Terry;
I'm sorry to hear that news.
But *always* keep in mind that your 54 years, gray hair, and 24 years work at that company puts you in a very special position. You are a highly-experienced expert now!
If there is something difficult and tricky about your job that you know how to do and did every day for 24 years, you might be in a very good position....and if you are willing to teach others how to do that tricky task efficiently and safely, you might be surprised how quickly a teaching opportunity might spring up, even if you simply get hired as a pipefitter by someone else again. You can become a trainer. Even a freelance one--it's not hard to set up a consulting business online, promote yourself, and you might be amazed at what opportunities pop up. You can even do it while working a regular job. A buddy of mine ran a certain printing press model for 10 years, and got sent all over the country to direct the setup and tuning operations for new customers. Now he owns his own consulting business, setting up this same press and training employees on how to run it. He wrote a full curriculum, training program, etc. They can't hire anyone full time to do that, hard times, so they use consultants now. Then he goes to the next site...and so on.

I own a small business, and we employ (part time, unfortunately, but maybe things will pick up) an ex master welder who does exactly that for us.....he's now a teacher. The only problem is calming him down when students don't initially perform up to his welding quality standards....

Don't underestimate yourself. You are an EXPERT.

DANBOB