Over Here: 17 - Carpe Rutabagum!
...The market is where I learned an essential part of eventually being a truly rare adult male, thus attractive in obvious and distinct ways to distaff counterparts. Exhibit One: I could trim, clean, or otherwise prepare any item of fruit or vegetable known to civilized man...
Ron Pataky continues his entertaining autobiography.
It occurred to my conniving mind one day that possibilities might exist in the impressive pile of empty wooden crates always collected near the market's back door. There, generally gathered, were perhaps 50-60 crates on a huge open section of concrete flooring — four and five crates high, and well over twenty feet wide. It was as if God, in whom I fervently believed even then, had decided to seek some richly-deserved recognition for Himself.
Examining what appeared to be a kind of theoretical opening, I carefully probed the area on the blind side of the pile - that side facing a door no one ever used except to deliver merchandise (and then, only following the warning roar of a heavy truck parking near the door). Suddenly, I spotted it. The Lord, desperate to please a young boy, had clearly revealed what surely had to be a miraculous "entrance" of sorts. I crawled carefully inside, quietly pushing crates to the left and right, and finally came across a veritable pharaoh's garden therein, replete with more-than-ample natural wattage from the huge glass skylight perhaps 25-feet above! God had provided the opportunity, and I thankfully seized the moment. Carpe diem! Carpe Rutabagum! It was all so simple.
For literal weeks thereafter, my idea of being "dependable" was that each and every day of the work-week, my co-workers — and the boss — could absolutely depend on the fact that I would be gone for an hour or two during the day. I didn't have a watch or anything - just a knack bordering on genius when it came to awareness of temporal existence. Somehow, I always knew about where the big hand was. It was that damned little hand that got me into trouble early on. After I had defeated them fairly and squarely, however, I doubt that any of them ever again even bothered to wonder where I was. Or how long I would be gone. Thoroughly beaten, they seemed secure at that point to merely know that I would be back. Sometime. My eventual return to the selling floor was generally greeted thereafter with a casual (though unsmiling), "Ronnie, we could use some more celery up here."
Here again, I was "dependable" in the extreme, hastening to quickly provide the needed celery, tomatoes, walnuts, or whatever, with a smile that was no longer toothless, eyes that were no longer crossed, and a countenance bordering on Himalayan priesthood. What a kid!
The market is where I learned an essential part of eventually being a truly rare adult male, thus attractive in obvious and distinct ways to distaff counterparts. Exhibit One: I could trim, clean, or otherwise prepare any item of fruit or vegetable known to civilized man. I did it swiftly. I did it cleanly. I did it correctly. Moreover, I cleaned up_ afterwards. Had there been a national cleaning and trimming contest later on in life, I certainly would not be the anonymous chunk I am today. Nossir! Instead, I would be known as Le Champion du Trim, with my name familiar, perhaps even revered, throughout the whole of the world (and very possibly beyond!).
It was there in the market that I also learned (Exhibit Two) just about everything there was to know concerning fruits, vegetables, nuts, canned goods of the day, counting money, tying aprons in the back, instinctively sensing a pound of green beans even before I weighed them (older female customers would be knocked over by my unique gift), the difference between "Cling" and "Freestone," how to identify every apple and cherry variety then known to botanists and-or simians, how to un-jam a manual cash register, and the awesome staining capacity of walnut husks. (I also learned that corn silk could be dried and smoked, in a pipe or rolled in paper. Of course, I had no first-hand knowledge, but it was among the rumors of the day! I also understood that a kid could smoke either tea leaves or the dry grounds of the coffee bean. Here again, my knowledge was all second-hand. Finally, I heard that tea stays lit better, but that most kids prefer the taste of burning coffee. I, of course, had no personal knowledge as to whether or not this might be the case!).
