Jim Varagona

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Considering he was a grandpa on The Munsters 40 years ago, which I suppose is grandparent age, I always found it amazing that Grandpa Munster made it this long. Al Lewis was 95 and still hosting a weekly radio program. Good for him.

In the MSNBC obit., they state:

Just two years short of his 90th birthday, a ponytailed Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent Gov. George Pataki. Lewis campaigned against draconian drug laws and the death penalty, while going to court in a losing battle to have his name appear on the ballot as “Grandpa Al Lewis.”

I only hope I can have that much spunk when I’m 65.

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>I recently blogged about my boss breaking down to me about his nun abuse experiences after hearing my story. This has continued, with him describing in greater detail his horrific tales and how he is now haunted by them in his sleep. And we are talking about a great, powerful man here, who is crumbling under the weight of these thoughts of penguin women.

As we sat down with the Filipino Mafia and other co-workers to a bagel break, he told us about having to line up with other boys in the hall as a nun decided their fate on the other side of one of those double steel door doorways that are common in grade schools. Apparently someone cut through a neighbor’s yard to get to school and didn’t close the gate. A dog got loose and was hit by a car. The neighbor brought her issue to the nuns and the authorities, so the boys stood waiting. He spoke of the crack between the two doors and how they noticed the sister approaching. The fear in him created illusions of her striking down upon them with bolts of lightning from her fingertips or the even more realistic fate of hearing the crack of a ruler.

As an aside here, they say when the nun cracks a yardstick, it makes a noise, because the very tip of it breaks the sound barrier. That alone puts fear in me.

Granted, there were no lightning bolts, but she wanted so badly to discipline somebody, so they felt intimidation through her voice and mannerisms.

At this point in the story, another Retail Service Representative from another company who was listening in, joined us and looked worried.

“I know the sound of that yardstick,” he told us. “It will forever be etched in my mind.”

He then broke down and told us of how he was disciplined by being struck with a ruler by a sister. Three at this gathering now had a common bond. I wonder how far this will go and what other stories will come from the telling of my experience.

In the meantime, I suggested to my boss that he get on a strong sedative to sleep through the demonic nuns that haunt his slumber.

>Boy, the members of the Filipino Mafia that I work with take advantage of their power. I ride with them, which I am thankful for, but they pick me up an hour after they say they will on a constant basis. Now I could leave their carpool, but they have connections at the quickie marts to get free gas, so no one has to pay. This is disrespectful to our boss though, and despite his mob ties, he cannot do a thing about them waltzing in whenever they please, because the power of these Pinoys is on the upsurge. I defend the boss as much as I can, but they gang up on me during their smoke breaks and blow second hand smoke in my eyes.

Now I understand that it is stressful when you do not have much food because spearfishing season is over, but to throw one’s weight around like this is ridiculous. I have no choice, but to submit though. What can we do as Italian Retail Service Representatives?? Only sit back, assemble more patio furniture, and keep our mouths shut.

>Before I could have a real job, and before I actually worked in the fertilizer industry with Scotts earlier last year, I worked with FertHairlizer. My mother worked at a copy shop here in South St. Louis back in the early 1990s. Next door was a barber shop run by Bill Black. What was interesting about his place was that he was a C-level celebrity. He had photos on the wall of him on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, The Late Show with David Letterman, and others. Black made and still makes clothing from hair, including bras and underwear, which may get itchy, but they still earned him exposure at Ripley’s Believe It or Not museums around the world. He also had this amazing innovation called FertHairlizer, which was a fertilizer for plants that had human hair in it, because of its nitrogen content. When the hair from the shop was swept up, it was swept into trap doors in the floor. In the basement, the hair was gathered in trash cans for use in the clothing, ferthairlizer, and potting soil lines. On a few occasions, I was the one that mixed the sterilized hair with the soil and bagged it. Good times.

Bill Black later closed up shop here and moved down to Texas. I spotted him about a year back on a segment on The Tonight Show where Tom Green searches states for their most interesting person. Unfortunately, he wasn’t Texas’s, but he did get an honorable mention for his hair vests and bikinis.

Now, according to an article I found from the Austin Chronicle, Black is still hawking his usual hair stuff, but now he’s expanding his horizons to include insulation made from hair and nutritional supplements for animals made from liquefied human hair. So far his ideas haven’t caught on and it is a shame. He claims they all work great, so why not?! If only he could fuel cars on liquefied hair, then he’d have something to cure America’s oil addiction.

photo from the Austin Chronicle

Bill Black has a web site at FertHairlizer.com, but the quality isn’t comparable to his wonderful products. Check it out anyway.