I have a local news coverage story done of us in 2007 on DVD. If anyone is interested, e-mail me and I can send a copy to you.

   Today we have in place 8 carding machines, 8 spinning frames, 2 AutoConewinders and 4 large diesel generators which we use to generate the power needed to run the entire facility.

    In past years I have been a Fireman, Assistant Fire Chief, and Fire Chief for quite sometime. I have also been a Town Selectman 3 times, and on numerous committees involving town politics.

    My wife Tris and I have been happily married for 29 Years and we have a daughter born in 1974 who lives at Fort-Gordon, GA., with her army husband. They have 3 children; D'Mitri, Alexis and Jazmine. We also have a son born in 1973 who has worked for me since 2000 and lives here on my property with his wife of 13 years and their 4 year old daughter Nicole.

    I enjoy mostly working! My hobbies include hunting deer and partridge and watching sci-fi movies with my wife.

    I also enjoy watching what has been happening with Site Summit on the Internet. I am hoping that it remains as intact as possible since closing in 1979. It has been declared an historical land mark and so far has been spared from demolition.
 

Sincerely,

Joe Marchelletta

Webmaster note:  Joe’s address has purposely been left out. Anyone wishing to contact him send email to me from the home page and I will forward it on to him. This way keeps the spam and junk mail down to a minimum.