"The Last Truck" workers: A year later

A year ago thousands of workers at the GM plant in Moraine braced for the inevitable, the closure of their plant. The ordeal was captured in an emotional HBO documentary, "The Last Truck."  So, where are those workers now? 

Kim Clay's voice is the first you hear from the film when he says, "We don't own it, but this is our plant. Everybody's waiting on that last truck."  His eight years at the Moraine Assembly Plant ended just before Christmas, 2008.  His photo of the last truck was in 100 newspapers nationwide. Now ten months later, Kim Clay is broke.

"I've lost DP&L [Dayton Power & Light]. I've lost Vectren. My water has been shut off and on," Clay said. "I have a skill. I have a trade. I have experience, and I haven't been able to find anything in Dayton."

Clay is an industrial electrician but his dream is to make a living through his eyes. He's already produced two pictorial books. But he sold his camera equipment to a pawn shop. Clay said he needed the money to support his wife, his daughter, and two grandchildren now living with him.

Clay's worked for minimum wage sorting trash and just got a seasonal position.  He said, "I want to work, I'm willing to work, but the work is not there."

Clay says he's worked about thirty days this year and the buyout he received from General Motors cost him $28,000 in taxes.

He used to spend money at the Upper Deck Tavern. It was a popular gathering spot near the plant.  Now without the workers it,  struggles to stay open.

"It feels like a ghost town like I'd be going out west, walking into a saloon -- the tumbleweed and stuff," is how Clay describes the once bustling worker's hangout and the mothballed plant located just across the street.

About returning to the neighborhood and seeing the facility, Clay prefers to "remember the good times. There were a lot of good times there."

Clay credits his faith in Jesus Christ, and the love of his , his wife, children, and his grandchildren with keeping him from giving up.

"I've got to try to provide for my family," he said. "That's what I'm trying to do."

Kate Geiger is walking away from manufacturing and into a classroom at Sinclair Community College, where twice a week where she sits in front of a computer creating design and layouts for print. 

Geiger spent nearly 24 years in the Moraine plant, most recently as a forklift operator. She might have the most descriptive and most memorable line in the film.  "I just had this vision of this big, gentle dragon laying down taking its last breath and that was the plant, the building, the equipment, the sound, the smell like it had been a living entity and it was dying."

Geiger said, "There have been some showings of "The Last Truck" at places throughout the Miami Valley, and when I get invited to go speak, I go speak and I watch the movie and it rips my heart out.  But it's all part of the grieving process." 

Last year Geiger lost more than her job. Her marriage also ended, and she now lives with her ailing father. Through times on her bike and what she calls a "spiritual plan of action," she works through the fear of what's to come and the anger leftover from her past.

"I could've very easily used this, all these things that have happened in my life as an excuse to go over the edge and become a total victim and live off the system and something inside of me said no," Geiger observed.

Geiger said she has to drive by the plant, and when she sees it, she misses it. 

And Kim Clay misses the people, he misses them a lot.

The actual last truck to roll off the assembly line remains in Dayton. It's owned by the IUE-CWA, and if  you open up the back door, you'll see the signatures the workers who built it sown the line.