Sunday, February 6, 2011

Part two

5. If you know me you know I love to cook and I will taste or try just about anything.
But I don't understand the sushi crazy, if I wanted a bowl of rice I would order a bowl of rice.
I don't like raw meats, fish, and you can have my wasabi.
I will eat a spider roll and I do like cooked eel.
But you lose or win out if you take me for sushi.
There are just better things to eat in my book.
Keep your raw oysters and hold the blue cheese.

6. While we were trying to get the pottery off the ground I worked at the NC Zoo in the gift shop, a  local daycare and a local plastic factory.
In the factory I was making clean parts for hospitals. I suited up daily for the job with a white coat, hair net and booties over my shoes. You only saw the round of someone's face. You hardly knew what they looked like or even what color their hair was. I once ran into someone who seem to know me and was chatty away when she said, "oh, you don't recognize me." she reached up and using both hands hid her hair and just showed me the round of her face.
YES! we worked together. I worked on heavy machines that if you were not careful could and did remove fingers and hands. I was shocked by the hour with static electricity and I was making 5.15 an hour. Thank goodness the pottery starting paying the bills.

7. Mark and I worked together at another job before the pottery.
Just out of high school we both took a job with Mister Softee  ice cream.
Year one we ran a truck together.
Year two I ran my own truck and we were, don't laugh, Mister and Misses Softee, I have a newspaper article to prove this.
We ran a truck in the projects of Portsmouth Va. and have many tales of the people and job some funny and some not so funny.
It was crazy good money but could be at times dangerous.
Yes, selling ice cream in low rent neighborhoods when you are 18 and 19 seems like a blast and at times it was. But, when you go into some places some folks are not thrilled to have you there. Others become like friends you recognize anywhere, but after being robbed at gun point and having a fellow employee shot we left. It was time to move on and I went back to a job I had all through high school and Mark was doing day labor for a big company. We would one day pack up all we owned in the 1956 Ford, Jubilation T Cornpone, and hit the road.
While in Tennessee I would go to work for the number 3 store of Ruby Tuesdays.
Believe me it resembled nothing like it is today... but those are all stories I will tell if you come over for drinks.
And now we have to continue this for another day while I think about the bloggers I will pass this on to.
So wake up if I have put you to sleep!
Cheers!
M
Jubilation T Cornpone

Jubilation T Cornpone and Mark

The Tepee

13 comments:

Gary's third pottery blog said...

awesome stories and photos, and awesome pots too :)

Hollis Engley said...

I'll eat all your sushi, Meredith. Last week, we paid off our friends Mike and Tammy for the reconstruction of the stairs to the upstairs gallery with a HUGE dinner of sushi at Inaho in Yarmouth Port. So ... I'll eat any that you don't.
I now understand why the truck was called Jubilation T. Cornpone. Our station wagon was ... ummmm ... somewhat more elegant than the truck, if a bit less serviceable as a rolling home. I'll dig out a picture for you. Ours, by the way, was named the Henry J. Potter Special, after Dee's grandfather who was born in 1881. He was nearly 90 when we were married and he lived to be 101.
I was a soda jerk when I was in high school on Martha's Vineyard. The people who wanted ice cream came to us, rather than the other way around.

Tracey Broome said...

you don't like crunchy shrimp rolls....yummmmm!!
I love these posts, we should all do more of this, it's fun to read. If Gerry and I had met you back in the tepee days, we would have been hanging out I bet. What a great life you have had, love it! Gerry and I drove across the country in an Izuzu Tropper and slept in the back of that, we broke down in Denver :)

Shortstuff said...

I'm with you on the sushi, Mere. As Woody Allen once said, "I want my food dead. Not sick, not wounded, dead." And might I add to that, "COOKED". Just think, that means more sushi in the world for all of you. Love the trip back in time to see old Jubile.

Linda Starr said...

What a fun and eventful life you've had, the teepee living is amazing, and love the truck, I like sushi and blue cheese but I also like the cooked eel and prefer wild or brown rice but will eat white rice too.

cookingwithgas said...

seems we need more stories and pictures- give it up Hollis.
I want pictures! 101 we should be so lucky!
Leslie- I love that quote- I want me food dead as well but it could be more lively then burnt!
Tracey I know you have had a lively life as well.
This is fun and I guess I share to much- but what the hey- or what the hay!

ang design said...

far out i'm a bit concerned about the hold up factor over ice cream.....what the!! the rest is pure fun :))

trash said...

As a recent recruit to the sushi universe let me say - I'll have yours!

loving the pics of the truck and the teepee.

smartcat said...

I am loving these posts. An eventful life is a life well lived! Virtually, I am eating all your sushi, oysters etc.

You have made me think about seven things that (most) people don't know about me. Is Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast a corollary?

cindy shake said...

Ahhh, a marriage blessed by Softee Ice Cream -how fun! I'm enjoying reading all of these "7 things" about my blog friends. Since we all can't have a big BBQ or sit down for weekly coffee this has been the next best thing for sharing. Sushi -ack! Derek loves it, I'm with you Meredith, I tease Derek that he's part kitty-cat when it comes to eating Sushi!

Julia said...

I think I'm sad that your 7 things are up...maybe you could share a few more just for fun.

I agree with Cindy - it has been fun to "get to know" a bit more about everyone.

Hollis Engley said...

Hey, people! Sushi's plenty dead. It just ain't always cooked.

Connie said...

Great stories!! Thanks for sharing!! This has been fun blog hopping and reading what everyone has been sharing. Thanks Meredith for my award. I will tell a few stories, but I'm a slow blogger.

Hollis, I have to share this story. On one my visits to Japan, I watched my uncle, pick a live shrimp to eat out of the tank, the sushi chef prepared the shrimp so fast, by the time my uncle got it to eat it was still moving. I love sushi. But this was too extreme for me.