Ty’s grill was located on the southeast corner of the Main Monroe street intersection. It was a very popular teen hangout my first few years of high school. It was owned by Ty Fitzpatrick. Almost everyday after school it was packed with kids buying a cherry coke and maybe some French fries.
I was a little intimidated by some of the older kids who hung out at Ty’s and so I really didn’t go in there unless I was with someone else. I don’t know why I felt that way but I did. Ty’s closed sometime during my sophomore year and everybody moved about a half a block west to the Princess Café.
Dennis and Kent Lamm’s parents owned the Princess Café. They were friendly, outgoing people who welcomed kids in the restaurant even though we weren’t big spenders. Sometimes they did hurry us out of there if they had paying customers wanting a booth to sit in. Before it was the Princess it was the Candy Kitchen. Years after the changeover my Dad still referred to it as the Candy Kitchen.
The Princess had booths all along the east wall and a long counter with stools along the west wall. My Dad worked down the street a short distance at Roederer’s Clothing and he usually took his morning and afternoon breaks and had a cool drink there. The kids usually went for the booths and the businessmen on break took the counter. I always had to be careful that I wasn’t doing something stupid when my Dad was around. Sometimes I wasn’t careful enough.
We did do some silly things. Sometimes we would loosen the lid of the salt and peppershakers so that when someone tried to use them the lid would fall off and the contents would be all over their food. We got in trouble for that. Then we would take the lid off the saltshaker and put a thin layer of paper napkin over the top and then put the lid back on. Last we would pull the entire remaining napkin off the shaker so it looked like normal. We would laugh uncontrollably when someone tried to use the shaker.
Ralph Lamm, the owner, did come out of the kitchen to scold us a few times. He was generally pretty supportive of kids but didn’t like it if we were too noisy or caused problems for the more serious diners. Having the Princess Café as a place to hang out probably kept us out of some of the more unsavory places and I think Ralph knew that.
Kids gathered at the Princess, guys flirted with girls and we sipped Cherry Cokes and ate French fries or onion rings. The princess is where I perfected my wink. There were lots of girls there and we were expected to flirt. So I practiced, first with one eye and then the other. It is good to be an ambidextrous winker. You never know when that ability might come in handy. I have used it many times myself although I am not quite as good at it as I used to be. In my prime I could wink like the lights at a railroad crossing.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Workin’ On a Hog Farm
I worked at the swimming pool every summer during my high school years. In the fall, winter and spring it wasn’t as easy to find work that could accommodate school and athletic schedules. Most jobs I did find were temporary one-shot deals. There was, however, one job that I worked regularly all through high school. That job was working on Dick Cornick’s hog farm.
Dick was a big operator! He had his farm, his father’s farm across the road, and another one not too far away. He grew corn and soybeans on the land and had a large granary on his father’s farm. On all three farms he raised hogs during the cooler weather. This was the days before the big hog confinement operations that are now in place all over the countryside.
Farmers raised the hogs from beginning to market back then. Dick had his own sows and he used each one for several years. After awhile you got so you could tell one from the others and know which ones to stay away from. He would put a boar with the sows for a while and then wait for farrowing.
In this day and age farms have a farrowing house where sows are placed just prior to giving birth but back then we didn’t always get the sow in the shed in time and she would have her pigs in the lot or pasture someplace. Then we would have to wait for the “old girl’ to fall asleep. Then we would sneak up and carefully, put her babies in a five-gallon bucket and with a bucket in each hand, hurry as fast as we could to the fence. Usually the sow would wake up about the time I had picked up all the pigs and was heading for the fence. She would soon figure out what was up and would take off after me. It was close several times but I always made it to the fence.
We would put bedding down in stalls in the shed and place the little pigs in there. When it was just right and ready all we had to do was open the door and get out of the way. That sow would make a “bee line” to those pigs. She would nose them all over to see if we had done anything to them snorting at us all the while for taking her babies.
I rarely worked on the farm alone. Dick had two boys, Doug and Brad who often worked with us. Then there was always a crew of us from town. Sometimes as many as four or five guys would come out to work for the day. Dick was a great employer and paid us well in those days so it wasn’t hard to get other guys to come with us. I was a study employee and become the recruiter and the contact guy when Dick wanted us to start coming out to work.
The hard work was cleaning out the stalls and the lot floor every week. Today hogs never get out of a confinement house their whole life but back then hogs got to range in much larger areas. Each week we scooped all the manure out of the stall and off the lot and put down new clean dry bedding everywhere. The mixture of pig poop, mud and bedding was sometimes so soupy that it was hard to keep on the shovel.
For some reason when we went to lunch they often asked us to sit outside and when I went home at the end of the day my mother always made me take all of my clothes off outside before I came in the house. We always worked hard and it felt good! I made enough money in one day (about twelve dollars) to take a date to a movie, have a drink and popcorn there and then get a pizza afterward. Today, twelve dollars wouldn’t get a couple into a movie.
Dick was a big operator! He had his farm, his father’s farm across the road, and another one not too far away. He grew corn and soybeans on the land and had a large granary on his father’s farm. On all three farms he raised hogs during the cooler weather. This was the days before the big hog confinement operations that are now in place all over the countryside.
Farmers raised the hogs from beginning to market back then. Dick had his own sows and he used each one for several years. After awhile you got so you could tell one from the others and know which ones to stay away from. He would put a boar with the sows for a while and then wait for farrowing.
In this day and age farms have a farrowing house where sows are placed just prior to giving birth but back then we didn’t always get the sow in the shed in time and she would have her pigs in the lot or pasture someplace. Then we would have to wait for the “old girl’ to fall asleep. Then we would sneak up and carefully, put her babies in a five-gallon bucket and with a bucket in each hand, hurry as fast as we could to the fence. Usually the sow would wake up about the time I had picked up all the pigs and was heading for the fence. She would soon figure out what was up and would take off after me. It was close several times but I always made it to the fence.
We would put bedding down in stalls in the shed and place the little pigs in there. When it was just right and ready all we had to do was open the door and get out of the way. That sow would make a “bee line” to those pigs. She would nose them all over to see if we had done anything to them snorting at us all the while for taking her babies.
I rarely worked on the farm alone. Dick had two boys, Doug and Brad who often worked with us. Then there was always a crew of us from town. Sometimes as many as four or five guys would come out to work for the day. Dick was a great employer and paid us well in those days so it wasn’t hard to get other guys to come with us. I was a study employee and become the recruiter and the contact guy when Dick wanted us to start coming out to work.
The hard work was cleaning out the stalls and the lot floor every week. Today hogs never get out of a confinement house their whole life but back then hogs got to range in much larger areas. Each week we scooped all the manure out of the stall and off the lot and put down new clean dry bedding everywhere. The mixture of pig poop, mud and bedding was sometimes so soupy that it was hard to keep on the shovel.
For some reason when we went to lunch they often asked us to sit outside and when I went home at the end of the day my mother always made me take all of my clothes off outside before I came in the house. We always worked hard and it felt good! I made enough money in one day (about twelve dollars) to take a date to a movie, have a drink and popcorn there and then get a pizza afterward. Today, twelve dollars wouldn’t get a couple into a movie.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Presbyterian Pete
(This poem is fictional and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.)
I’ll tell you the story
Of Presbyterian Pete.
He came to church early
Just to get his seat.
He stayed in that spot
The whole service long
Not bothering to stand
Even for a song.
About half way down
And next to the isle
There he would sit
Intent all the while
On keeping his spot
No matter what
He wouldn’t scoot over
He was stuck in a rut.
God help the soul
Who is caught
By accident or by chance
Sitting in that spot.
Then along came
Isabel Elsie Sprout
A new church member
She left little doubt
That she was strong
At just under 5 foot tall
She was bold and courageous
Not intimidated at all
Now all will remember
That fateful day
When Isabel sat
Some people say
Pete’s faced turned bright red
He stuttered and stammered
He swayed and he rocked
He turned and he clamored
But Isabel sat and then
Patting the seat next to her
She said with a smile.
“You can sit right here, dear!”
Pete, reluctantly,
Sat in that spot
What happened next?
I can’t tell you a lot
It was amazing
I do know this for sure.
A couple they became
And married the next year.
And now every Sunday
They take any seat
Cause they all seem just right
For Isabel and Pete.
Perry O. Ross
August 18, 2006
I’ll tell you the story
Of Presbyterian Pete.
He came to church early
Just to get his seat.
He stayed in that spot
The whole service long
Not bothering to stand
Even for a song.
About half way down
And next to the isle
There he would sit
Intent all the while
On keeping his spot
No matter what
He wouldn’t scoot over
He was stuck in a rut.
God help the soul
Who is caught
By accident or by chance
Sitting in that spot.
Then along came
Isabel Elsie Sprout
A new church member
She left little doubt
That she was strong
At just under 5 foot tall
She was bold and courageous
Not intimidated at all
Now all will remember
That fateful day
When Isabel sat
Some people say
Pete’s faced turned bright red
He stuttered and stammered
He swayed and he rocked
He turned and he clamored
But Isabel sat and then
Patting the seat next to her
She said with a smile.
“You can sit right here, dear!”
Pete, reluctantly,
Sat in that spot
What happened next?
I can’t tell you a lot
It was amazing
I do know this for sure.
A couple they became
And married the next year.
And now every Sunday
They take any seat
Cause they all seem just right
For Isabel and Pete.
Perry O. Ross
August 18, 2006
More Fishing
Growing up I went fishing a lot. While I was young I often went with my Dad but as I grew older I started going with friends, too. One of my friends, Tom Owen, and I fished a lot. Tom was a Jehovah’s Witness and some people avoided him. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about and Tom and I were friends.
Sometimes when we were fishing we would have some pretty interesting philosophical discussions but I never felt pressured by Tom in any way. He was a very bright guy who loved science and nature.
Sometimes we would load up our bikes and ride to Oakland Mills. There we would fish along the river sometimes all day long. Tom would always bring along some of his mother’s bologna sandwiches and we would have them for lunch. Sometimes we fished along the bank or on the rocks below the dam. We fished for catfish sometimes and other times for carp. We didn’t eat the carp but the big ones were fun to catch.
My mother had a great recipe for dough balls that my grandpa used and she would mix up a batch of that for me every time we wanted to go. It was made from corn meal, anis, and water and cooked on the stove. If it was made just right it would stay on the hook quite awhile.
Sometimes when we would fish at Oakland we would see my Grandpa. He always fished up on the dam and I would go up and say “hi” to him. We didn’t fish from up there very often until I got much older. A few times we did fish from a risky location.
The dam runs across the river. There is the larger portion of the dam where the water rolls over and then on the south side there are gates. Between two of the gates there is a pier than runs out into the river below the dam. Under normal conditions that pier is about a foot and a half out of the water. The only way to get out on the pier is to climb down the precarious slope from the dam and out on the pier. Getting out there with fishing equipment was a risky endeavor.
The first guy would climb down and the other would carefully lower the gear to him. We tied strings on everything before we lowered them just in case they would drop in the water. Amazingly, I don’t remember that ever happening. We never fell in the water either but we sure could have. It was risky behavior and my mother would have been upset if she knew about it.
We would sit on that pier and fish all day long. Thanks to Tom’s sandwiches and canteens with water we could last quite awhile there. Climbing up from the pier, sometimes with a stringer of fish, was as precarious as the trip down and I was always glad to reach a solid surface.
Sometimes when we were fishing we would have some pretty interesting philosophical discussions but I never felt pressured by Tom in any way. He was a very bright guy who loved science and nature.
Sometimes we would load up our bikes and ride to Oakland Mills. There we would fish along the river sometimes all day long. Tom would always bring along some of his mother’s bologna sandwiches and we would have them for lunch. Sometimes we fished along the bank or on the rocks below the dam. We fished for catfish sometimes and other times for carp. We didn’t eat the carp but the big ones were fun to catch.
My mother had a great recipe for dough balls that my grandpa used and she would mix up a batch of that for me every time we wanted to go. It was made from corn meal, anis, and water and cooked on the stove. If it was made just right it would stay on the hook quite awhile.
Sometimes when we would fish at Oakland we would see my Grandpa. He always fished up on the dam and I would go up and say “hi” to him. We didn’t fish from up there very often until I got much older. A few times we did fish from a risky location.
The dam runs across the river. There is the larger portion of the dam where the water rolls over and then on the south side there are gates. Between two of the gates there is a pier than runs out into the river below the dam. Under normal conditions that pier is about a foot and a half out of the water. The only way to get out on the pier is to climb down the precarious slope from the dam and out on the pier. Getting out there with fishing equipment was a risky endeavor.
The first guy would climb down and the other would carefully lower the gear to him. We tied strings on everything before we lowered them just in case they would drop in the water. Amazingly, I don’t remember that ever happening. We never fell in the water either but we sure could have. It was risky behavior and my mother would have been upset if she knew about it.
We would sit on that pier and fish all day long. Thanks to Tom’s sandwiches and canteens with water we could last quite awhile there. Climbing up from the pier, sometimes with a stringer of fish, was as precarious as the trip down and I was always glad to reach a solid surface.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Old Threshers
Old Threshers officially started in 1950 but a small group of them met a couple years before that. Growing up in Mt. Pleasant meant I was involved in a number of different ways. In the fifties the engines burned coal that had high sulfur content. That meant they produced great quantities of black smoke that darkened the sky over town. The air smelled bad and black dust was all over everything. Thresher engineers were covered with coal dust and ash.
The smoke and the shrill whistles permeated the town for several days before and after the official event. Clean air laws forced a change in the type of coal used which has cleared the skies around town during the show.
Our church had a huge tent and served three meals a day during Old Threshers. It was a massive undertaking that started weeks in advance and lasted at least a week after the event. The tents were set up and wired with electricity. Grills, refrigerators, freezers and ovens were moved into the tent as well as serving counters, tables and chairs.
The expectation was that every member of the family that could follow directions could help out in the tent. There were numerous kinds of jobs from food preparation to busing tables. The adults made sure the kids got the lowliest jobs. I remember one couple that served as cashiers taking money from the diners as they went through the line. No one dared to try to take that job away from them. They would shout at us kids to clean tables or work faster. I was often more than a little annoyed with that couple.
When I got my drivers license I drove a pickup truck back and forth between our church in downtown Mt. Pleasant and the fair grounds. Pies and other kinds of food were dropped off at the church and my job was to deliver it to the tent. I preferred that job to any of the others. I could get out of the mud, steamy air and smoke. Once one of the shift supervisors had me drive by a worker’s house to see if he was out mowing his lawn. The supervisor was mad because the guy hadn’t showed up for his shift in the kitchen.
Some of the cooks in the back had some beer in the big refrigerator. They hid it by drinking it in paper cups. The cup size was R38. So anytime one of them wanted a refill they ask someone close for an ‘R38.” They thought they were hiding all from us kids but, of course, we were on to them. Late in the evening several of them would stand out behind the tent smoking with their “R38.”
Sometimes the hot humid weather and rain turned the tent and the area around it into a quagmire. We carried in wagonloads of woodchips and spread them over the ground. It didn’t take long for them to become muddy and soaking wet. Tempers in the tent often flared and many un-Presbyterian things were said. Sometimes we saw each other in a different light and, in some cases, decided we didn’t like each other very much.
Our church and other churches that served at Old Threshers made a lot of money doing it each year. The Presbyterians finally decided they had had enough. When we built our new church near the grounds we shifted to parking cars and serving some meals from the building. I, along with many others, was glad it was over.
Over the years I had lots of other experiences with Old Threshers. They include working with the railroad when it first started, performing in the pageants in front of the stadium, taking tickets at the concerts, being part of the security detail, directing traffic and parking cars. I am sure there were other things, too.
The smoke and the shrill whistles permeated the town for several days before and after the official event. Clean air laws forced a change in the type of coal used which has cleared the skies around town during the show.
Our church had a huge tent and served three meals a day during Old Threshers. It was a massive undertaking that started weeks in advance and lasted at least a week after the event. The tents were set up and wired with electricity. Grills, refrigerators, freezers and ovens were moved into the tent as well as serving counters, tables and chairs.
The expectation was that every member of the family that could follow directions could help out in the tent. There were numerous kinds of jobs from food preparation to busing tables. The adults made sure the kids got the lowliest jobs. I remember one couple that served as cashiers taking money from the diners as they went through the line. No one dared to try to take that job away from them. They would shout at us kids to clean tables or work faster. I was often more than a little annoyed with that couple.
When I got my drivers license I drove a pickup truck back and forth between our church in downtown Mt. Pleasant and the fair grounds. Pies and other kinds of food were dropped off at the church and my job was to deliver it to the tent. I preferred that job to any of the others. I could get out of the mud, steamy air and smoke. Once one of the shift supervisors had me drive by a worker’s house to see if he was out mowing his lawn. The supervisor was mad because the guy hadn’t showed up for his shift in the kitchen.
Some of the cooks in the back had some beer in the big refrigerator. They hid it by drinking it in paper cups. The cup size was R38. So anytime one of them wanted a refill they ask someone close for an ‘R38.” They thought they were hiding all from us kids but, of course, we were on to them. Late in the evening several of them would stand out behind the tent smoking with their “R38.”
Sometimes the hot humid weather and rain turned the tent and the area around it into a quagmire. We carried in wagonloads of woodchips and spread them over the ground. It didn’t take long for them to become muddy and soaking wet. Tempers in the tent often flared and many un-Presbyterian things were said. Sometimes we saw each other in a different light and, in some cases, decided we didn’t like each other very much.
Our church and other churches that served at Old Threshers made a lot of money doing it each year. The Presbyterians finally decided they had had enough. When we built our new church near the grounds we shifted to parking cars and serving some meals from the building. I, along with many others, was glad it was over.
Over the years I had lots of other experiences with Old Threshers. They include working with the railroad when it first started, performing in the pageants in front of the stadium, taking tickets at the concerts, being part of the security detail, directing traffic and parking cars. I am sure there were other things, too.
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