Month: April 2017

…No job? No problem. Within a nano second I had a job as a Shiller. I didn’t know it at the time but shilling was, is, highly illegal. The main thrust of this was to work with a promoter of household goods, a real barker or Grifter. Those Barkers barking their chop and dice machines, cutting boards, chamois, polishers, waxes, anything that would make the business of housework easier.  My job was to go into the audience and at a predetermined agreed upon time, usually just at the end of the presentation, I would yell out: “I’ll take one.” And before you could say “sham wow” everyone took my lead and scrambled for a piece of the action. It always worked. I did have to disappear, make myself scarce, and not come back to the presentation booth until the crowd had dispersed. It was a risky business, yet a seemingly innocent way to make a buck. One had to be very discreet so as not to attract unwanted attention, especially with returning customers. I wore a wide variety of hats, different coloured shirts, sun glasses, normal glasses, even wigs if my boss thought it was necessary. My undoing was a police constable who was very observant and very good at his job.  He took me aside after one of the presentations, told me that I was very good indeed at what I did but to get the hell out of there before he charged me with fraud and public mischief.  I left and that was the end of my glorious days as a gangster.

What now? In what seemed to be another nano second I had a job on one of the fair’s rides.  It wasn’t a thrill ride per se but a cable ride that took people across the fairgrounds, from one end to the other, at a height of about 200 feet. The “SkyView” I think it was called. It was new, it was neat and it was boring work. But it was a job. What did I have to do?  When the cable car or passenger pod came into dock with the terminal at either end of the fairground it was our job to grab the leading edge of the pod and pull it on to another parallel track where it would stop, settle, and then allow us enough time to unload and reload the “great unwashed,” our code name for the paying public. It was hideously boring work.  And 12 hour shifts to boot.  One had to become very creative in a job like this one to wile away the time. I was very lucky in this regard being very disciplined in my work. I could revert to a Zen like state of mind all the while ensuring the safety of the paying public. The looks I received, when I could recall them of course, was a sight to behold: quizzical, weird looking stairs at my glazed eyeballs, the robotic movement of my body as I opened and closed the doors and followed the tracks to offload or on-load these morons.  Silent, no words, no greetings just thoughts of “get off the effin car you stupid idiot” – or something like that. It was the only way one could survive in this mind numbing environment.  I did scare the little ones. 

“Mommy,” I could hear them say “look at that man’s face. He is really, really scary” 

At night I used to have nightmares of this ride with the endless pods of ingratiating people. Pod after endless pod coming straight for me. The great unwashed, faces hideously focused on me as they came into the terminal.  At first they were happy smiling faces giggling with sheer delight with the ride.  Then, while turning toward me, their faces would transform, expanding and contracting, like play dough caricatures, into devilish looking evil gargoyles, or worse, satanic griffins waiting to devour me into their gaping mouths.  It was a terrifying dream as the line of pods grew out to infinity. Pod after pod: hundreds, thousands, millions of them, coming straight at me.  There was no end in sight. I could hear myself scream, and then wake up in a cold sweat: panting, palpitating, and gasping for breath.  It was horrible…

…The same was repeated at the other two booths. I now had six kettles full of delectably delicious, oily and greasy yummy burgers. Mmmm mmmm good.  Off I went, careful not to give anything away as to what had just occurred. Down the ramp pulling that wagon as stealthily as one could pull a wagon stealthily that had five cloth covered kettles on it. One had to be very careful here as the exit ramps were situated in such a way that two 90 degree turns were required to navigate one’s way from the concourse level of the stadium where the fryers were located to the ground below. The very first time I did this I courted disaster.  As I turned from the bottom of the first ramp into the first 90 degree turn and its transition to the second ramp the wagon tipped over.  I was going too fast. The kettles rolled and clanged and rolled and clanged, scraping metal against concrete, a sound akin to a cat’s claws scraping down a blackboard, and rolling along the concrete walkway. The burgers fell out onto the cement ramp. Some of them were so firmly cooked as to roll down the ramps on their sides, turning wildly from left to right, out of control, then twirling rhythmically like a top before collapsing and plopping face down on the concrete surface of the ramp. I was a sight to behold running after these wayward, vagabond burgers: cursing hard and picking them up, collecting them then throwing them back into the kettles while at the same time wiping my greasy, oily hands on my pants, licking my fingers in a juicy disgusting fashion. After a while it became difficult to grasp these slippery burgers.  Lucky for me I was wearing dark coloured pants.

Finally, after a conscious, concerted and panicky effort, I managed to collect all of the burgers and redistribute them into the respective kettles. Covering them up I continued my pace back to the concession stand but in more of a determined and deliberate manner. Returning, stealthfuly, I immediately placed the kettles into the walk in freezer, or fridge awaiting the first call of the day for more burgers.  With the call from the cook they would be placed inside the concession on the floor but beside the grill but in such a manner that when they went on to the grill the paying public had no clue as to the life cycle of our delicious charcoal broiled burgers. I’m sure I saw some customers spitting or picking something out of their mouths after taking a bite or two of those burgs. 

Yes, the charcoal broiled burgers at the concession stand were the best in the whole wide world!

But that wasn’t a reason for my dismissal. No, no! By this time, my third summer at this stand, at this fair, I was considered to be the head “bus boy.” With that came a certain amount of responsibility but without the requisite pay raise. After two glorious summer fairs I was till only making about a buck an hour.  I decided to take action. Lecturing the other three bus boys as to our financial situation and badmouthing, cussing the owners, we decided to walk off the job at shift change when all four of us would be on duty at the same time. We would walk across the roadway in front of the stand and sit on our greasy butts on a grassy knoll refusing to do any work until we had received a pay raise. At first no one took notice of us lowly bus boys. But as the garbage bins began to overflow and the condiment stations ran out of condiments, the supervisor started screaming for us. We just looked and laughed. Taking notice of us she walked over to where we were sitting and ordered us back to work.

“Not very likely” I retorted. “Not until we get a pay raise.”

After about an hour or so one of the owners showed up. He discussed the situation with the supervisor, occasionally looking in our direction.  As the conversation progressed one could ascertain his impatience with us and his anger in the manner in which the business end of his stogey remained red hot.  He just stood there, his hands on his hips, his feet apart, his fat belly hanging out and over his belt and his puffy cheeks aglow with each and every draw on that stogey.  Agitated, yes, and the more agitated he became the more perfectly concentric smoke rings he drew. Finally, he stomped out his stogey and stomped over toward us:

“Morrison” he yelled

“Yes.” I countered

“You’re fired.  Collect your things and get the hell out of here. I don’t want to see you ever again on this site. Understood? The rest of you get back to work. “

And with that my illustrious career as a bus boy came to a glorious end.  I collected my things, my pay and told anyone who would listen about those charcoal broiled burgers.  But it didn’t matter…

…During the annual fair the concession did a thriving business in charcoal broiled hamburgers: hamburgers topped with cheese, with bacon, with bacon and cheese, fried onions, relish, mustard, pickles, ketchup, mayo, well… all of the major food groups of the day combined in a huge, messy calorically rich, artery busting snack.  In fact their burgers were so well known across the fairgrounds that the working stiffs, old and young, migrated to this place everyday either at lunch, dinner or just before closing time of the fairgrounds itself to get their daily fix.  They sold so many burgers that a ranch out west had a herd of cattle on standby just for this fast food joint. They sold hundreds of these burgers daily. How did they do it? How were they able to keep up considering it does take some time to cook one of these delicacies properly so as to ward off those nasty gastro-intestinal loving critters?

It was easy as I found out. The owners had this wagon stored in the storage shed beside the concession.  The wagon could hold about six of the two gallon type stainless steel kettles, two abreast: narrow at the bottom, bulging wide in the mid section then open to the air at the top, with a thin steel handle bar fastened at each side near the top rim.  Every day about 2 hours before lunch it was my job to take that wagon and the kettles over to the sports stadium, up the ramps into the concourse of the stadium itself.  This was a stealth operation you see for I could not make it be known to the public that I was connected to a food processing establishment while on this particular mission hence off came my white apron and hat while in transit from the concession booth to the stadium’s concourse.

Inside the concourse one could not fathom that anything was amiss, or open. All of the vertically oriented and aluminum sliding shutters were shuttered shut.  Silence, nobody there it would appear at first glance. Then, almost subliminally, the odour of a deep fryer operation wafted the senses. It became overpowering as I walked along the concourse, pulling my wagon, as if a hundred deep fryers were at work simultaneously. An exaggeration perhaps but the smell of gazillion French fries could be overwhelming to the senses.  But this wasn’t about French fries frying. This smell was sweeter, pungent,  salt-like in its aroma with a deep and richly textured smell.  It was meat!

As instructed I banged on the penultimate shuttered booth to the main ramp of the stadium. It opened slowly.

“Yeah, what do you want.” said no one in particular.

“I’m here for the burgs”

“Okay, hold on a bit”

Suddenly the shuttered metal door opened up about half way. Inside I could make out about 3 sets of deep fryers going full tilt. The oil bubbling and boiling over it seemed. Smoke filled the air but then got caught and sucked up in a vacuumed vent. This was only one of the booths. There were three more in operation.

“Give me your kettles” he ordered. “Just two.”

I complied. He took the two kettles over to the fryers. He then lifted two baskets out of the oil tilting them up then down, then shaking each of them to drain the oil, or grease, or whatever from the baskets. He tipped them over onto a white cloth, stained by a hundred deep fried burgers past while the burgers present looked like a lump of brown, oil soaked fried cow pies laid out on to the white cloth towels.  With tongs he then transferred these deep fried burgers into the kettles ever so carefully but ever so skill fully so as not to damage the integrity of the burgers themselves. When he was done, both kettles were full to the rim with these oil soaked cooked burgers. He then covered them up with more white cloths tucking the ends into the kettle walls.

“Here, off you go” he said

“Thanks,” I think

With that the shutter was shuttered closed again, until tomorrow…

…Besides caddying I also worked our local fair. This was held the last two weeks of August, beginning of September, ending Labour Day to be exact, the day before school started.  It was about eighteen days in duration, was the oldest continuous annual fair in North America and, besides entertainment, it provided local part time employment for youth across the city.

I worked as a busboy at an outdoor Charcoal Broiled Hamburger restaurant or stand as they sometimes referred to it during the fair.  It was really nothing more than a “V” shaped open air concession booth that sold burgers of all sorts and sizes, hot dogs, French fries, soft drinks, coffee and other major food group worthy snacks and delectable treats. During the winter, or off fair months, this concession closed itself off from the elements with temporary walls and remained open to cater to the permanent maintenance workers at the fairgrounds and also to service the fan base that attended the professional football matches at the local coliseum.

This stadium was quite big for the times holding about 40,000 people at a sitting.  It had a large concourse that also provided various snacks and refreshments, including beer during game time.  The fairgrounds were substantial in size housing many permanent structures that had been around for over a hundred years.  In addition to the sports stadium this included the Horticultural Building, Better Living, The Press, Four H, Equestrian and Riding Arena, Sports, Food and the Automotive Building, which was large and cavernous enough to hold the annual automotive, boat shows, home shows and my own particular favourite: Medieval Nights.  There were parks, musical bandstands and gazebos and various fountains and green spaces. During the summer months it was a wonderful sight to behold, a real oasis in the city during those hot and humid summer days.

The concession was owned by two local businessmen: big, overweight, cigar chomping, loud, obstinate, ignorant, business like, local area demagogues.  Everyone feared these guys. They were also part of the “Carny” world owning a number of gaming concessions along the midway as well as a segment of concession booths along the stadium’s concourse. These guys were into everything. I worked there for three summer fairs, well two and a half as you shall soon see.  The work was mindless fluff: empty the garbage; ensure all the condiments were full; replenish supplies such as coffee cups, cold drink cups and the like; clean what few tables there were; and just be an all round gofer.

Beside our booth there was a side entrance, staff only, to the Food Building.  It was in here that we stored all of our supplies. It was also my smoking room and measuring room. We diluted almost everything in there. Ketchup, mustard, pop, coffee, you name it. Yes coffee for it was also my job to gather discarded coffee grounds and add them to our tins of real coffee bean. It also housed a cold storage walk in freezer, which held our pails of our so called charcoal broiled hamburgers.

I was paid 90 cents per hour for my first two fairs then a dollar an hour for the third. I started at 14 and ended my career in magnanimous fashion when I was 17. There were two of us during the height of the fair working 12-15 hour days. As this was a 24 and 7 establishment for the fair’s duration, it had a small night staff that catered to the fair’s grounds keepers and maintenance staff as the fair itself closed each night at midnight, opening again at 0800 each morning.  My keenness was at its peak during my first year. My keenness weaned a bit during the second year but waning precipitously during my final fair.  I knew it was coming to a head and it seemed to be directly proportional to my rebelliousness as I matured into an immature adolescent.  It all started with those charcoal broiled hamburgers…

I first started working for money when I was fourteen. Indeed, I had a plethora of jobs when I was young. My first job was at a golf course, as a caddy, a situation not so much different as that depicted in the movie Caddyshack. We had our own caddy tournament, even our own eccentric Groundskeeper.  Except our Groundskeeper used his own Crown Victoria automobile and not dynamite to address unwanted interlopers and chase golfing trespassers off of the course in the late evening hours just before dusk.  The chase with his Crown Victoria did wonders for the bent grass of the fairways but provided an added hazard during summer rules.

We also had our idiotic Chairman of the Board, the Big Kahuna, the Commodore, the “I Gotta Be In Charge No Matter What” individual or whatever they called the President of the Country Club in those days. He was the guy generally festooned out in his pastel blue, polyester golf pants, his white belt with matching white shoes and a rainbow of coloured polo shirts to boot. Topping that off with his newly minted golf hat with the stiff un – malleable visor. Having poor taste in clothes and being colour blind was not deemed to be a disability in this worthy position. 

We had our “Loops.” These were the more senior, serious golfers. Usually local businessmen who had way too much money and time on their hands. They also had the big colourful bags with Wilson, Dunlop, Spalding or Macgregor logos scrawled down the sides of their leather loads. They paid well relatively speaking and provided much needed refreshment at the 10th tee. During the summer months the loops generally tee’d off individually or in pairs late afternoon or evenings during the weekdays. On Saturday and Sunday they came out in foursomes in about 3 different groups for a total of about 12. All of the caddies hoped to get a loop on those Saturday and Sunday mornings. They could be intimidating as they all cursed like a sailor in a gale and had little patience or tolerance for youthful stupidity or hubris and indolence from us caddies, especially if a bet was riding on the match.

The women golfers were the worst.  A round of golf with them normally took about half as much time again as playing with the loops. They paid poorly and never offered refreshment at the 10th tee. Their dainty little pink, yellow and white pastel bags were handled with pull carts, a fate worse then death to a young, budding, athletic and eager caddy who vied for a “Looped” carry on. Unfortunately caddying for the ladies came with the territory.  Then there were the in betweens, the hackers and duffers.  Sometimes they could be worse than anyone.

The caddies all knew one another.  Some of us were even related, as cousins. Word gets around a big but financially challenged extended family in quick succession when the prospect of making some money is made apparent.  One of my cousins, who was a year older than I, came from a devout Catholic household.  His mother was a religious zealot, as dedicated to the written word as the archangel Gabriella. She took things way too literally and passed her fanaticism on to her offspring, whether they were receptive or not. It is amazing what a good boxing of the ears or an earful of guilt can do for adherence to the scriptured way.

One day my cousin Peter and I were in the same group.  Suddenly, around the 7th hole, a place were caddies were shooed ahead by their golfers to wait as they tee’d off, I had to take a leak. Up against the nearest tree I went, thinking nothing of it but Peter was aghast and told me in no uncertain terms that I was due to go straight to hell. Okay. So be it. So sayeth the Lord I told him.  He was shocked and perplexed. I couldn’t give a shit, or take one at that particular moment in time.  Yet a few holes later I could hear raucous laughter coming from his direction on the other side of the fairway. On closer inspection I saw that Peter had pissed his pants. There must have been a weeks worth of piss building up in his system for when he went it was geyser worthy. His pants were completely soaked. I asked him why? Why Peter? He told me it was a mortal sin to go outside.  What on earth!  Sheesh, these stupid Catholic Church rules are going to destroy mankind…