This is a story about two boys from a small town just outside Louisville, Kentucky. Tom and Bobby were friends and teammates in high school. In the summer after graduation the local slaughterhouse was hiring, and both ended up getting jobs on the loading dock.
Bobby worked hard and earned a promotion to the kill floor. Two hundred times a day he put the cattle gun to the head of a steer and pulled the trigger that put a hole the size of man’s fist in the animal’s skull. Sometimes he worked the prod that electrocuted the two thousand hogs that came through each day. The shock killed the brain, but the heart kept beating until all the blood was pumped out of the slit in the pig’s neck, while hanging by its heel.
He detested the kill floor and talked about college and moving on, but two things happened to change his mind. He married his high school sweetheart and did not want to give up a steady job, and they moved him to the smoker room. He decided to stay on a little longer and worked with loyalty and distinction. As the months turned to years, there were promotions from department to department, where he got regular raises and learned a lot about the meat packing business.
Before his education was complete; he worked the boning room and the butcher shop; shipped the swine and cattle fetuses to the university for research; prepared the dried blood for high protein hog feed; rendered the fat into lard; processed the pigskins into gelatin; ground up the hooves and horns for fertilizer; sold off the viscera for chitlins, tripe and other delicacies; and bundled the hides off for the tanner. Nothing got wasted; as they say in the meat packing business, the only things left of the pig are the tail and the “oink.”
That was a source of enormous pride for Bobby. A feeling of discontent still lingered; but quitting at this point was out of the question, with a good income and a growing family. Besides, he played first base on the employee softball team, and everyone expected Bobby to turn the ribs at the annual company picnic. Bobby knew down deep that he was never going to leave the slaughterhouse. He also knew down deep that Tom was always going to leave the slaughterhouse.
Tom was a quick study and a hard worker like Bobby, destined for advancement in the company; but Tom was also something of a free spirit, which Bobby certainly was not. Tom made little sculptures out of discarded pieces of bone, and he was fascinated with Hollywood and the movies. He taught himself how to do studio makeup and could dress his arm to look exactly like someone got careless in the butcher shop with a cleaver. Nobody around there thought it was funny — except Bobby.
Bobby loved Tom, but he also envied him, and resented him a bit too. Tom was just a little better and quicker with everything — from sports, to rendering sides of beef, to making friends. The inevitable day came when Tom announced that he was moving to California. He was heading off to bigger and better. Bobby saw it coming all along, but Tom’s leaving was another reminder that he was never going anywhere. Bobby reacted with a scoff, saying, “You’ll be back in six months.”
Tom did not come back in six months, or even six years. With his creativity, determination, and a reputation as a fix-it man; he landed a great job in the Hollywood studio system, where he kept things running behind the cameras on the sets of television shows, movies, and commercials. He worked all over Los Angeles and spent parts of several seasons on a popular show filmed in Hawaii. The work was fun and varied and well-paying, and he loved his career as a techie in the entertainment business. Oh, the stories he could tell about some of Hollywood’s biggest egos. Tom could do some serious name-dropping.
After fifteen years, Tom took his family back home for a visit, and he met up with Bobby at the company picnic. By that time Bobby had moved up to foreman, but he was still tending the ribs. His son was on the loading dock, and Bobby was the coach of the softball team. Bobby told Tom that he would have become the general manager or even the VP of the company, if he had stuck around; but Tom knew that it was not his gift to be the Vice President of anything.
At so many reunions you run out of things to talk about, but Tom and Bobby did not. They agreed that each one was exactly where he needed to be. They respected each other’s choices. They know that often you need to give something up to get what you really want. Bobby gave up his wanderlust; but he lived well, had a happy family, and was well regarded in the community. Despite his earlier misgivings, he was a son of the bluegrass forever. Of course, Tom misses his Ole Kentucky Home and is occasionally wistful about the slower pace, the pastoral life, and the house you can buy for the money outside Louisville. But he is a one season guy now. He prefers the swaying of the palm tree to the swaying of the bluegrass.
Tidings from Tim 