BETHLEHEM - Nov. 18, 1995, was one of the most painful days in Ronald Meitzler's life, yet he can't stop thinking about it, can't stop talking about it.

That was the last day of steelmaking - The Last Cast as it's become known - in Bethlehem, and the last day the 28-year Bethlehem Steel worker would spend helping to run the blast furnaces of a company that dominated the Lehigh Valley economy for nearly a century."I just can't let the place go," Meitzler of Allentown said without a hint of regret. "I just can't leave it behind."The Barnette Conference Room at Northampton Community College on a recent Saturday was full of people like Meitzler who simply don't want to leave their careers at Bethlehem Steel behind. So, more than 120 mostly former steelworkers gathered for a panel discussion and slideshow about that last cast.The original panel discussion was in December, scheduled to coincide with the 20-year anniversary of steelmaking ending in Bethlehem, but so many people showed up that it overwhelmed the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas at the ArtsQuest Center, leaving about 150 people unable to get in.Steelworkers Archives President Frank Behum Sr. kept his promise to hold an encore for those closed out in December. He did it mostly because he doesn't want anyone to forget."I can't bear the thought that 50 years from now a kid up here at the Broughal Middle School won't know what Bethlehem Steel was," said Behum, who worked 32 years at Bethlehem Steel. "I think we'd all roll over in our graves. We can't let it happen."He was surely preaching to the choir in a conference room named after former Steel CEO Curtis "Hank" Barnette. Some were there to escort aging family members who worked at the plant, a few were there to learn the history, but many were former steelworkers who spent their entire careers in south Bethlehem. At its peak, Bethlehem Steel employed nearly 300,000 people worldwide, including more than 31,000 at its flagship plant in Bethlehem.Many of them were at NCC's South Side campus Saturday for the same reason Frank Hawkey of Whitehall was there - to reminisce about how they helped shape the Manhattan skyline, build the Golden Gate Bridge and win two World Wars.By most accounts their jobs were grueling. Meitzler joked about how many times his beard caught fire. And Hawkey talked about how, despite working in 120-degree heat at the furnaces, they had to wear long underwear to keep their own sweat from causing steam burns on their bodies.But they recalled all of that rather fondly."You don't give 31 years of your life to something and just let it go," Hawkey said.In this room full of lifers, Rudy Garcia of Easton was the king. He'd spent 48 years at Bethlehem Steel. The Mexican immigrant was one of nine brothers who worked there, so when he left for the last time, his wife, Donna, hired a horse and buggy to take him from the plant that day.He's 88 years old now and he's heard more than once someone tell him to let it go. Donna Garcia, whose grandfather, father and uncles all worked for Bethlehem Steel, doesn't understand that."Let it go?" she said. "This is family. Would you let go one of your children?"