Banana-man
“Here I am again to discombobulate yer elegant banana display.”
“Sixth time today,” said banana-man at the Canandaigua Weggers. A sixth-time restock.
Proving yet again what I say usually never registers.
Unlike most I am one of those Ne’er-Do-Wells that unhinges banana-hands. Most purchase a complete hand, and end up tossing the rear bananas. I, on the other hand, purchase only the front bananas, breaking them off, thereby consigning the rear bananas to the homeless.
“That’s against the rules,” banana-man once told me.
“Really?” I said. He shook his head “no.”
All-of-sudden “BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP!”
“What’s that?” I asked: “the end of the world?”
“Sounds like someone went out a fire-door,” banana-man said.
The Voice-of-Doom took over the store PA. “Attention all Wegmans employees and customers. We must evacuate the store!”
Suddenly 300 or more people barreled toward the front entrance. Loaded carts were abandoned hither-and-yon. We all headed outside into the store parking-lot; the sun was shining.
Memories of long-ago fire drills at Erlton Elementary School. The fire-alarm in the school hallway was a four-inch square clanger of pressed quarter-inch steel about six inches deep. Beside it was a flashing red beacon.
It was loud enough to wake the dead, and struck terror into me. It was so loud it prompted the same response as the fire-horn atop Haddonfield’s fire-station.
“Robert-John,” asked my 87-year-old aunt. “Do you remember how that Haddonfield fire-horn freaked you out?” (My aunt was pushing 14 when I was born.)
“Auditory hallucinatin’,” I say; “plus fear of my mother. Biting her tongue, she’d start smacking me. I was making her parenting look bad.” It was like my frenzy indicated I was possessed.
Thankfully my mother became less demanding as I got older. She realized my father was losing me.
My school’s fire-alarm elicited the same frenzy. I’d quickly exit to escape the clanger; the fact it got me crying was embarrassing. We’d all line up outside 75-100 yards from the building, and our teacher took count: “All present or accounted for, sir!”
Our school was a three-story yellow-brick edifice built in 1926. It still had “boys” and “girls” carved on opposite door lintels. That building has since been torn down.
By then, early ‘50s, separation by sex no longer applied. I even had ***** *******, the class cutie, in my class. By eighth grade ***** became ordinary.
And the early ‘50s were “Duck-and-Cover.” Intermittent clangoring or horn-blowing meant possible nuclear annihilation. We’d crawl under our desks, clasp our hands behind our heads, and await vaporization.
I’d seen the TV footage. Innocents reduced to nothing by atomic-bomb flash. “Atomic-bomb” became “hydrogen bomb;” ‘lebenty times seven. “It was them Russkies, I tell ya!” Eager to vaporize the tail-finned American Dream.
“At least it’s not snowing,” a lady commented in Weggers’ parking-lot. “What’s the holdup?” asked another in shorts and paper-thin jacket. It was about 35°. “I need a sub. They’re losing business,” he wailed.
(That Weggers also makes subs.)
Far away, maybe a mile or two, I heard sirens indicating the Canandaigua Fire-Department was dispatched. It took at least five minutes for that fire-department to arrive; parking their gigantic trucks, red lights flashing, outside the store-entrance.
A razor-edged white Caddy idled slowly in, then parked in a “handicap” slot. “That looks like ****,” I thought. And it was.
“This is all yer fault,” I said. ****, in his early 90s, laughed. “Alarm works!” he said.
Ninety-some years old; no glasses, no hearing-aid, nor any other props that signify aging. No cane, no walker, and still drives; but hardly visible in his Caddy = a little-old-man, but only in appearance.
We clambered inside his Caddy to keep warm, 87,000 buckaroos, awaiting reopening the store. Time passed: “What can I eat for supper to replace what I planned for from here?”
Finally they let people back in, and I cashed out what few groceries I had. That included deli coleslaw, part of that evening’s meal. Plus the next day’s bananas, compliments of banana-man.
No Canandaigua Weggers going mightily up in flames.
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have a store in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” is a small city to the east nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• “Erlton” is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. Erlton was north of Haddonfield, an old Revolutionary-war town.
• **** and I are the only males in our YMCA aquacise class.
“Sixth time today,” said banana-man at the Canandaigua Weggers. A sixth-time restock.
Proving yet again what I say usually never registers.
Unlike most I am one of those Ne’er-Do-Wells that unhinges banana-hands. Most purchase a complete hand, and end up tossing the rear bananas. I, on the other hand, purchase only the front bananas, breaking them off, thereby consigning the rear bananas to the homeless.
“That’s against the rules,” banana-man once told me.
“Really?” I said. He shook his head “no.”
All-of-sudden “BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP!”
“What’s that?” I asked: “the end of the world?”
“Sounds like someone went out a fire-door,” banana-man said.
The Voice-of-Doom took over the store PA. “Attention all Wegmans employees and customers. We must evacuate the store!”
Suddenly 300 or more people barreled toward the front entrance. Loaded carts were abandoned hither-and-yon. We all headed outside into the store parking-lot; the sun was shining.
Memories of long-ago fire drills at Erlton Elementary School. The fire-alarm in the school hallway was a four-inch square clanger of pressed quarter-inch steel about six inches deep. Beside it was a flashing red beacon.
It was loud enough to wake the dead, and struck terror into me. It was so loud it prompted the same response as the fire-horn atop Haddonfield’s fire-station.
“Robert-John,” asked my 87-year-old aunt. “Do you remember how that Haddonfield fire-horn freaked you out?” (My aunt was pushing 14 when I was born.)
“Auditory hallucinatin’,” I say; “plus fear of my mother. Biting her tongue, she’d start smacking me. I was making her parenting look bad.” It was like my frenzy indicated I was possessed.
Thankfully my mother became less demanding as I got older. She realized my father was losing me.
My school’s fire-alarm elicited the same frenzy. I’d quickly exit to escape the clanger; the fact it got me crying was embarrassing. We’d all line up outside 75-100 yards from the building, and our teacher took count: “All present or accounted for, sir!”
Our school was a three-story yellow-brick edifice built in 1926. It still had “boys” and “girls” carved on opposite door lintels. That building has since been torn down.
By then, early ‘50s, separation by sex no longer applied. I even had ***** *******, the class cutie, in my class. By eighth grade ***** became ordinary.
And the early ‘50s were “Duck-and-Cover.” Intermittent clangoring or horn-blowing meant possible nuclear annihilation. We’d crawl under our desks, clasp our hands behind our heads, and await vaporization.
I’d seen the TV footage. Innocents reduced to nothing by atomic-bomb flash. “Atomic-bomb” became “hydrogen bomb;” ‘lebenty times seven. “It was them Russkies, I tell ya!” Eager to vaporize the tail-finned American Dream.
“At least it’s not snowing,” a lady commented in Weggers’ parking-lot. “What’s the holdup?” asked another in shorts and paper-thin jacket. It was about 35°. “I need a sub. They’re losing business,” he wailed.
(That Weggers also makes subs.)
Far away, maybe a mile or two, I heard sirens indicating the Canandaigua Fire-Department was dispatched. It took at least five minutes for that fire-department to arrive; parking their gigantic trucks, red lights flashing, outside the store-entrance.
A razor-edged white Caddy idled slowly in, then parked in a “handicap” slot. “That looks like ****,” I thought. And it was.
“This is all yer fault,” I said. ****, in his early 90s, laughed. “Alarm works!” he said.
Ninety-some years old; no glasses, no hearing-aid, nor any other props that signify aging. No cane, no walker, and still drives; but hardly visible in his Caddy = a little-old-man, but only in appearance.
We clambered inside his Caddy to keep warm, 87,000 buckaroos, awaiting reopening the store. Time passed: “What can I eat for supper to replace what I planned for from here?”
Finally they let people back in, and I cashed out what few groceries I had. That included deli coleslaw, part of that evening’s meal. Plus the next day’s bananas, compliments of banana-man.
No Canandaigua Weggers going mightily up in flames.
• “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have a store in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” is a small city to the east nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• “Erlton” is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. Erlton was north of Haddonfield, an old Revolutionary-war town.
• **** and I are the only males in our YMCA aquacise class.
posted by BobbaLew at 5:55 AM
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