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"Wanna load beer?" - a day late and two years short - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 12/29/2011 1:30 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
Back during the ten years we lived in the New Glarus, Wisconsin area, from time to time I placed a job application at one local business or another. Being a Swiss/German community with a strong sense to that heritage, poetically about the time we moved to the area, a local husband and wife created a brewery. By the mid 1990s the place had a bit of a successful following. It was the era of micro-breweries and they flowed -no pun intended - with the trend; one could even make a good argument they actually led the trend.
The brewery was right on the edge of town and the first house we lived in after we moved to the community was actually in sight of the place. I could stand in my back yard and should I have had the fancy to do so, a 9-Iron could easily chip a golf ball right up on the big brewery roof...., I reinterate, should I have had the notion to do so.
Of course, the village had a small weekly newspaper. One day, deep in the classified section was a small posting pleading for part-time help at the brewery. So I gave them a call to get the skinny on the gig.
The fellow that answered the phone I believe was...the brewery boss. They only had a few employees in those days. The beer would come ready to transport at random times. If I was chosen to work for them, I would get a call to come in and help load - usually late at night. It sounded like maybe a once a week task. So...I stopped in the place and filled out an application. To my surprise, the owner dude chatted with me for a bit - an interview of sorts.
"We'll give you a call," owner dude said with a smile. I took my leave of the place and tucked the encounter in the back of my mind so as to be marginally prepared if and when I would get the call to come in.
A week went by, and then another. A month went by, and then another. I eventually put the whole idea of loading beer trucks in the middle of the night, out of my mind - I forgot it was ever even considered. In the mean time I had ensconced myself in college. I had also added a second and even third part-time job in my life. We even moved to a different house a bit further out of town. As time has a way of passing, before we knew it we had been in the area for two and a half to three years.
One evening I was doing some home work and the phone rang. "Some guy for you," Heide said and handed me the phone.
"Hello, Bob speaking," I said.
"Hey Bob, come on in tonight and help please," a voice said on the other end of the phone line.
I paused for a moment and wondered who I was talking to. Could it have been the "Y" or perhaps Sports Medicine? It did not sound like anyone from the Emergency Medical Service - all places I spent part-time hours.
"Who the hell is this?" I asked.
"This is The Loading Dock; you are on my list to load trucks," the voice said.
I paused for a moment in befuddlement.
I hollered to Heide, "You know anything about loading trucks?"
Without skipping a beat she hollered back, "Didn't you have some arrangement with the brewery at some point a while ago?"
I shook my head in amazement and said to the voice on the phone, "Dude, I applied a couple years ago; I live in another house now and have three part-time jobs nowadays."
"Need a fourth?" the voice incredulously asked.
I sighed and said, "Dude, I am trying to tell you I have moved on, and I have a full schedule."
"...Shame," the voice on the phone said. "Well, let me know if you change your mind."
In retrospect that brewery has become a local, even a regional urban legend. You will see their beer all over the state. Recently, they built a new facility up the road on the other side of the village. They have persevered through this miserable economy that has besieged us over the last few years. And considering the depth of this "Great Recession," it ain't ending any time soon.
Perhaps, just perhaps..., I should have not been so flippant with my dismissing of..., "The-voice-on-the-other-end-of-the-beer-phone-line."
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
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