A Guide To Blending

Joe was a great blender. In fact he was the best damn blender I ever saw. At the back of the dairy yard were three huge, white-painted, boilers for sterilizing the crates of bottled milk. The crates of full milk bottles were stacked inside the boilers and the sterilizers were switched on. The milk was heated up to the required temperature and eventually taken out and stacked on the vans by the roundsmen for their next deliveries. While the ovens were switched on a lot of steam was created.

The wall at the back of the sterilizers was painted white and all the guys in the yard wore white overalls and white rubber boots.

I was hauling crates of empty bottles onto a conveyor one afternoon when I spotted Joe heading towards the sterilizers carrying an empty crate. He waved as he went past. He walked between the sterilizers into the steam, placed the crate against the back wall, climbed up on it, leaned back against the wall, put his hands in his white overall pockets, closed his eyes and just disappeared.

Two thirds of the way up the wall was a dark ventilation grill. When Joe stood on the crate, his face was on a level with it. He used to stand back there in the steam, leaning against that white wall for hours. He was the best damn blender I ever saw.

The dairy is no longer there, they replaced it with a drive-in McDonald's. If Joe's still blending somewhere, I guarantee that you won't spot him.

Hamburger Stand

Well she got her daddy’s car
And she cruised through the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now
And with the radio blasting
Goes cruising just as fast as she can now

And she’ll have fun fun fun
’til her daddy takes the t-bird away
(fun fun fun ’til her daddy takes the t-bird away)