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For 30 years, Noel Dempsey has been picking at the bones of our once-dominant industrial era. And they are heavy bones, brothers and sisters. "You have to be careful," he told me the other day as we poked around his amazing shop on West Leigh Street in Scott's Addition. Three-ton metal lathes. One-ton industrial band saws and drill presses. Shapers, jointers, rollers, stampers, welders and milling machines, all stupefyingly heavy. For three decades, this mechanical engineer has been dragging, hoisting, cribbing and prying these metal monsters out of old industrial shops in New York, Philadelphia, Erie, Pa. -- anywhere and everywhere, as old vocational education programs shut down across the nation. People are also reading... * City's top prosecutor says she has 'no authority' to enforce immigration laws * Owner, employee of Hanover vape shop facing drug charges * Man stabbed to death in restaurant on West Broad in Richmond * Report: Pharrell movie filmed in Richmond canceled * Update: Virginia under a winter storm warning until Wednesday morning * Forecast calls for up to 4 inches of snow in Richmond on Tuesday * Thomas Dale girls basketball coach Walker resigns mid-season; replacement already hired * Woman dies after being hit by car in the Fan * House rejects 4 more Youngkin appointees * Chesterfield, Henrico among fastest-growing Va. localities since 2020 * Azalea Flea Market is closing, displacing vendors and deal-seekers * Spanberger: VHSL, NCAA should set policy on transgender athletes * Richmond airport wins new service to Bermuda * Plan to replace Westhampton bakery gains approval * Joe Morrissey's defamation suit against Richmond activist dismissed Imagine, a dusty basement full of machinery in Manhattan, or a whole second floor of a warehouse in Queens where students once learned how to mill the parts that made America move. Now many are empty -- except for the bones. Dempsey says that when you go into places like that, you can imagine what they once were. "You can see the kids" and hear the hum of industrial education, he said. "Now, most of them have closed down." It's all part of the sharp decline in vocational education -- shop class -- in this nation that began in the 1980s as blue collars became unfashionable and the emphasis shifted to a college education. Remember when most schools had vocational education classes, teaching kids who were antsy or not sharp with studies how to be tradespeople? Most schools don't anymore. So Dempsey goes in these buildings alone with come-alongs, railroad jacks, chain falls and, with sheer force of will, drags the machines into the trailer of his trusty 1986 cab-over Peterbilt big rig. He brings them back to Richmond, checks them out and repairs them if needed, then sells them for pennies on the dollar. This guy is famous among machinists, and so tough and hard a cat couldn't scratch him. One slip and you get a hand or foot bitten off. A jack slipped once and smashed the side of his jaw, requiring $20,000 in dental surgery. "I kept working that day, though." Check out this 70-year-old metal lathe made by Heidenreich and Harbeck of Hamburg, Germany. "Probably, Mr. Hitler made it." It works like new and was once worth $60,000. He just sold it for $2,500. That sweet, hydraulic DoAll contour machine (band saw) from 1963 once had a price tag of $150,000. "We'll probably sell it for $2,000." Theses are the machines that can make anything, including other machines. Virtually everything you touch or drive was machined in some way, from the parts themselves or the machine that mass-produced them. Who makes that stuff, and who repairs it? "You go to Walmart and it says 'made in China,'" Dempsey said. "When I was a kid, it said 'made in New York.'" Indeed, China has shot past the U.S. in terms of industry. And our manufacturing growth is a fraction of that in other countries like South Korea, Russia, India, Brazil and Indonesia. Even Mexico, with a comparatively paltry 5 percent in manufacturing expansion, basically doubles our growth rate. And much of our heavy-duty stuff is made overseas. (Did you see those giant beer tanks shipped by barge to Stone Brewery in Richmond this week? Made in Germany.) "If we have to go to war, we're in a mess," Dempsey said. Most of his customers are his age -- 68 -- or older. "My oldest customer is 91, Bill Hargrove. He went to the Henry Ford school for machinists," he said. It worries him that only a few of his customers -- less than 1 percent, he figures -- are under 30. It's scary to think of a country that can't make its own moving parts. Industrial might as part of national strength and security is why this nation began emphasizing vocational education in the early 1900s. As educational pioneer Ellwood Cubberley wrote back then, "The great battles of the future will be commercial, not military." We've seen how lapses in our vocational education have led to masses of immigrants coming in to do our blue-collar jobs, many of them paying as much or more than nice, clean service or tech jobs. The pressing need to shift back to vocational education (now called CTE -- career and technical education) is ringing across that land. North Carolina educators and lawmakers decided to place equal emphasis on vocational education and college prep. This year, students have two paths -- college or a skilled job -- which is similar to the educational choices in many European countries. U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., co-chairman of the Senate's Career and Technical Education Caucus, is among those pushing for funding to recruit CTE instructors to ramp up our vocational educational system. "There's a huge need for people in CTE fields," Kaine told me Friday. "The old stigma about CTE, or vocational education, that's really disappearing and there's kind of a renaissance going on." You know, I'm more proud of being a journeyman bricklayer than being a college biology graduate. To know how to work with your hands is a great gift, good for your body and your heart. Look at Noel Dempsey, still built like a teenager at 68 with plenty of fire left in his belly to make things. He's planning to stop picking at our old industrial bones next year to focus on a couple of his energy-saving inventions, including a buoy that uses magnetism and wave action to light it up. "I think many of us want to see America great again," he said. "People are starting to realize they can." But that's going to take some new, industrial-strength bones to grow on, and a bunch of tough people who don't mind getting their hands a little dirty. Mark Holmberg's work can be seen at Richmond.com and WTVR.com. He can be reached at mholmberg@tribunemedia.com. 0 Comments Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Related to this story Holmberg: Chasing the spirit of Halloween through - and above - 'Hollywood Cemetery' Holmberg: Chasing the spirit of Halloween through - and above - 'Hollywood Cemetery' A long, groaning creak and then a bang awoke me from a sound sleep inside the mysterious Gold Room under the eaves of the 120-year-old gatehou... 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