The Reckoning, David Halberstam, 1986, Ch. 38 "Hard Times Come Home," page 607:
" . . . When just before Thanksgiving [1978], he was told that he was laid off, the twelfth in his department to go, he was delighted. He had carefully planned a six-week vacation in Florida, where his wife's parents lived. His children would miss about a week of school, but that was all right; this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Soon it would be over and he would be back at work—in about six weeks to two months, he figured. Three and a half years later, in March of 1982, he was called back to work. He returned a different man.
"Thus began the real education of Joel Goddard, . . . "