JerseyJohn Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 Shaka "That is the mark of a true professional. No emotion, its just a job." That is exactly the way they were. Not pleasant guys vocationally but they liked to joke and laugh and were really fun to be around. Except I always tried not to be. Never saw pigs being slaughtered though I've heard in the old days that was the worst, hanging the squealing animals upside down so their blood would drain and they'd still be alive while it was going on. I've eaten my share of port and I realize most large animals are slaughtered in some similar manner but, like you say, you don't want to hang around watching it all day and the slaughter smell really is hideous. There is, or was (haven't been there in years) an area in Lower Manhattan where there were several blocks of packing houses with butchers and cutters, etc., receiving freshly slaughtered beef and pork and even that one step removed odor was pretty bad. I was at a chicken farm a very long time ago, it was actually during my childhood, where I saw a few chickens buying it the old fashioned way. To this day I don't know if that's how they normally did it or if they were only killing a few that days for the locals, but it was a bit hideous to watch. The chicken farm itself, with the birds stuck in little coops, didn't smell too great either. I've read somewhere that as long as a chicken still has it's brain stem it doesn't need the rest of it's head to remain alive. It would need to be fed with TLC down it's open gullet, but the rest of it's removed brain isn't missed. No doubt, in a slaughter house, the animals let it all out. Hundreds of thousands of repetitions at the same location must add up to a scent of totally nauseus proportions. Reminds me of something one of my various uncles (I grew up around six of them who had fought in it) told me about WW II in Europe. He said the whole place, everywhere he'd been through on the continent, had a death smell. He described it as dead people and dead animals everywhere you went. I was very young when he told me that -- he was the one came back a little off center. In the unkind ignorance and intolerance of youth I thought he was a little screwy and didn't take what he said seriously. Since then I've heard others say exactly those same things. Those World War One Battlefields must have stank beyond any sort of comprehension. Thankfully no one's captured that aspect and put it into a wargame. [ April 28, 2003, 07:44 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disorder Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 aw, you make me pine for my past. i was a meatcutter/butcher for 15 years or so. hows that for a job seque, from a butcher to a small radio station operator? just one quick story then i gotta run! 8 man small slaughtering operation. moving hooks, scald tank to remove hide, shocker to stop the hogs heart, the whole bit. did 60 or so head/day for a company in texas. #1 man (shocker/sticker) fails to wear mesh glove at work, and cuts an inch down into the web space between his left thumb and index finger. of course we all have to move up 1 notch to the next job on the line, one that we arent quite as comfortable with. the new #1 man has stunned his 250#hog, and it is hanging upside down over a 55 gallon barrell half full of blood. he "shoulder" sticks the hog(misses the main artery), and as he is wondering what to do next, the DEAD hog starts to kick. we now realize that not only has he messed up the stick, but also gave the wrong voltage on the shock. we have a large upset animal swinging and kicking, hanging only by one leg. 8' in the air. the federal meat inspector comes over and says to me "do something!" (this is my first week on the job) and i said "forget that! i didn't sign on for this kind of stuff. about that time the hog kicks enough to get loose from the hanging chain, and falls head first into the half full barrell of blood, and knocks it over. he gets up and looks upset! the blood has no real drain in that small area and 5 of us are walking about in half a foot of sloshing blood. the hog of course is slipping and sliding and falling and spitting more blood from his neck wound. my boss who up to this point had been calmly cleaning another carcass next to me says. "i knew i should have kept my 45 in my desk." finally one brave(read that as STUPID)kid, whose name i forget grabs one of the hogs legs and wrestles him back to the entry pen. boy do i miss those days good pay tho! off to my BLT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaka of Carthage Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 Hanging them so that the blood drains... thats still the way the do it. Nothing is wasted. Just that they are suppossed to be "stunned" before they are hung. Problem is, if they are "stunned", why do they look at you when you cut them? Ever see Grand Canyon? Remember when Steve Martin got shot? That was very realistic, since when you are shot or die, your bowels let loose. Battlefield smells... blood, excrement, dead flesh, body parts from inside and out. Very distinctive smell. Musn't forget the maggots, though they don't really smell. Pigs will eat anything. Need I say more? I couldn't eat pork for quite a while afterwards. But damn, time heals all and its smells soooo good. [ April 28, 2003, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 disorder Really enjoyed it -- don't be surprised if that little bit of nostalgia ends up as Texas Chain Saw Massacre Part VI -- Hogs From Hell! Shaka Your statement reminds of a tale from the early fifties about a man paralyzed in an auto accident about to be embalmed when the attendant sees tears dripping slowly from one of his eyes and notices one of his pinkies straightening and closing. So here it is, our young friend starts a perfectly legitimate Thread about his new campaign and along comes three morbid old guys with tales of slaughter houses, jovial psychopath hoods, rampaging Hogs of the Undead and entire continents stinking of death and decomposition-- :eek: The three of us ought to combine to write Children's Books. [ April 28, 2003, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl G. E. von Mannerheim Posted May 27, 2003 Author Share Posted May 27, 2003 Working on greatly improved 1.12 version. This one wont be screwy like the last one. CvM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Good man, an extremely difficult scenario subject using this system. We have faith in your ability to accomplish your goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Dave Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 As originally posted by JerseyJohn: The three of us ought to combine to write Children's Books. LOL! You know, children can be much more morbid and naturally faithful to Life's gruesome and gorey cycles... maybe, as with Huck Finn, it's because they are not quite so "Civilized"... many of them would probably really enjoy stories that deal with such things as abattoires and bloody hogs skittering around, and all other things elemental. If I can remember back, those Hansel & Gretel type things I used to read, well, they weren't so tidy and nice. After all, it hasn't been so very long that we've had the convenience of the Supermarket... used to be it was SOMEBODY had to prepare and dress the meat, to eat... although, no doubt there were the crouching slouchers out around the Edge of the campfire who would dart in and... with a blood-curdling cry of success! grab! that raw bit of... well, probably didn't matter WHAT it was... :eek: disorder ... that is one great and hilarious story about your former job... reminds me of a book by the LA poet-novelist, Charles Bukowski, called "Factotum"... highly recommended. The only thing I ever did that was remotely similar... used to work in a "grease pit" as a high school kid... standing beneath some inert (... and somehow... impatiently! breathing) old two-ton clunker, TRYING to find even ONE of the 30 or 40! grease fittings, all the while oil and road-tar and suchlike is falling into your clothes and your hair, and of course, when you try to casually back-hand that gob of grease out of your eyes, you manage to smear it into some other orifices... it's then, of course, that you pinch your knuckles in between the damnable tie-rods and spring... ah yes, those old learn-as-you-go jobs, and in those days, at a buck an hour, there wasn't any such thing as running to the OSHA fellow sitting in the office having a coffee and a stogie and staring at the wall calendar that has the pictures of scantily clad ladies bending over a parts counter... ***BTW, sorry about this additional theft of your thread, CvM, but, you know, IMHO it is good to just tell stories and shoot the s**t now and then... I would suggest to any Moderators, past or present or eventually to come... allow MORE of this type of give & take, and you will have a happier crowd! Who will in turn, spend more money and talk up your merchandise... I worked in my old man's Business for 10 or 12 years and learned this much... you don't need an MBA from Harvard to appreciate the many, many simple ways to promote a product... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaka of Carthage Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 you don't need an MBA from Harvard to appreciate the many, many simple ways to promote a product... Ahhhh... the classic "book smarts" versus "street smarts". Far too many of us dismiss the knowledge of street smarts. We are taught the "how", but the "why", we don't bother to learn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 Immer Great posting, had me chuckling all the way through -- kept thinking about the origins of the "Ring around the Rosie -- " lyrics to the child's game. It goes back to the days of the plague. Each stanza is a different stage of dying from the disease and kids have been singing it ever since! :eek: I discovered Huck Finn anew thirty years after I'd read it in high school and was amazed by all the dark humor and morbid wit Clemens had infused into it. I think it was John Steinbeck who dubbed it the Greatest American Novel. As for juvenile novels, I used to read a generous portion of them to assist some neices and nephews with book reports -- with titles like The Chocklate War, My Darling, My Hamburger they seemed innocent enough, but there were stories with of kids committing suicide and murder (this was long before the Colenbine tragedy), drinking and drug problems etc., just like adult novels only more so. Glad they're all grown up and I don't need to read those gruesome little books any more. Your grease pit job reminds me of something I spent a few years doing after school in my youth. Stoop-walking under very long knitting and weaving machines wearing large ear flaps with a paper mask over my mouth and nose. They were next to useless, of course. Meanwhile the machines clanked and banged above me. If I'd have stood up my head would have been shredded. There was no safety screen or barrier and almost no room to move around in. The job consisted of pushing a half-sized broom and dragging a bunch of cloth sacks to clean out all the fine thread fragments that had fallen from the fabric. In the pit they combined with dripping machine oil to form a sort of black pasta. This gook would be pushed into piles and shoveled into the sacks. Each filled sack was then eased carefully onto the ledge beneath the running machine and gathered later into a large rolling bin. The machine oil part reminds me of what you were saying with the dripping oil. It would get behind your neck and on your scalp and would find it's way into your mouth, eyes and ears. One day the mill owner, dressed in his double breasted suit, was leading some well dressed guests through the plant when I emerged, sooty and looking like a chimney sweep, from a far corner of the pit. It was like something from a Monty Python movie. He waved grandiosly in my direction and pronounced, "Young Joe here is working his way through college -- keep up the good work young man!" He had to scream it above the commotion of the machines. The nearby weavers and knitters turned away because they were all laughing. Aside from getting the name wrong he didn't realize I was in tenth grade. The oldest weave and knit machine operators were practically deaf from the plates clanging all the time and had severe chronic caughs from inhaling those threads for so many years. They were old men by fifty with similar lung conditions to miners, always caughing and having to clear their throat but never quite succeeding. Ah -- back on the same old morbid track, guess we can't help ourselves. It's interesting that such hazardous jobs were so abundant just thirty to forty years back and that they were usually filled by teenagers desperate for a buck. Almost like something from Oliver Twist. In the weaving and knitting machine case, those things had been made in Germany right about that time -- circa 1850! The only change was the addition of an electric motor instead of whatever had powered them in Dickens time. And those were the prosperous boom times we keep remembering from our early years! But I doubt any of us thought those were bad jobs or cared too much about the hazards; when you're young you think you're indestructable. I know I was glad to have that job and even enjoyed watching those dinosaurs clanking and weaving and spitting machine oil in my direction. There was even a weird sense of satisfaction in peeking under the machines while gathering the sacks and seeing how nearly pristine the pits had become. All the while knowing they'd be full of that black pasta three shifts later. And yes, it was the age of American mills running three full shifts every day. Instead of an apology I think we should thank CvM for building a clubhouse where us old guys can come to hang out every so often. It's impossible to hijack because he updates his work in progress intermittently without regard to our back room poker game. Immer & Shaka Agreed on the value of this type of diversion and the value of street smarts. That's one of the things the old Robber Barons had over todays variety, they knew how to build things with their hands. Another way they were ahead is they valued their workers; if anyone had talked to them about virtual empolyees they'd have exited the office on their virtual ass. [ May 28, 2003, 06:03 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disorder Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 immer etwas--- disorder ... that is one great and hilarious story about your former job... jerseyjohn -- Ah -- back on the same old morbid track, guess we can't help ourselves. It's interesting that such hazardous jobs were so abundant just thirty or so years back and that they were so often filled by teenagers literally hungry for a buck. ok you talked me into another story. have a good friend named lowell torgerson who was a meatcutter when he was a teenager. he worked at a place called "webster city custom meats"in iowa,they had about 20 employees and they did everthing from butchering deer to making and selling pork sausage. (did you ever see the link sausage in the movie "prime cut" with bruce dern?). anyway, they have a small kill area in their shop, and they brought in what they wanted to slaughter,on a daily basis (this was in the 60's when you could still do stuff like that). they would kill the animal with a pistol shot to the head of the animal (this was common at that time) and then hang the animal on a hook and start taking the hide off. so lowell and this other guy had "killed" and hung a calf (fairly small) and were skinning it. lowell said he had peeled back most of the skin from the head back down to the neck, and the calf puts its legs down and tries to run! this has to be the strangest thing that can happen to a meatcutter. you are so used to working on dead things, and suddenly its an alive thing! anyway this calf doesnt want to be cut up for some reason, and he presses his rear legs down onto the concrete and presses upward and the hook holding him to the overhead chain comes out of its track. so now you have a small cow which has most of its face bared to the bone standing on all fours and walking around in the cooler area with a meathook stuck in its neck! lowell said everyone was giving it a wide berth (imagine that), until it walked down an open hallway into the sales area where there was a big office area with a couple of secrataries working. i think their screams upset the calf . the calf sees a field through a big plate glass window, starts to run that way, and crashes through, scrabbling to get outside through the broken glass. it makes it out and starts to run, leaving a trail of blood. several of the men grab rifles and take off after it in trucks. lowell said it was 3/4 of a mile away eating in a field when they killed it, and brought it back. i think they should have patched it up the best they could and let it live. kind of like when a rope breaks while they are hanging someone anyway,when they got it back they took a chance to look at the inside of the calfs head, they found that for some reason the bullet had not gone through the brain, but had followed around, just inside the skull not damaging much of its brain. it was just stunned. knocked out. it was about 1980 over a decade after this happened to lowell, and i visited the place where it happened. i was with lowell on his day off. while i was getting my box of bacon bits and pieces, i mentioned the calf story (loud enough so several people in the office area could hear it). deathly quiet. an older secretary said, "we dont talk much about that around here". i said "REALLY" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 disorder That does it, we're signing a contract with Mother Goose Books immediately! Laughed my ass off and felt terrible for that poor calf. I'll bet they ate it anyway and it tasted great. [ May 28, 2003, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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