Pluckemin Part 2

As I settled into my role as the clean up boy, new butchers were added to the staff as business grew at the grocery store. TP,  Ray, Kenny and Frankie came to our store. TP and Frankie were about 8 years older than me. Ray was about 4 years older and I looked up to them all as older brothers. TP was a Vietnam Vet and we became instant buddies. I listened with interest to his war stories and his view of things.  TP was always happy with a smile and bobbed his head with a "yeah that's cool" way. He had an affinity for Volkswagons and his bus was my favorite. On a Saturday he let me drive it with butchers on the bus, he proclaimed "we're going to lunch!"  T was a huge Moody Blues fan and that rubbed right off on me. I was 17 and wasn't supposed to use the knives or equipment, but on the nights when TP worked late where there was no one else around, he taught me valuable lessons on meat cutting and hamburger meat grinding. To this day, I'm forever grateful for his tutoring. 

My other teacher was Duffer. One day, he slapped a beef chuck on his block and instructed me to take the atlas bone off first. Next was how to scrape the spinal chord out and then with a zig-zag motion with a boning knife, remove the neck bone. He and TP's meat cutting lessons were a life long skill that I remember to this day. Duff bought a brand new 1974 Cadillac Coupe DeVille as a present to himself for a lifetime of hard work. At lunch time, we all took turns sitting in the car, admiring the luxury.

Ray was easygoing and friendly and easy to talk to. Frankie liked to sing Frankie Valli songs and I can still hear "My Eyes Adored You" echoing off the metal walls and halfway down the aisles of the store. 

Kenny was the scary one. With a stout, muscular build, he had a goatee and the ability to look like the devil himself. He also liked to smear blood from the beef around his lips with a trail dripping down one side of his mouth and act like a goul.  Our goul would shake any unsuspecting part timer's hand who wandered into the meat room with a iron clad grip and twist his arm until he fell on the floor in the sawdust. He also liked to give the "Liver Treatment" initiation to anyone new who got too close to him. Liver came in frozen and was sliced on the band saw. Inside the saw, accessed by a door, was a bin that collected the gooey glop created from the liver shavings that resulted from the saw process.  It had the consistency of chocolate pudding. The treatment involved wrestling the victim to the floor and smearing the molton liver in his hair. The act was finished off by a handful of sawdust to make a tar and feather like event.  I was also the target of frequent knife throwing practice. With the sound of multiple knives sticking in the wooden floor, I'd look down and see an assortment around my feet. Workplace harassment? What's that? This was the 70's. 

Lamb was a big part of the meat repertoire at the store and it came in two pieces, the front half and the posterior half that was called the saddle. It was used for legs of lamb and chops. The saddle came with the hooves and Bob liked to saw them off at the shank. He'd take hold of the shank with the hoof and pull his meat coat down over his hand to make it look like he had a hoof instead of a hand. With one hoof and one hand, he'd go out to the meat case and straighten the packages with shoppers all around him. They'd do double takes at this oddity and we watch through the one way glass on the other side with gales of laughter.  On other occasions, Bob would be on the inside and make subtle animal noises at the glass to watch the shopper's expressions. 

The meat room was by no means devoid of refreshments. We had an industrial sized coffee pot with a tap in the corner. On Saturdays promptly at 10 am, Tony would proclaim "let's break".  All operations would cease and everyone would gather in the coffee pot corner for socialization. Mr. Mitchell would stop in for the festivities. Other store department heads, stock clerks, checkers (cashiers) and even meat room spouses would fill up the happy corner. At Christmas and New Year's, the coffee pot was crowded out by an impressive selection of hard liquor. 

Outside of the holidays, some butchers kept pint bottles of brandy on the sly for a quick nip. After some time, the quick nip became fifth sized bottles. Fifths are kinda hard to fit in your pocket so creative hiding spots were necessary.  The handy-dandy lamb saddle carcass was one. Just take the bottle and shove it up the ying yang and now you see it, now you don't.  One day, Ray was on the saw and grabbed a lamb to saw up the middle and when he ran it through the blade there was a chink-chink-chink sound and black berry brandy flowing out on the band saw.  I was right there. I backed out and slinked away like Carl on Caddyshack. I think I'll go help Cindy with the cold cuts and hot dogs. Capo was out on the floor talking to Mrs. Koehn and I didn't want to be in the room when he asked "where's the lamb?"

We also had a rotating crew of butchers who didn't have a regular store. They'd come for a week or two and then rotate out. Joe W. looked like Einstein and was a pickled human being, I do believe. He had lost his driver's license for ten years because of too many dui's. Sal was a hugely nice man and never left the meat room for lunch. He liked to sit on a fat can and eat cherries and grapes. Paul, the odd man out, was a wholesome individual. He liked to chug buttermilk out of a carton. I asked him if I could try that and he handed me a carton. I turned it up and took a swig and bleeeech!  I spit it out on the floor. The sawdust soaked it right up.

In 1974, I turned 18. The magical age of adulthood. I could vote, drink and write my own excuses for absence from school, much to the disdain of my parents. And...my military draft card notice arrived in the mail. The Butchers celebrated my ascension to adulthood. They now had a gofer for Colonial Liquors to fetch their afternoon spirits. Armed with a laundry list of drink and a pile of cash, I headed off to Colonial to fulfill the order. Still dressed in my white meat coat, I looked like Pinto on Animal House with bottles stuffed in my coat when the purchase was complete. My plan was to stealth back and climb the back delivery dock and sneak back into the meat room. As I had one leg up on the dock, I was looking at a ten foot tall Mr. Mitchell with his hands on his hips, staring back down at me. He asked "whatcha got there Davy?" All I could stutter was uh, uh, uh, uh. He had me hand over the booze and said "I had better keep these up in the office until you punch out." When I broke the sad news to the guys, there was a pall cast over them. 

I loved my job in the meat business. It was a union job. Local 464 of the Amagamated Meatcutters and Food Store Employees was our brotherhood.  We got regular raises and by 1976, I was the envy of part time workers elsewhere, making $3.30 an hour. If I worked a full week plus time and a half on Sundays, I could make a hundred and fifty bucks. That was considered decent money for part time in 1976. As much as I liked A&P,  I yearned to be in radio. It was my dream. Toward the end of my time there in 1977, I just happened to be in the back room where the dairy cooler and frozen foods locker was. Between the the two coolers there was about 5 inches of space. A single board was placed to cover the void space between those coolers on the front. As good timing would have it, Mr. Mitchell was there too with his hands on his hips observing carpenters who were beginning a remodeling job in the back room. As the workman pulled that board down, about 5 years worth of pint and fifth brandy bottles came clinking out like a tidal wave.  Once again, I carefully slinked away.