Remember “Tony the Butcher” who had a meat market on Front Street in Berwick back in the ’30s? He would hang his meat in the market – there were no screens or air conditioning in those days. there were so many flies that when he had a customer, he would fan the flies with a piece of cardboard so they could see what kind of meat they wanted.
Tony also had a mean dog named Philip. Philip would bark when someone passed by. Tony never could speak good English. He would say, “Cut-em up, Philip” instead of “Shut-up Philip.”
One day Philip was barking so much and so loud that Tony told his helper, Henry Lewis to go and “Cut-em up Philip.” So, Henry got a knife and went close to Philip, ready to “cut-em up” with the knife. When Tony saw what Henry was going to do, he yelled at Henry, “No killy my dog; just cut-em up.” In confusion, Henry just walked away. He told Tony to “cut-em up” his own dog.
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Have you ever eaten Camel meat? I once was in Egypt with a group of about 25 people. We stopped at a tent restaurant in the desert to eat. Everybody ate steak except me. The meat looked yellow. I knew it had to be Camel meat because I had never seen a cow the whole time I was in Egypt.
Well, everybody got sick, except me. I’ll never eat anything that I haven’t eaten before. I’ll never eat alligator, since I saw one swallow a 5 foot snake whole. And a possum is a “no, no.” I’ve seen them run out of a carcass of an old mule that had been dead about a month. Now, when you heave to eat to “survive,” you’ll eat anything – even a snake.
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When was the last time you ate corn beef and cabbage? Remember how Jigs, in the “Maggie and Jigs” cartoon, use to love corn beef and cabbage? But Maggie would never cook it.
Remember when Jigs went to Cefalu’s Dry Cleaners on Front Street in Morgan City and gave them his clothes to be cleaned? While he was waiting for his clothes to be cleaned, he stood up in a barrel in his undies on the sidewalk in front of the store. I know that Tat Cefalu remembers that – but that was before my time.
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Cyrus Angelloz told me he would rather have two girls at 21 years of age – than one at 42.
Remember when Jerome Pizzo put his life’s savings in a spaghetti box and he gave a customer some groceries in the spaghetti box? he never did get his money back.
* The End *