written by John Kelly
It seems as I reflect back on my youth that I always managed to have a job of some kind . I used to cut grass for the neighbors - Bud Freeman was a regular customer that comes to mind. I even remember how much I got paid - $ 2.00. Not an hour, but for the whole yard! That was a lot of money for me back in the early 60s . Then I moved up to a more lucrative employment as a car-hop at Seago's . I only made about three bucks plus tips for an 8 hour shift. After a while I was there long enough to learn the ropes from my protege "Tilley Talley" known by many folks as Allen Shankle . Yea, ole Tilly showed me how to make 15 dollars a night but I won't go into that any further.
But I must say the most enlightening job of my youth was working one summer with a furniture company as a route sales assistant. That job taught me so much about how the real world really works. I discovered that fateful summer that it's not all black and white - it has grey areas, especially when trying to decifer right and wrong.
My first assignment made this fact all too clear. I was assigned to assist a very eccentric character by the name of "Tiny". It was told that the way he acquired that misleading name was that he was born premature and was for that reason very, very small. It was told that he was so small at birth that his Mama made him a night gown out of a Bull Durham tobacco bag. They say she even left the draw string in it so she could snuggle him up so his feet would stay warm. Now just in case some of you folks aren't familiar with these tobacco bags, you may have seen one in some of the old cowboy movies made back in the 40s when cowboys rolled their own smokes. Well, I don't know what they fed Tiny growing up but grow he did. If you can imagine "Hoss" Cartwright wearing coke bottle thick, horned rimmed glasses then you have seen a reasonable resemblance to Tiny. I mean, he was one big fellow.
He was also the lieingest, crookedest, merciless, liquer drinkinest and last but not least, the Bible quoteingest jerk that I ever crossed paths with much less worked for. After the first week I began dreading to see the sunrise because it frazzled my nerves almost every day watching his confrontations and often altercations with past due accounts. Not only did it not upset him but he seemed to thrive on it . That is the reason I'm sure he was given everybody else's problem accounts. I often asked myself why I should be so lucky.
His official job was route salesman but in reality he was the original "REPO-MAN." When he came by to pick up the merchandise, you had better be ready because when he came, all negotiations were over - end of subject. You folks may think those silly wimps on the reality tv shows are Repo men but I'm here to tell ya, those wusses couldn't hold a candle to Tiny. I mean, he was the real deal. Most people were intimidated by his size and demeanor, but some were not. With those customers he would just back the truck up to the door before knocking . And so as to give them a clue about what his intentions were he would knock on the door with the handle of his pistol which he always had in his pocket.
He was ruthless when he repossessed merchandise. If it was a rug that was in less than good shape he wouldn't bother moving the furniture - no time for that nonsense. He would just rip it up around the furniture and roll it up, leaving patches under all the items resting on it. Once I saw him repossess a coal heater in the dead of winter. When he went in the house the whole family was gathered around it. It was a sad sight to behold for a normal human being, but not Tiny. He just went out on the back porch where their water pump was - they didn't have plumbing in the house. Anyway, he took their coal bucket, filled it with water, opened the hatch and dowsed out their fire, billowing smoke all thru the house to where it was coming out every window. Then he sent me out to the truck to get some burlap to wrap around the legs of the heater. He even made them set it on the truck.
But that wasn't the worst incident. No, not by a long shot. That was the time he whipped a whole family. In that case he was repossessing - are you ready for this - "a tricycle". Oh yeah, can you believe it? It was sometime about May, so the kid at least got to play with it since Christmas. Anyway, this angry looking guy came out on the porch and told Tiny "I ain't got no money fer ye! And ye aint a gittin the trike!" The next thing I saw was Tiny in one swift motion come up with a piece of pipe and tapped the guy on top of the head! Sounded more like he hit a tin can. The guy just made a sound like a horse makes when you first take the saddle off, then he spun around and fell into the porch swing ripping out two lag bolts and half the ceiling. Then the next thing I heard was "You done kilt ma husband!" as this woman come running and screaming out the front door with a piece of stove wood. Tiny just blocked her weapon with one hand and with the other backhanded her so hard she went flying backward thru the same door she came out of. Now, everything got quiet and I was relieved that this fiasco was finally over. Tiny had the tricycle and was walking back toward the truck when all of a sudden this kid appeared out of nowhere and latched onto the back wheels. So now it was on again! A tug of war with the kid pulling on the wheels and Tiny pulling on the handle bars. Tiny started spinning around making the kid look like he was on a carnival ride til he finally went flying and then rolling across the front yard, whipping up a small cloud of dust. Then Tiny just shrugged it off and threw it in the truck.
Well I found out something that day. I had always wondered where they got the idea for "How the Grinch Stole Christmas! " Now I knew.
Now Tiny had other vices besides his cold hearted attitude. He had other traits that would have to be viewed as very questionable. Sometimes he would repossess items that had trouble making their way back to the warehouse where they where supposed to be . They would sometimes find their way into the homes of his other associates. Once I saw him repo a refrigerator, only to take it across town and sell it to someone for 50 bucks, which of course went in the ole pocket. When I asked him about writing it up he quickly set me straight on that "Oh no!" he said "No need to do that!" When I questioned the credibility of such action, he had an answer for that with one of his many Bible quotes. "The Bible says, "The lowad heps dem whut heps demselves!" It was all I could do to refrain myself from informing him that the verse or scripture if you will, was found nowhere in the Bible, but was a verse found in the book "Poor Richard's Almanac".
Then there was the time an elderly old woman wanted to buy a 10 x 12 rug. I was telling the lady that we were out of 10 x 12s when Tiny cut me off in mid sentence with a squinted face, "Oh no, we got one left in da truck, get out and bring it in boy!" Well, I went out and got one of the many 10x10s we had because there was no 10 x 12s in the truck. I knew it and he knew it as well. When I started inside with it, he met me on the porch, "Boy let me show ye somethin!" Having said that he took out a marker pen and changed the 10 into a 12. "Now there," He said with not so much as a hint of dishonesty. "Thats how ye make a 10 x 12 out of a 10 x 10. Then we put the rug down and he took the old Ladys money.
Later, as we were riding down the road, going home for the week, he reached under the seat and pulled out one of the several dozen one ounce bottles of "Wild Turkey", popped the cap off, poured it down in one swift gulp, sighed with pleasure as he tossed it out the window with a tinkling sound as the tiny bottle broke on the asphalt. Then looking over at me with a very satisfied and arrogant expression gave me another of his man of much experience quotes, "Remember boy," You don't sell'em whut da want, ye sell'em whut ye got!"