I once knew a guy, a very close friend of mine at the time, who ate 15 “Big Macs” at one sitting. It occurred very late at night after an evening of drinking and debauchery. It was a small bet to start with to see how far he could go as he loved “Big Macs” but the challenge progressed nonsensically as we kept egging him on. Great fun! He did it although a wee bit pail at the end of it all.
Those were carefree days, as all days are carefree when you are young. And those burgs only cost 49 cents each back then. Not too sure if he ever touched another one after that though. I do think that he is a vegan today.
I can still see in my mind’s feeble eye this same guy being dragged down a set of stairs by his shirt collar by a tall buxom blonde Norwegian gal who truly was an Amazon Olympian at 6 feet and some. Very athletic and as my friend tells it later the next day – very ambidextrous, triple jointed.
This blatant kidnapping occurred at a Country and Western club that we called the “Hug and Slug”- a colloquial term for “The Army, Navy and Air Force Club, so called by all the WESTPAC Widows that frequented this abode. An appropriate name I can tell you. WESTPAC Widows were those women married to sailors who were deployed from home in the Western Pacific operating areas for very long periods of time. To normalize, these widows would frequent this Country and Western Bar every Friday and Saturday night for a bit of dancing fun and then some. And we, being the young and restless lads that we were, naive thank God and wet behind the ears, were navy recruits who were alone from home for the very first time and were delighted to provide the required entertainment for we yearned for motherly comfort. This was also a time when very long hair was the fashionable norm so we, with our newbie brushed and navy white-walled haircuts, were social outcasts as the saying goes especially at the bars, the discos and the dance halls of this parochial port town. Yes we would tempt our fate from time to time and test our sense of belonging and manhood at these discotheques but after striking out early we would all head down to the ole “Hug and Slug” to test the waters. It never disappointed.
Country and Western clubs are extremely down to earth, value oriented, and patriotic old fashioned but all welcoming fun. We would end up having a great time there to the wee hours dancing with these widows to such memorable tunes such as “All My Exes Live in Texas.”[1] Or the equally memorable and nostalgic “Ten Tall Beers with a Shooter of Whiskey is all it Took.” Great stuff! A good time was had by all for these women could not have cared less about our appearance. As long as we had some hair on the top of our heads, was all that mattered. And my friend? Battered and bruised by the pounding he took on those stairs and, helpless as he was, had a very big smile on his face for he knew his fate. She, a determined and predatory look if I ever saw one and, as I recall, entirely attuned to her prey and purring ” You’re coming home with me sonny boy.”
“Oooooookay! He whimpered. To us. “See ya!”
Good fun. Too bad with all the rot these days that people forget just how much fun there is in this world.
Then there was the game of all games: British Bulldog. I think every school on the planet that was tied to the commonwealth played British Bulldog. It didn’t matter if you could even spell it or pronounce it or even read it, especially in countries such as India, or Pakistan, Bangladesh. Oh you say British Bulldog you say. Okay. Let’s play you British Maha-raj-dog you!
This game could be brutal. I truly believe it was the foundation that made the British Empire great or the modern day commonwealth common. If you were weak kneed, fragile, timid, shy, look out. This was one game where anyone’s, everyone’s disposition or nature, weak or strong, somehow manifested itself in very short order. If you were scared you might as well be wearing a sign that said: “I am scared shitless.” Okay, let’s go after him. He’ll be the last one standing. It was an unwritten rule. This game was so profound. It provoked the leaders from the followers, the bullies from the bullied, the weak from the strong and the popular from the dispossessed. Too bad! That’s the way it was and was the life of a male elementary student at a Catholic School. Meanwhile the girls were playing May-pole. Or Hop Scotch! Sounds like fun to me!
How did this game go?
Get as many guys as you could muster in the centre of the schoolyard by yelling out British Bulldog. Volunteer immediately to be one of the Bulls, that is, one of the guys in the middle of the schoolyard facing about one thousand of your closest friends who are lining up against a fence at one end of the yard. The aim here was that once the alarm was sounded by the Bull one had to run across the open yard en-mass to the other side of the field without being caught by one of the Bulls waiting in the centre of the field of play, of course. Caught? No tackled was more like it. Today I believe they might call this “Capture the Flag” but for us it was a tad more brutal and Neanderthal than waving some shitty piece of pink or blue ribbon. Tackled, yes, but in those days the schoolyard at that time of the year, again late winter or early spring, was covered with course green-brown grass sprinkled here and there with rock hard but soon to be well textured mushy, smelly dog turds. That was the whole point of the game though: to scare the beejeezus out of some of the so called geeks of the school. And once you were tackled you joined your tackle-er and became one of the Bulldogs in the centre of the field. The last one standing was the so called winner of the game. In reality, and by our rules, the last one standing was the biggest loser.
This was the preferred game for bullies in that it was an unwritten rule that the geekiest or so called weakest looking nerdy guy in the school would be the very last one up against the fence. His poor, pathetic perspective of his seemingly small nerdy world would be facing down 1,000 of his closest bully Bulldogs standing in the centre of the field waiting unabashedly to rein down pure unadulterated, pre-adolescent terror on the poor lad. Fun? You bet! A tad mean and ruthless? Perhaps! Definitely. But it was a sure fire way to grow up.
Why would some seventy pound weakling agree to participate in such madness? Simple. At the beginning of the game there was strength in numbers so one geek would feel somewhat safe and have a somewhat secure but false sense of belonging standing there against the fence at the beginning of this melee, with 1,000 of his so called geek buddies. Unbeknownst to him though it was the unwritten but agreed upon rule by all of the bully Bulldogs that the designated target would be allowed to run free and easy, again and again, bypassing the awaiting but increasingly growing horde of bullies who would manifest themselves into becoming this vast conflagration of idiots bent upon the realization that this was going to be the very worst day in the poor lad’s short life.
Interestingly, while some of the remnants, or targets, realizing what was about to occur in very short order, might turn and run toward one of the school’s doors. Those that did stick it out found out, somewhat ironically, and to their astonished astonishment and amazing amazement, that they earned the respect of some of the biggest bullies, louts in the school. They unwittingly demonstrated that they had the courage, the backbone, the stupidity to stick it out, get a little bruised perhaps, and wear that badge of honourable dog shit that every British Bulldogger wears on their sleeves. Interestingly, soon after, they relished the thought of becoming a Bulldog themselves: one of the guys, louts, idiots, Bulldogs, in eying down some other poor sod that had the misfortune of becoming a target. There must be some psychological determinant to explain away this form of activity, group think, mob behaviour, or stupidity with security in numbers. How else can one explain how a horde of 600 Bulldogs ran across this field of death with idiots to the right of them, idiots to the left of them, and so ran the 600 idiots (apology to Tennyson).
Finally graduated from Catholic elementary school in 1964. Did seven years. Seems like a jail term in some sort of perverse way. It would have been eight but I skipped a year, grade three to grade five: Ms Upper to Ms Keller. Come to think of it now, in all of those years, I only had one male elementary school teacher. Mr Bowner. He was great: very theatrical and entertaining. Why was that? So many female teachers and so few male? Is it because youngsters in those early years still require the nurturing attention that can only be provided by the female sex? Feminists today would kill me for even suggesting such a thing. I don’t really know. Even in todays so called enlightenment school boards are trying to deal with the matrification of our Elementary School system, that boys are getting a raw deal. So they say! That they are becoming whusses, feminized, losing their religion. So they say! I don’t really think this is the case as this was the norm when I was in Elementary School some 55 years ago. If one were to check I do believe that one would find that women dominated the profession at this level for over a hundred years, two hundred maybe. I even remember reading about the explorer David Thompson and his schooling by the Grey Nuns of London back in the 1770s. Why are we so concerned about it today? Don’t know, don’t care, I don’t have an opinion on this. It seems to have worked.
Mr Bowner, our grade six teacher, decided to put together a school play. It was a musical, or more precisely, a musical revue. It was based somewhat loosely on Porgy and Bess. There we were, the entire Grade Six class in black face, singing and dancing, carousing and carrying on. Can you imagine that happening in today’s politically correct charged atmosphere? Nope, yet in those days it was all just innocent fun. People focused more on the entertainment value than the shock value. They didn’t think otherwise, or read between the lines, or over expostulate as they seem to do today on just about everything.
I do find it interesting that as one progresses through academia and the scholastic ranks, and the bolder, cockier and less enthusiastic one becomes with respect to scholarly pursuits, rebellious perhaps, that the male student requires the firm hand of discipline that only a male, Sister Mary Bernice excepted, can seem to provide. Worse yet if that male class of teacher is comprised primarily from the various religious orders of the day. Jesuits were the worst, the Oblates a close second, but tied with the Basilians. The Jesuits may have been highly intellectual but they were as firm and as dangerous in their physical and psychological prowess as their international reputation would suggest that they excelled at in the intellectual sense. No, ours were the Basilian Fathers: an order born out of the French Revolution. When it came to discipline they could give it out as bad or as good as any one religious law and order could. The only difference being was that the Basilians generally had a smile on their face as they were dishing it out. Jokingly they would say: “This, my young (insert name here), is going to hurt you a lot more than it is going to hurt me.” Then the customary whack, whack, whack and more whack. At least the Basilians were honest. The Jesuits, on the other hand, in some form of intellectual mind game or bait and switch logic, would try to convince us that the physical punishment about to be unleashed was going to hurt them a great deal more then it was going to hurt us. Intellectual existentialism perhaps, pedagogically speaking, but pure unadulterated nonsense nonetheless.
I worked as a busboy at an outdoor Charcoal Broiled Hamburger restaurant or stand as they sometimes referred to it during the annual 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.
There was this sports stadium very close to the concession stand. 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 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 (BB’Q)
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?
For the Hamburger joint!
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!
No French Fries here!
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.
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 six 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.
At about the same time a flock of seagulls (shit hawks), and pigeons swarmed in at the sight and smell of these juicy burgers. I had to swat, and slap my way around these birds not unlike a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds.” And what made it particularly bad was the noise from the cawing and screaching of the birds. They were in a raptured, excited state which caused them to crap all over me and some of the exposed burgers. The white creamy, liquid droppings of bird dung or guava.
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!
The new math!
We don’t need no education!
For the Hamburger joint!
No French Fries here!
