Lifestyles in the 30's Part 11

Bait Farm Operator

My uncle Clarence set a great example for me in the enterprise area.He had his mother's attitude about work and, as I learned later, he was severely traumatized by the fire that burned their house down when he was a youngster. So much so that he took a job as a fireman right after graduation from high school.

Clarence eventually became Chief of our city's Fire Department and retired in that position.

Motivation and work ethics in the raw.

Clarence always had a second job in his off duty hours and the two I remember most were building and selling rabbit pens and raising crickets and earthworms for fish bait.

We had a small walled area behind the house that my uncle made over into a mini fish bait farm. It had a concrete pool for minnows, large manure and top soil rich sunken boxes where we grew earthworms and lighted cricket breeding houses-made over rabbit pens-that we kept filled with crickets of all sizes.

Uncle Clarence basically did all the construction, planning and maintenance. I'd clean out the pool, work coffee grounds into the worm boxes, replace the light bulbs and clean out the cricket house and so forth. But my main job was to sit on the wall on weekends, legs dangling over the edge; whistling and pointing to our home made "Fish Bait Here" sign and hopping down to sell worm boxes, fill minnow buckets and cricket cages and collect from the fishermen that stopped by.

It wasn't a tough job by any means but the hours weren't the best either. Fishermen get started, as Clarence used to say, "Soon in the morning". So on weekends, I had to be on the wall around 4 a.m. if we were going to do any business at all. Usually I could knock off about 8 a.m. and rely on the little push bell Clarence had installed to alert me to any new business.

My room overlooked the bait area and sometimes I would stay inside if it was raining or if I was really tired, dashing out to catch a potential customer before he could leave.

There weren't any large bait retailers like Walmart back then so our little enterprise did very well and lasted a couple of years until Clarence got his promotion and didn't have the time to see after it.

Western Union Messenger

I started with Western Union as a "flyer boy". The crew manager would pile us all into cars and trucks and we'd hit neighborhoods distributing printed flyers for florists, grocery stores, everything under the sun. It was all on foot and not a lot of fun since you couldn't stuff the flyers in a mailbox. You had to go all the way up to the porch or stick them through the door handle. That is if you didn't dump them in a gully as some of the kids did.Before the days of FedX, faxes and emails, it was THE way to get a message or money to someone overnight.

Like taxi drivers, we weren't paid for the time we spent killing time on the wooden benches waiting for something to deliver. We were paid a flat amount per delivery, based on the distance we'd have to travel. So there was no point to killing time on the way. The sooner you got back, the sooner you'd be in line for the next one.

The dispatcher would call your name, hand you the telegram, check to be sure you knew where it was going and you'd be off to make the delivery. Sometimes it would be all the way across town or even to a town across the river since they weren't town enough to have a Western Union office in those days.

Those river town deliveries got me in trouble, though.

Sometimes I would stop at one of the gambling joints on the way; places with names like "The Shamrock" and "Leon's Place" to play the horse racing machines. It cost me in more ways than one since I was losing time getting back to the dispatch line as well as the quarters I fed into the machines.

I wasn't hooked or anything; never losing over a couple of dollars, but it was fun and exciting. I remember hitting a bona fide jackpot once and receiving a token saying "Good for $10 in merchandise".

I really didn't think I could eat $10 worth of chili dogs and potato chips so I sold it to one of the regulars for $5.00 cash. I caught on too late when I saw him hand it to the cashier in exchange for a $10 bill.

Singing telegrams were a real novelty in those days and I finally got a chance to deliver one on a Valentine's Day. As it happened, the local newspaper wanted to do a Valentine's Day feature on singing telegrams. So when I went to the house to deliver it, I had a photographer in tow. I was nervous enough without all the press attention but when the photographer poised himself to catch the moment when the lucky recipient opened the door, the kid sweat really started pouring.

I remember squeaking out a few falsetto " I love yous" and a squealing teen ager asking me to do it again for her parents. An absolutely terrible day. But it got even worse when the photograph that appeared in the newspaper the next day bore a caption that identified me as "Rudof Comet". I've still got that clipping. Somewhere.....

Bus Boy

I was around 13 or 14 when I took a job at the old Colonnade Restaurant on the triangle corner of 13th St. and 13th Ave. Bus boy jobs haven't changed much since those days. I worked in the evenings, from around 6 to 10 p.m. cleaning off the tables, placing silverware and getting everything neat for the next customers.We had a lot of soldiers from Ft. Benning and their dates, particularly on Saturday nights, and I usually found them spirited but friendly and generous. Mixed drinks weren't allowed then but there was a package store conveniently located next door(and under the same ownership). So I was frequently shagging brown bagged pints of liquor and getting some very nice tips in the process.

Bus boys weren't allowed to pick up any tips from the table. Those belonged to the waitresses. But the waitresses always put part of their tips into a big glass jar near the kitchen to be divided among the bus boys at the end of the shift.

One of my worst recollections from the Colonnade is that I lost my very first pay envelope somewhere between the restaurant and my house. A major loss since I had put in a lot of hours and I had big plans for the money. I remember riding back and forth across the viaduct between home and the restaurant until nearly midnight looking for it. I never found it and it bothered me for weeks.

Bat Boy

I was a freshman in high school when I landed the job as bat boy for the Columbus Cardinals-a dream job that I had lusted after for months. Cecil Darby, who later become sports editor of the local newspaper was bat boy when I first started going to the games. Later a boy named Frank Roberts replaced him. I knew Frank in school and got him to take me into the clubhouse several times to hang around the players.

I remember thinking that if Frank Roberts, who threw the ball like a sissy, could hold this job, then I might have a chance. When Frank told me he was going to quit, I went to the front office and asked the general manager, a gentleman named Spec Richardson, if I could have the job. He said it was all right with him but I needed to talk to the manager, Kemp Wicker.

I was in awe of Kemp Wicker but I got Frank to introduce me and I remember stammering out my request for the job. He asked me a couple of questions, handed me a permission slip for my grandmother to sign and I was in!

While Frank was working his notice, I worked as bat boy for the visiting teams. The uniform was the really dull gray road outfit and I couldn't wait to get over to the other side of the field and into the spiffy white home team uniform with the big red Cardinal on it.

A few players I remember being around in the dugout...... Ted Kluszewski, outfielder for the Savannah Reds, Hoyt Wilhelm, pitcher for the Augusta Tigers, "Chief" Bender, manager of the Jacksonville Tars.

The ball players were a fun loving lot and they often had their fun at the poor old bat boy's expense.

I remember a catcher who was taking warm up pitches from one of the hottest pitchers in the league, Dick Starr, asking me if I wanted to catch a few balls from him. Wow!-Would I?!!.

The only problem was that the catcher took his sponge pad with him when he handed me the glove. Nothing was left but a thin, hollowed out piece of limp and cracked leather.

After a few 90 mile plus fast balls I was really wincing on every pitch and the players were having a great time. Starr let up after several pitches and threw me a few soft curves. Then he walked over and put his arm around my shoulders and asked me if I was okay.

By this time, I had added a "Whizzer" motor to my bicycle which really helped on the long ride to Golden Park. I remember that Tom Poholsky, an upcoming pitcher, and Eddie Kazak the starting second baseman borrowed it from me one afternoon to use shagging flies in the outfield. They would try to drive under the ball and catch it in my newspaper bag. That is until Wicker made them quit.

Another team joker was an outfielder named Bobby Epps. Pre game practice for outfielders involved catching and throwing back very high fly balls hit off a "fungo" bat by one of the managers.

I was sometimes called on to handle their throw-ins and toss them to the batter to recycle back to the outfielders.

One afternoon when Kemp Wicker was hitting the fungos he turned to me for another ball and I didn't have any to give him. It turned out that Bobby wasn't throwing his balls back in but was stuffing every ball hit to him into his pants instead.

Wicker took a look at him with all those baseballs rolling around in his pant legs like miniature bowling balls and screamed "Epps! Get in here!"

A Wicker chewing was something to behold and I decided not to stick around.

One afternoon during a rain delay, several of the players decided to play hockey on the dressing room floor with baseball bats and a ball. Their cleats were slipping all over the concrete floor and some didn't even have their uniforms on. There were a lot of banged up shins and bruised knees in the process and when Wicker caught them at it he had a genuine blue faced fit.

"Damned bunch of adolescents,@#%^%^%%$!!! your #$%$%$# clothes on and $^%^$%^$343 your $^^$%^ out to the dugout!!

One sad memory I have is when one of the players I really liked, an infielder named Tom O'Laughlin was sent down to the B Leagues. He took it pretty hard and eventually decided to quit baseball entirely instead of going down.

He gave me his glove and his entire uniform, shoes and all, put a noogie on my shoulder, told me to hold it in the road, waved over his shoulder and left. It really teared me up and I've always wondered what became of him.

I can't leave this part without talking a bit about THE day-the day the St. Louis Cardinals came to town to play the home team at the close of spring training. It was the only time I ever envied the bat boy for the visiting team. He got to mix with people like Stan Musial, Johnny Mize, Enos Slaughter, Marty Marion and many other names you'd remember from the Cardinals teams of the 40's.

My favorite memory of that day was watching Stan Musial hit a towering home run over the Schwobilt sign which was strategically placed in the deepest part of the ball park-on top of the right corner of the center field fence.

I say strategic because the sign offered a new Schwobilt suit to anyone who put a ball over it. It was the first and only one I ever saw hit that far in two seasons of bat boying.

My son has a nice letter written by Stan Musial's wife in response to the fan letter I sent him many years later recounting my memories of the event .

Short Order Cook

I kind of fell into this job. The Small Fry Grill was located in a small mini-building on 12th Street between 5th and 6th Ave. It was a very tiny building and I suppose that's why they named it the "Small Fry".

Since it was right across the street, I applied for a job as kitchen helper, dishwasher, whatever might be available.

The manager hired me to come in for a few nights to help out. And later, when the cook quit without notice, he decided to offer me the job until he could hire another one.

The Small Fry offered simple fare, for the most part. There were only about 4 booths and a counter that seated maybe 10 people. And since it was mostly a neighborhood drop in, there was seldom more than 2 or 3 customers at one time. The cooking usually involved hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, milk shakes, salads, eggs, waffles, coffee and the like.

I could usually handle it without problems except on those nights where it seemed that every man-jack that was mobile to any degree at all decided to stop in. Then I was usually in a dead run trying to get everybody served and keep the dishes from piling up too high.

It took the owner a couple of weeks to hire a replacement cook and he told me that one of the reasons it took so long was that I was doing a great job and he was hoping I could go full time. That really made me feel good but there was no way I could do that since I was still in school and since I had also fallen way behind in my homework and other responsibilities around the house.

Still it felt good. And it sounded good."Chef Randolph"-specializing in gourmet pancakes and hash brown potatoes done to perfection.

One of my most vivid recollections involved the music that was playing on the juke box. There were many others but the ones I remember being played most were by Carmen Cavallaro, a pop pianist who was really hot at the time. " Near You" and "Beg your Pardon" because I heard them over and over for many weeks were the main ones that stayed with me.

To be continued...