about six months after i graduated from high school i went to work for a public warhouse driving a fork lift and a couple of attachments.one was a cartoon clamp,i didn't learn it immediately,but the basaloid(sp)attachment i did,it was made to lift appliance cartons,we warhoused magic chef appliances,the attachment had to clips on front of the carriage that slipped under the folded cardboard lips of the boxed refrigerators,dish washers etc.
the accounts we handled were all the major cigarette and tobacco company accounts for about 5 states,o.m. scott fertilizer and grass seed,a brake shoe account,the overflow from rohm&haas chemicals,american home foods,royal typewriters,and several other accounts.
we pulled orders and unloaded boxcars,loaded trailers,and loaded the company trucks for delivery,and most of the freight companies picked up there,and two of them had men there all day loading cigarette orders.
this warhouse was dimly lit,it was a tilt wall consruction,and i learned that they really didn't really give a crap about our safety,so i looked out for my own self and those around me.we had several mexicans working there,and a bi-lingual mexican american that they all hated to see coming,because when the boss had a particular chore he wanted one of them to do they would act like they didn't understand but bi-lingual joe montez would straighten them out and they would walk away grumbling about their inability to weasel out of the chore.
randy seward was a guy i worked with that become the guy i associated with most at work,randy was from indiana,he was about 6 feet tall and 170 pounds,kind of red headed and stout for a thin guy,we had a red label room for storing 55 gallon drums of chemicals and the red label room was suppose to be a fire and explosion barrier,it was in fact a room constructed of concrete block,randy would wrap his arms around a drum and lift it kind of like you would when doing a squat with weights,i tried,but i could only budge it,not only that my arms couldn't reach around one.
randy got a friend of his a job there,but he had to work nights,his name was ron,and was from the grove,a neighborhood in dallas.
randy seemed to be happy go lucky,but looking back i realized he was high most of the time,at lunch on fridays we would make a beer run and after work many would gather on the back side of the warhouse and drink beer and shoot the bull.
randy made what we called the mail run,just an hour or so before quitting time he would take mail and a few typewriters to be mailed to a mail center near downtown,you also had to stop at a drill bit company and pick their stuff up,and then go to the mail center.
one day randy told me he stole a typewriter,i told him if you do stuff like that don't tell me,they might give people lie detector tests and i ain't lying.
this was my first glimpse of randy's other side,or maybe his first side.a few months later the dallas police detectives came buy and were inquiring about randy's buddy ron,seems a gas station had been robbed close to the warhouse on the loop that goes around dallas,randy sure was nervous,i wondered if he was in on it.
it must have been around 1976 or 77,i don't remember exactly but a presciption drug by the name of qualude was becoming popular among those who liked such things,and randy liked such things,once again he told me something i didn't want to know,he said a friend of his broke into a drug store and stole qualudes,and did i want some,i said no thanks.
well randy bought a chevy nova,believe it was a 64 that had a 327 and a four speed and i don't think it was stock,on a friday we decided to make a beer run at lunch,beer was the only thing i liked although i would occasionally drink whiskey and coke.
well i remember earlier in the day randy told me he had taken a qualude,i didn't think much of it,he seemed alright,so off to walnut hill road we went to the closest beer store.on the way there you had to go through a school zone and at lunch hour the lights were flashing.
from the moment we hit the road randy was driving like a wild man,little did i realize he hadn't taken just one qualude but about three.we were going down residental streets about 65 miles an hour and the school zone was coming up,he was going through the gears like a racecar driver,HELP,i don't want to go to jail or see someone get runover.
i told him to get out and let me drive but he would have none of it,i felt like killing him,his buddy ron was squalling to and we both tried to talk sense to him.well we made it back in one piece,but it would be my last ride with the nut to get beer.
later randy told me he took a motor cycle he had and put it in a friends garage and turned it in as stolen,collected the insurance on it and then sold it to someone who could deal with it being hot.
how he managed this i'll never know but he managed to buy a new four wheel drive pickup in 1980 when ford changed body styles with bad credit,then after having ragged it out let it go back.
randy was a hard worker and a likeable person but he was crooked,at least at this stage of his life,i changed jobs not long after this,i did two tours of duty with this company and i had had enough.i always wondered if randy ended up in prison,i'll never know but i'll always remember that beer run from hell.
the accounts we handled were all the major cigarette and tobacco company accounts for about 5 states,o.m. scott fertilizer and grass seed,a brake shoe account,the overflow from rohm&haas chemicals,american home foods,royal typewriters,and several other accounts.
we pulled orders and unloaded boxcars,loaded trailers,and loaded the company trucks for delivery,and most of the freight companies picked up there,and two of them had men there all day loading cigarette orders.
this warhouse was dimly lit,it was a tilt wall consruction,and i learned that they really didn't really give a crap about our safety,so i looked out for my own self and those around me.we had several mexicans working there,and a bi-lingual mexican american that they all hated to see coming,because when the boss had a particular chore he wanted one of them to do they would act like they didn't understand but bi-lingual joe montez would straighten them out and they would walk away grumbling about their inability to weasel out of the chore.
randy seward was a guy i worked with that become the guy i associated with most at work,randy was from indiana,he was about 6 feet tall and 170 pounds,kind of red headed and stout for a thin guy,we had a red label room for storing 55 gallon drums of chemicals and the red label room was suppose to be a fire and explosion barrier,it was in fact a room constructed of concrete block,randy would wrap his arms around a drum and lift it kind of like you would when doing a squat with weights,i tried,but i could only budge it,not only that my arms couldn't reach around one.
randy got a friend of his a job there,but he had to work nights,his name was ron,and was from the grove,a neighborhood in dallas.
randy seemed to be happy go lucky,but looking back i realized he was high most of the time,at lunch on fridays we would make a beer run and after work many would gather on the back side of the warhouse and drink beer and shoot the bull.
randy made what we called the mail run,just an hour or so before quitting time he would take mail and a few typewriters to be mailed to a mail center near downtown,you also had to stop at a drill bit company and pick their stuff up,and then go to the mail center.
one day randy told me he stole a typewriter,i told him if you do stuff like that don't tell me,they might give people lie detector tests and i ain't lying.
this was my first glimpse of randy's other side,or maybe his first side.a few months later the dallas police detectives came buy and were inquiring about randy's buddy ron,seems a gas station had been robbed close to the warhouse on the loop that goes around dallas,randy sure was nervous,i wondered if he was in on it.
it must have been around 1976 or 77,i don't remember exactly but a presciption drug by the name of qualude was becoming popular among those who liked such things,and randy liked such things,once again he told me something i didn't want to know,he said a friend of his broke into a drug store and stole qualudes,and did i want some,i said no thanks.
well randy bought a chevy nova,believe it was a 64 that had a 327 and a four speed and i don't think it was stock,on a friday we decided to make a beer run at lunch,beer was the only thing i liked although i would occasionally drink whiskey and coke.
well i remember earlier in the day randy told me he had taken a qualude,i didn't think much of it,he seemed alright,so off to walnut hill road we went to the closest beer store.on the way there you had to go through a school zone and at lunch hour the lights were flashing.
from the moment we hit the road randy was driving like a wild man,little did i realize he hadn't taken just one qualude but about three.we were going down residental streets about 65 miles an hour and the school zone was coming up,he was going through the gears like a racecar driver,HELP,i don't want to go to jail or see someone get runover.
i told him to get out and let me drive but he would have none of it,i felt like killing him,his buddy ron was squalling to and we both tried to talk sense to him.well we made it back in one piece,but it would be my last ride with the nut to get beer.
later randy told me he took a motor cycle he had and put it in a friends garage and turned it in as stolen,collected the insurance on it and then sold it to someone who could deal with it being hot.
how he managed this i'll never know but he managed to buy a new four wheel drive pickup in 1980 when ford changed body styles with bad credit,then after having ragged it out let it go back.
randy was a hard worker and a likeable person but he was crooked,at least at this stage of his life,i changed jobs not long after this,i did two tours of duty with this company and i had had enough.i always wondered if randy ended up in prison,i'll never know but i'll always remember that beer run from hell.
