Wild Pigs

[W. Gray]

The first job I ever had was in the early fifties sorting soda pop bottles behind a super market at $1 an hour.

The owner did not want his regular workers sorting bottles because of how filthy they were. So he hired me.

When a person came in to the store he put his bottles in a buggy set out for that purpose. At my mom and pop super market, the owner worked on an honor system. Unless it was a huge load, a customer put their bottles in the buggy and at check out time the checker accepted his word that he had brought in bottles and how many. If the customer did not buy more soda pop, he was given a refund. If he bought more soda pop with equal bottles, there was no charge and no refund. It was a straight swap. If a customer brought in a large load, the bottle counting was handled outside and a refund given separately.

Most bottles were worth two cents. But there was also a refund on the six pack paper carton, which was three cents. These paper cartons were reused by the bottler if they were in reasonably good shape. They sold the unusable cartons in bulk to a paper mill. Additionally, a wooden case holding twenty-four bottles or four six packs also had a refund price. I do not remember Clorox bottles being returnable.

If you were an established regular customer, the owner would accept any soda bottle you had even if it were an off brand. He wanted your business. The off-brands were tossed out.

There were buggies and buggies of pop bottles that I sorted out on any given day, especially during the summer, and they were stacked in wood cases in a shed behind the grocery store. The pop man, regardless of the company he worked for, did not have to go through numerous buggies to find bottles belonging to his company. Some even refused to take any unless they were sorted beforehand.

I can attest to the smell.

One memorable pick up load involved bottles from a pig farm. The owner had stored the bottles for several years in one of his sties.

Many of the smoking grocery store workers found an empty bottle as a convenient place to put their still lit cigarette butts.

The thing that bothered me the most was during the night, mice would climb into bottles to get at the sweet residue. Once in, they could not get out. So they died right there.

I often wondered if the bottlers really cleaned out those bottles having a mouse body and the smell of death or a week old cigarette butt smell and refilled the bottle for resale. I suppose they did.

[jarhead]

I must correct my last post.  I just visited with Fred about this and he said crow's bill was 5 cents.  ( big bucks  lol)
and the coyote bounty back then was $1.00, but it did get to $2. - in the 60's Fred had both girls with him and ran over a coyote, and each girl got $1. each.
But back to the crow story.  Fred said he and his brothers "gathered" crow's bill and when they would take them to the courthouse, to collect the bounty, they had them strung on a baling wire.  The person that paid the bounty would ask how many there were, because they smelled SO BAD they would just pitch them in the waste basket and pay the bounty.  One year, he said they sold enough to buy his older brother, Russ, a new pair of overalls and his Mother a 100 pound sake of flour.  That was a lot of crows bills, I would think.
There was no bounty on any thing other than coyotes and crow's bills, because the pelts of the other animals were sold to the fur buyers.

I think it was the winter of 69-70 that Stormy Greenburg trapped 75-80 coyotes. After putting the pelts up, before he sold them ,he cut the ears and scalp off and got $2.00 per pair of ears.
Speaking of bounties---if it was in my power as a child I would have put a bounty of ol Don McDonalds "head". I would get up Saturday morning just itching to watch Fury and Sky King & Penny but instead would clean a washtub full of carp that "old " Don had left in the yard. Carp fishing must run in the bloodlines, Huh Sarge ?

[W. Gray]

Sky King flew the Songbird. He also had a backup aircraft that was sometimes flown but I cannot remember the name.

1969-70 seems like yesterday to me.

When did Elk County stop paying coyote bounties?

[Rudy Taylor]

I put a line on Plurk this week and not one person responded. It shows that Plurkers are too young to remember Sky King.

"Out of the blue of the western sky, comes Skyyyyyyyyyyy King!"

But then, I also posted a line from the fifties that surely nobody understood: Eeee Awww Keee!

Please tell me I'm not the only one who watched Lassie.

[frawin]

Waldo, I think it was sometime in the late 1960s. I remember collecting Coyote Bounties after I was married in 1964. The Coyote hunters got so thick that I think the County felt like they didn't need to offer a bounty. In the early days Elk County had Wolf Hunts (Coyote), with Greyhounds on horseback in the late 50s the Coyote hunters started using pickups. Thew Wolfhunters association was a really great group of men, Willard Morrss, Albert Criger, Chester Miller, Jack Durbin, Carl Russel, Norval Yantis and many others. They had an annual Wolfhunt on Horseback with many many Greyhounds, and they would ride all day.

[Rudy Taylor]

I remember many wolf hunts when I was a young boy, and the hunters used a J3 Piper Cub to spot them, then the hunters would come lickity-split in their pickups to find the coyote(s).

Looking back, their communication mode was rather crude --- the pilot bolted a loudspeaker on the side of his airplane and hollered to the hunters below.

Of course, the coyotes understood English and ran the other way.   

[Catwoman]

Man, I'm glad there aren't any PETA people on this site! lol

[Ole Granny]

I put a line on Plurk this week and not one person responded. It shows that Plurkers are too young to remember Sky King.

"Out of the blue of the western sky, comes Skyyyyyyyyyyy King!"

But then, I also posted a line from the fifties that surely nobody understood: Eeee Awww Keee!

Please tell me I'm not the only one who watched Lassie.

You are not alone!  Of course, our reception in Moline was not the best but had pretty good sound!  Really liked the Lone Ranger, Lassie and Sky King. 

Hunters came into the cafe in Moline and I listened to their stories.  Many fond memories of the personalities I had the previlege of being around.  Johnny McSpadden was one of the most interesting. 

My dad flew a Piper Cub in the late fifties.  I remember flying over Moline in the plane and picking out our house.

[frawin]

Alice, I remember Johnny well, he was quite an individual, he did love his cigar. I don't think I ever saw him without it. What great memories to think back of people in our youth. I remeber two other colorful people from Moline that got me in hot water. I was dating a girl from Moline and we went to Howard to the movies on the way back to Moline that night we came upon two of Molines finest gentlemen stuck on the Railroad track. They had tried to go from Moline to Howard in their car on the track. They decided to get off the track at the old Barber place South of Howard, when they came off they got crossways and got their car hung up. Both of them were still pretty tight, they wanted me to take them to Moline so I did, I took one of them, who wasn't married to someones house that he wanted to get to go and pull his car out. I took the other one to his home and I had to help him to the door, when his wife came to the door and saw what shape he was in she gave me holy you know what for getting him drunk. She knew me as she and her husband took of the Corn with my oldest sister and her husband. I gave up a lot of star gazing time that night to help those guys and it just go me a chewing out. Later it was funny.

[Ole Granny]

And I think I know who the gentlemen were.  I remember the story.  The love of a small town spreads quickly!

John never smoked the cigar.  He just chewed on it.  Or that 's all he did when I knew him.  I tried to put a cigarette load in one of his cigars once.  Had a lighter ready to light it for him.  I had never noticed that he only chewed on them.  He loved fooling me and knew all the time what I was doing.  I thought I was being so sneaky.