Once on my way to work I left out the back door to drop the trash in the can in the alley, then walked from the alley towards the street. Before I get to the street two Mexican fellers stop me, ones about 5'6", the other maybe 5'9", skinny little runts both shorter than me. The taller guy has a knife and says "Give us yer money" so I reach in my back pocket and pull out my wallet and as the dork reaches for it I kick him in the nuts and he crumples to the ground. I reached down and took his knife and pocketed that and my wallet, then said "Hey Poncho, you can either help Cisco there, or join him on the ground".. and off to work I walked.
When I was maybe 23, or 24... working at Holsum Bread, with Al and some other buddies, and we'd get off work at 8 or 9 o'clock at night, and we'd all stop at The Dog House. The Dog House was a bar about two blocks away from Holsum and we'd usually have a few brewski's before going home. More often than not we'd close the place at 2am and go out to eat then each go home to bed to get up ant 11am to get ready to be back at work by 1pm. That was life then, work/drink/eat/sleep/repeat.
So one night we're in the Dog House, me, Al, Ralph, and Big John. He's called that because he's like 6 foot 7 inches tall and over 350 lbs. We're sitting side by each, but also at the back playing pool and darts, or whatever video game was there at the time. So in come like 20 guys that just left out of the Boilermakers Union meeting, the Union Hall is just a block away. I dunno if you know boilermakers, but they're like Teamsters.. surly, blue collar, nasty temper guys. They crowd in the bar and start ordering beers and such and Mabel, the old lady bartender is taking care of them. Mabel is sixty some years old, from the south, devote Baptist and she don't stand for no Tom Foolery or Foul mouth dudes. I'm sitting there minding my beeswax while this guy standing behind me is like F this F that and Mabel is scolding him to quit with the F word. He says he's sorry but he can't help it and in the next sentence was F something and Mabel Says "Genie" (she called me Genie) throw that boy out" (Maybe called any guy under 50 a boy) So, I grab him by the back of the shirt and the back of his pants and Ralph opens the door and a toss him out. This starts a bunch of yelling and threats and shouts and swearing and the next thing you know 4 Dog House guys are getting into it with 19 Boilermakers. After much pushing and shoving and punches being thrown and blocked or not and barstools flying and poolsticks breaking what ends up working best is Ralph and Al tossing guys at me, and I toss them along to Big John at the door, and Big John tosses the dude out, so within the next 15 to 20 minutes every Boilermaker gets tossed out of the bar and Mabel locks the door. It was funny to see all 5 foot 2 inches of Mabel walking her way thru the melee saying pardon me pardon me... to get to the door.
The funny part is one of the Boilermakers calls the police from the Mexican restaurant across the street (pre cell phone days). There's a pounding on the door Chicago Police, open the door. Mabel lets the police in and splains to them what happened and she had her "boys" throw them "boys" out. The cop asks where is the rest of her boys, and she says it's just the four of us, and the cop laughs and leaves. We could hear him outside telling the Boilermakers to go home or be arrested for disturbing the peace, so they all left.
Comments
When I was maybe 23, or 24... working at Holsum Bread, with Al and some other buddies, and we'd get off work at 8 or 9 o'clock at night, and we'd all stop at The Dog House. The Dog House was a bar about two blocks away from Holsum and we'd usually have a few brewski's before going home. More often than not we'd close the place at 2am and go out to eat then each go home to bed to get up ant 11am to get ready to be back at work by 1pm. That was life then, work/drink/eat/sleep/repeat.
So one night we're in the Dog House, me, Al, Ralph, and Big John. He's called that because he's like 6 foot 7 inches tall and over 350 lbs. We're sitting side by each, but also at the back playing pool and darts, or whatever video game was there at the time. So in come like 20 guys that just left out of the Boilermakers Union meeting, the Union Hall is just a block away. I dunno if you know boilermakers, but they're like Teamsters.. surly, blue collar, nasty temper guys. They crowd in the bar and start ordering beers and such and Mabel, the old lady bartender is taking care of them. Mabel is sixty some years old, from the south, devote Baptist and she don't stand for no Tom Foolery or Foul mouth dudes. I'm sitting there minding my beeswax while this guy standing behind me is like F this F that and Mabel is scolding him to quit with the F word. He says he's sorry but he can't help it and in the next sentence was F something and Mabel Says "Genie" (she called me Genie) throw that boy out" (Maybe called any guy under 50 a boy) So, I grab him by the back of the shirt and the back of his pants and Ralph opens the door and a toss him out. This starts a bunch of yelling and threats and shouts and swearing and the next thing you know 4 Dog House guys are getting into it with 19 Boilermakers. After much pushing and shoving and punches being thrown and blocked or not and barstools flying and poolsticks breaking what ends up working best is Ralph and Al tossing guys at me, and I toss them along to Big John at the door, and Big John tosses the dude out, so within the next 15 to 20 minutes every Boilermaker gets tossed out of the bar and Mabel locks the door. It was funny to see all 5 foot 2 inches of Mabel walking her way thru the melee saying pardon me pardon me... to get to the door.
The funny part is one of the Boilermakers calls the police from the Mexican restaurant across the street (pre cell phone days). There's a pounding on the door Chicago Police, open the door. Mabel lets the police in and splains to them what happened and she had her "boys" throw them "boys" out. The cop asks where is the rest of her boys, and she says it's just the four of us, and the cop laughs and leaves. We could hear him outside telling the Boilermakers to go home or be arrested for disturbing the peace, so they all left.
Lost my favorite pool stick that night.