Vacuums? Really?

I met up with Jerry Lee at Brunswick Vacuum Cleaner Shop in downtown Brunswick on Newcastle Street. Jerry introduced me to Dwight Stickney, the owner of the modest shop in a narrow store front. Dwight had a jolly sense to him and smiled 90% of the time. He was a sturdy and husky build with a full beard and spoke with a thick Maine accent as if he just got off the lobster boat. The fellows nicknamed him “Globehead” because he would pick up and wear anyone’s sunglasses if he saw them sitting unattended. His wide face would bend the ear rest arms out. One of his repairmen, Bill “Stupid” Hardy worked for a six pack of Old Milwaukee beer and a pack of generic brand smokes a day. The nickname “Stupid” was acquired because he was actually a very intelligent guy.  Globehead’s brother Derek became “Hairlip” for the pencil thin mustache he sported. Except for Globehead, all the nicknames were interchangeable among the group that hung out in the back of the shop. Dwight’s wife, Jean, also repaired vacuum cleaners and was a deeply religious woman. If there was any one person who was the anchor that keep this vacuum cleaner group from drifting too far out to sea, it was Jean. She was a kind woman with infinite patience.

Across the street was Charlie, from New Zealand, who operated his sandwich shop. Stupid’s younger brother John, worked in there too. Charlie and Globe worked together at the ship building yards in Jacksonville, so that’s how Charlie ended up in Brunswick.

One day, in Charlie’s shop, I noticed a woman eating a roast beef pita sandwich. After chewing and chewing for what seemed like an extraordinary amount of time, she gave up and spit the mouthful out on the plate. I asked Charlie “what did you serve her?” He showed me a beef round cut  called a “gooseneck.” He was simply cutting it into roast size pieces to cook in his oven. I advised Charlie that there was a part of that cut called the “horseshoe” on top of the bottom round that needed to be removed. It’s a tough piece of meat and  there’s nothing you can do with it but grind it and make hamburger meat from it. I urged him to get a hand crank grinder and make his own burger meat.  John liked the process so much, that he became a professional meat cutter and shop manager later on at Food Lion.

Globehead bought three houses a few blocks away on Wolfe Street. One home was for Globe, Jean and their young daughter. The nextdoor house was for his brother and the help. The one after that one was for his mother. It was three shotgun houses in a row and one big happy family. I lived a few blocks away in an 1860 built Victorian era house on the third floor that was called the Bird’s Nest.

Globe LIVED for vacuum cleaners. He would travel all over the Southeast in search of used and discarded vacuums . Kirby was his machine of choice. Piled into his Toyota SR5 pickup truck, he’d head back to the shop and refurbish them with new bags, cords and buff polish them for resale. If you know anything about vacuums, you know Kirbys aren’t cheap and I do believe anthropologists will be digging them up centuries from now.

After hours at Globe’s house, the favorite pastime was to grill fresh crab from Brunswick bay.   He liked to hold court with a big grin and a can of Old Milwaukee in one hand and a half gallon of Ten High whiskey in the other. Of all the time I knew him, I never saw him, with that much booze, drunk or unable to hold his liquor.

The fellows were phenomenal recyclers and Globe had a large pen of prodigious proportions to hold thousands of discarded beer cans. When the pen became full, he’d shovel them into his truck to haul to the recycling center. Globe took the money and bought multiple cases of Old Milwaukee.  The process repeated itself continually.

The vacuum shop was the social center for a group of professionals who worked in the downtown area. Shirley, the hairstylist and the girls from Pearl Vision were frequent guests. Flip and Skip were great neighbors from the Bank Saloon down the street. Jerry Lee was always ready to whip out his guitar and play a tune. To me, hanging around downtown was more fun than going to the beach. The back of the vacuum cleaner shop was the happening spot on Newcastle Street. Happy hour and vacuums, every day.