NATCHEZ — On Jan. 2, 1953, James Girod got up and made the drive from Jonesville to Natchez to work as a final product inspector at the Armstrong Tire Company plant, a drive he would make nearly every day for 41 years.

Saturday, he got up and made that drive once again, but this time it was to attend the fifth annual Armstrong Tire Company employee reunion.

Because he lives in Catahoula Parish, Girod rarely gets to see his old work friends, and Saturday was a chance to catch up and talk with the guys.

“I love to get a chance to see all my buddies I worked with over the years,” he said.

The plant lived through three incarnations — Armstrong Tire Company, Fidelity Tire Company and Titan Tire Company — before it was idled shortly after the turn of the century and eventually closed.

But the people who worked there remembered the bonds of friendship they formed, and organized their first reunion in 2005.

Saturday’s gathering was a repeat of past events, with the former employees bringing covered-dish lunches and spending four hours catching up with what has happened in the last year.

“We had a memory time about the days past with Armstrong,” retired worker Roy Doughty said. “We had a brief memorial for those who are gone now.”

Two old work buddies, James Brooks and Charles Minor, said they still keep in touch, but that they wouldn’t miss coming to the reunion to see the other workers.

“We are still around each other a lot, but these guys I worked with always bring back good memories,” Brooks said.

“There was never a place like Armstrong.”

And there was just something about the folks who worked at Armstrong — and the fact that everyone is getting older — that compelled Minor to attend, he said.

“I came out for the camaraderie, the seeing a lot of folks I worked with over the years, just realizing the fact that next year some won’t be here, so we do it while we can,” Minor said.

And though there had been some talk about this being the last year for the reunion, Doughty said the former Armstrong employees quickly decided to put that idea away.

“We voted on it today, and it’s going to be the third weekend in March (next year),” he said. “Everybody wants to do it again.”