At 4 p.m. on my first day as a carry out boy and stock clerk at the A&P, I was so busy I'd forgotten I had not eaten since breakfast. So, my late afternoon meal served at a restaurant which would never be served at home was Sauerkraut and pork hocks. Fully one hundred per cent Italian-American, my mother would never allow that German "stinky food" in her kitchen. I ate my first serving of kraut and frankfurters at Saints Peter & Paul Catholic grade school and looked forward to being served that particular meal about once every two weeks. On those days, I loudly thanked Mrs. Gloden, the school's head cook. "You're welcome," she'd cry out.
After finishing my meal, I had a half hour free time before I had to return to work. Fortified and feeling better, I visited a few downtown stores, including Woolworth's Five and Dime and Church's drugstore. Worried about the time, I checked my Ingersoll pocket watch which I had purchased when I was eight years old after my matriarchal grandfather, Frank Colacicco (Kah-la-CHEEK-oh), who turned out to be my most favorite relative, visited us. After Grandpa Frank returned to Chicago, I saved all the pennies, nickels, and dimes I could muster. There might have been a quarter or two, no half dollars, however. They were too difficult to come by. It seemed to take forever but I finally hoarded enough coins to cover the cost of the Ingersoll pocket watch I found in the Montgomery Ward catalog. At the downtown what we kids called the Monkey Ward store, I told the catalog lady, "It's an Ingersoll and it glows in the dark."
She thumbed the pages of her catalog. "It's an Ingersoll," I repeated, adding, "the one with a black face. It glows in the dark."
Finally, she stopped turning pages. "There it is," she said, adding in amazement, "and sure enough, they do glow in the dark. That'll be eight dollars and fifty cents."
I plunked a cloth marble bag filled with my coins on the counter top. She spent at least five minutes counting the many coins two separate times in order to assure herself she had the correct amount. After she dropped the coins in separate compartments in the till and handed me a receipt, she said, "It'll be two or three weeks before the mailman will deliver your watch right to your house."
Customers lined up behind me didn't seem to mind waiting because most of them were grinning as I turned around in order to leave the store. "Saved them up, did you?" asked a lady.
"For a long time, I bet," added a man.
"Not too many kids your age want a pocket watch," observed a farmer in bib overalls.
'Yup," I embarrassingly managed to say.
Grandpa Frank believed pocket watches were the only timepieces worth wearing. That's all I've chosen to buy all my life. I did receive a wristwatch with an expandable metal strap from my confirmation sponsor, Cousin Robert Pier Dominici. I'm a leftie and when I threw a baseball, the watch flew off, and a kid on the opposing team mistakenly crushed it with a foot. My latest watch, carried in my right side trousers pocket, is a Swiss Army beauty that might lose or gain no more three seconds a year.
When I returned to the A&P, there was an absence of noise in the store, the opposite of what the place had been when I left for my meal. Big Red and Margaret, a whiny, older checkout lady who gave carry out boys, especially me, loud, direct orders, stood there, their backs to the cash registers, arms crossed. They were chatting because they obviously had nothing else to do at the time. Soon, I’d see them restocking bread and bakery shelves.
The Saturday crush was over, and I soon discovered what I would do on those quiet Saturday evenings. After I took off my coat and fastened my clip-on black bow tie to the collar ends and tied the tie-ends of my white apron behind me into a bow, I reported to Larry's office. "Go to the back of the store past the produce department," he said with a smile, pointing out the direction. "Turn right and you'll see the stairs that lead to the basement. Richard's down there and he'll show you what to do."
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Richard "Sinner" Brown and Bill Rokus were attacking tops of cardboard boxes with box cutters. Off came the tops, slick and speedily. Next, they tossed the tops to the floor where a number of them already lay. After that, they lifted the filled boxes minus their covers onto a raised steel track, about even with my waist. The track was at least two and one-half feet wide. Lengthwise, it covered nearly the entire length of the basement. It had multiple steel wheels, placed side by side, on which boxes slid easily when pushed. The wheels reminded me of those found on roller skates.
Countless boxes were stacked at least four feet high on both sides of the track from near the back wall all the way to the stairs. There was just enough room for one individual at a time to fit between the boxes and track. Brown and Rokus easily pushed the growing line of boxes toward the stairs due to those wheels. When he spied me, Brown turned to Rokus and said "Time for you to eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat." Next, he and Rokus made a piercing sound that was a cross between the mating call of a bull elk in rut and an Irish Banshee's wail. Finished, both young men cocked their heads, grinned, and pointed at one another before making that awful noise once again.
Coincidentally, Rokus unclipped his bow tie, took off his apron, headed my way, and handed me a pricing stamp and pad unit with purple ink. "Here", he said, "You'll need this."
Up the stairs he went. When I neared Sinner, I asked "Did you eat yet?"
Again, he made that noise which I quickly termed the "Call." Pointing an index finger at me and cocking his head, he crowed, "I ate before youuuuuuuuuuuuuu did." Next, he performed the call, cocked his head, and pointed at me with an index finger. Weird.
We removed the heavy boxes from the track and carried them up the stairs and loaded them on waiting carts. In the aisles, Sinner showed me how to use the pricing stamp. Also, he revealed to me how to remove the purple numbers that were stamped on the cans already on the shelves. He pulled out a gob of 4-ought steel wool. "What's that for?" I asked.
"When the price changes, like with these cans of beans—" he showed me a weekly A&P Changed Price list and held up a can to show me—"you have to remove the old price by rubbing it with steel wool. He performed the task with aplomb. "And then you stamp the new price," which he performed with the push of the stamper handle. Thump. Voila, price changed, nicely, neatly with no hint of alteration.
Brown stocked shelves speedily and seemingly without effort in the same manner as he packed bags and carried out groceries. He showed me how to pull cans forward from the back of shelves to the front in order to have all canned goods lined up as perfectly as possible. "You wait," he said, adding, "Larry's gonna check each aisle and if he doesn’t see them all lined up perfect like, he'll let you know."
Rokus returned from his meal and with his bowtie and apron back on, he and Brown pointed at one another before offering each other the Call. Rokus turned out to be as hard working and efficient a worker as was his compatriot. He might've been a tad faster. They definitely worked for their money. Most of the time.
The time they weren't industrious occurred when a teenage girl entered the store. Since it was cold outdoors, she took off her glasses momentarily because they had fogged up. She wore white mittens and a dark winter coat. On her head was a white angora jibber. Jibbers were girls' half caps, glorified ear muffs, knitted by Midwestern mothers and grandmothers of the era. The caps covered half the head but included both ears, tapering down to tie-strings that met below the chin. She was an exceptionally pretty girl. And her hair was startlingly white.
Upon her entry, Rokus and Sinner went crazy. Stopping whatever work they were performing, the noisemaking started but this time, it was altered because after wailing, they called out, "Ada wah-DELL," followed by the Call's dissonance. They cocked their heads, pointed at each other, and then at her. Remember, these were teenagers. I figured she was embarrassed because her face turned crimson. However, that didn't stop her from meeting with and chatting, actually whispering, with Sinner for a short time. That's when Rokus called out, "They're in luvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv," following that with the Call and a point.
Sinner, red-faced, answered Rokus similarly. Minutes later, the girl wearing that fluffy jibber departed. I later learned she was Ada Wooddell, and that she and Sinner were teenagers in love. Although Ada changed her name to Ada Brown many, many years ago when she and Richard were married, she and I still call her husband, Sinner. After their retirement from the Consolidated paper mill, they changed their mailing address to Winter Haven, Florida, where they've lived for more than a decade. Not that long ago, Ada and I adopted each other as brother and sister.
Sinner? He's still as crazy acting as ever.
After finishing my meal, I had a half hour free time before I had to return to work. Fortified and feeling better, I visited a few downtown stores, including Woolworth's Five and Dime and Church's drugstore. Worried about the time, I checked my Ingersoll pocket watch which I had purchased when I was eight years old after my matriarchal grandfather, Frank Colacicco (Kah-la-CHEEK-oh), who turned out to be my most favorite relative, visited us. After Grandpa Frank returned to Chicago, I saved all the pennies, nickels, and dimes I could muster. There might have been a quarter or two, no half dollars, however. They were too difficult to come by. It seemed to take forever but I finally hoarded enough coins to cover the cost of the Ingersoll pocket watch I found in the Montgomery Ward catalog. At the downtown what we kids called the Monkey Ward store, I told the catalog lady, "It's an Ingersoll and it glows in the dark."
She thumbed the pages of her catalog. "It's an Ingersoll," I repeated, adding, "the one with a black face. It glows in the dark."
Finally, she stopped turning pages. "There it is," she said, adding in amazement, "and sure enough, they do glow in the dark. That'll be eight dollars and fifty cents."
I plunked a cloth marble bag filled with my coins on the counter top. She spent at least five minutes counting the many coins two separate times in order to assure herself she had the correct amount. After she dropped the coins in separate compartments in the till and handed me a receipt, she said, "It'll be two or three weeks before the mailman will deliver your watch right to your house."
Customers lined up behind me didn't seem to mind waiting because most of them were grinning as I turned around in order to leave the store. "Saved them up, did you?" asked a lady.
"For a long time, I bet," added a man.
"Not too many kids your age want a pocket watch," observed a farmer in bib overalls.
'Yup," I embarrassingly managed to say.
Grandpa Frank believed pocket watches were the only timepieces worth wearing. That's all I've chosen to buy all my life. I did receive a wristwatch with an expandable metal strap from my confirmation sponsor, Cousin Robert Pier Dominici. I'm a leftie and when I threw a baseball, the watch flew off, and a kid on the opposing team mistakenly crushed it with a foot. My latest watch, carried in my right side trousers pocket, is a Swiss Army beauty that might lose or gain no more three seconds a year.
When I returned to the A&P, there was an absence of noise in the store, the opposite of what the place had been when I left for my meal. Big Red and Margaret, a whiny, older checkout lady who gave carry out boys, especially me, loud, direct orders, stood there, their backs to the cash registers, arms crossed. They were chatting because they obviously had nothing else to do at the time. Soon, I’d see them restocking bread and bakery shelves.
The Saturday crush was over, and I soon discovered what I would do on those quiet Saturday evenings. After I took off my coat and fastened my clip-on black bow tie to the collar ends and tied the tie-ends of my white apron behind me into a bow, I reported to Larry's office. "Go to the back of the store past the produce department," he said with a smile, pointing out the direction. "Turn right and you'll see the stairs that lead to the basement. Richard's down there and he'll show you what to do."
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Richard "Sinner" Brown and Bill Rokus were attacking tops of cardboard boxes with box cutters. Off came the tops, slick and speedily. Next, they tossed the tops to the floor where a number of them already lay. After that, they lifted the filled boxes minus their covers onto a raised steel track, about even with my waist. The track was at least two and one-half feet wide. Lengthwise, it covered nearly the entire length of the basement. It had multiple steel wheels, placed side by side, on which boxes slid easily when pushed. The wheels reminded me of those found on roller skates.
Countless boxes were stacked at least four feet high on both sides of the track from near the back wall all the way to the stairs. There was just enough room for one individual at a time to fit between the boxes and track. Brown and Rokus easily pushed the growing line of boxes toward the stairs due to those wheels. When he spied me, Brown turned to Rokus and said "Time for you to eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat." Next, he and Rokus made a piercing sound that was a cross between the mating call of a bull elk in rut and an Irish Banshee's wail. Finished, both young men cocked their heads, grinned, and pointed at one another before making that awful noise once again.
Coincidentally, Rokus unclipped his bow tie, took off his apron, headed my way, and handed me a pricing stamp and pad unit with purple ink. "Here", he said, "You'll need this."
Up the stairs he went. When I neared Sinner, I asked "Did you eat yet?"
Again, he made that noise which I quickly termed the "Call." Pointing an index finger at me and cocking his head, he crowed, "I ate before youuuuuuuuuuuuuu did." Next, he performed the call, cocked his head, and pointed at me with an index finger. Weird.
We removed the heavy boxes from the track and carried them up the stairs and loaded them on waiting carts. In the aisles, Sinner showed me how to use the pricing stamp. Also, he revealed to me how to remove the purple numbers that were stamped on the cans already on the shelves. He pulled out a gob of 4-ought steel wool. "What's that for?" I asked.
"When the price changes, like with these cans of beans—" he showed me a weekly A&P Changed Price list and held up a can to show me—"you have to remove the old price by rubbing it with steel wool. He performed the task with aplomb. "And then you stamp the new price," which he performed with the push of the stamper handle. Thump. Voila, price changed, nicely, neatly with no hint of alteration.
Brown stocked shelves speedily and seemingly without effort in the same manner as he packed bags and carried out groceries. He showed me how to pull cans forward from the back of shelves to the front in order to have all canned goods lined up as perfectly as possible. "You wait," he said, adding, "Larry's gonna check each aisle and if he doesn’t see them all lined up perfect like, he'll let you know."
Rokus returned from his meal and with his bowtie and apron back on, he and Brown pointed at one another before offering each other the Call. Rokus turned out to be as hard working and efficient a worker as was his compatriot. He might've been a tad faster. They definitely worked for their money. Most of the time.
The time they weren't industrious occurred when a teenage girl entered the store. Since it was cold outdoors, she took off her glasses momentarily because they had fogged up. She wore white mittens and a dark winter coat. On her head was a white angora jibber. Jibbers were girls' half caps, glorified ear muffs, knitted by Midwestern mothers and grandmothers of the era. The caps covered half the head but included both ears, tapering down to tie-strings that met below the chin. She was an exceptionally pretty girl. And her hair was startlingly white.
Upon her entry, Rokus and Sinner went crazy. Stopping whatever work they were performing, the noisemaking started but this time, it was altered because after wailing, they called out, "Ada wah-DELL," followed by the Call's dissonance. They cocked their heads, pointed at each other, and then at her. Remember, these were teenagers. I figured she was embarrassed because her face turned crimson. However, that didn't stop her from meeting with and chatting, actually whispering, with Sinner for a short time. That's when Rokus called out, "They're in luvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv," following that with the Call and a point.
Sinner, red-faced, answered Rokus similarly. Minutes later, the girl wearing that fluffy jibber departed. I later learned she was Ada Wooddell, and that she and Sinner were teenagers in love. Although Ada changed her name to Ada Brown many, many years ago when she and Richard were married, she and I still call her husband, Sinner. After their retirement from the Consolidated paper mill, they changed their mailing address to Winter Haven, Florida, where they've lived for more than a decade. Not that long ago, Ada and I adopted each other as brother and sister.
Sinner? He's still as crazy acting as ever.
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