Around the turn of the last century, when walnuts were a good money crop, several Armenian families that had immigrated to El Monte planted groves of them. To get double duty out of the land they also raised pigs in amongst the trees, and to get triple value rumor had it that the same ground was used as a trash & garbage dump, and it helped to feed the pigs, which in turn fertilized the walnut crop. Eventually the trees all got wormy, the pigs went to feed two World Wars, and the Armenians bought other property better suited to dumping the trash, J.C. Agajanian got richer than the Pope, and they began to sell off El Monte for residential and commercial use. My dad bought a piece of it when he came home from Archie Bunker’s war and I was a little boomer. This was so that us kids could grow up “in the sticks” instead of downtown L.A., where dad worked. He built a house and in 1949 we moved in. I was not quite 5, and a year or so away from picking up my first brush to paint the new house with.
Life was fun in those Good Ol’ days, most of our section of El Monte was dairies, bean fields and vacant lots to explore. I collected wagon loads of pig bones and dragged home a couple tons of wonderful rusty old treasure to my mom’s surprise and delight I bet. There were only 5 houses on our street south of Rush and the pavement ended a little ways past our house and the dirt / gravel road wandered a couple miles on to end at the swamp. The guy next door had a horse named Mousie and I used to let her eat my hair. I wish I had it back, now. Mousie lived in a barb wire enclosure and would get all excited whenever another horse drove by and she’d fall down and get stuck under the wire. There was a big white block of unknown substance in Mousie’s stall that captured my curiosity so I licked it one day and discovered salt! Hah! Who knew? I got a hell of a sore throat after that and came down sick. I was a little “hoarse”, myself. Probably caught a “colt”. Ha ha, I crack myself up -- get it? Cold / colt? Horse / hoarse? Hyuck hyuck, snort.
Up the street from us a block or so lived a kid named Eddie Patterson who raised quite a lot of animals. He did well with horses, pigs and chickens but when the 4-H class taught pen building Eddie got an F. His horses got loose about every two weeks and always came to my house to visit with Mousie and Eddie and all the wannabe cowboys in town would have to run around like the Keystone Kops and do the round-up and get Mousie out from under the barb wire. At least he always knew where his horses were. Most of the world’s supply of Agajanians lived next door to this menagerie. I often saw J.C. in his cowboy hat and Cadillac, but I don’t think he actually lived there, though he must have been the only Aggie on the planet that didn’t. They had more Agajanians packed into that place than Eddie had pigs and chickens to let loose. When the pigs got out it was really a lot of fun because they each went their separate way on a porcine tour of ‘The End of the Santa Fe Trail’. The chickens were always out and were pretty much considered community property.
I used to see these tank trucks around that were painted a pale lime green and had big letters painted on the side that said “BUCK DOES IT”. Also they were completely slimed over with some mysterious brown muck and I remember asking my mom just what it was that Buck did, though I don’t remember the answer. I was maybe 6 when I found out. We didn’t have sewers in those days so we had a septic tank, which went on the Fritz once and let all the brown stuff come up into the house. My folks decided to call Buck in the morning and get it fixed. So they knew, but they wouldn’t tell me. I’ve always suspected they knew why the sky is blue, too, and I still don’t know. By the time my dad got home from work the next day the guys still hadn’t shown up and like a buddy bar fly he didn’t want to call their office and get them squealed on as he figured they were cooling off in a local watering hole, like he’d been doing the past couple hours, himself. The office called us, though, sometime in the night looking for the crew so they were on their way to getting busted anyway.
My dad had the septic tank located and dug up with the cap exposed so they could get it done in short time if and when they ever got to it, which, of course meant 2:30 in the morning, with the new schedule, after Bob’s Wee Nippy shut ‘er down. Hell, it was the shank of the morning. The tank was right outside my bedroom window and I got to see the whole episode. The guy who put the hose up to the top of the truck had missed the opening and all the muck went over the tanker and onto the ground on the other side where nobody noticed until almost all the stuff was out of the septic tank and onto the ground where it could fertilize the weeds better. This explained how all the trucks in the fleet got the colorful paint jobs. It was about at this point where the crew leader fell in.
The other two lowered a rope but couldn’t get him out, so they tied the rope to the truck to use modern power to help. Dad was pretty mad at them by now and wouldn’t let them use his ladder. It was wood and the aroma would probably still be upon it, today, or it might still be in the septic tank. That’s when they realized none of the stuff was in the truck tank because now the truck’s tires had sunk into the slime and they couldn’t budge it. The fat one tried to jam some boards and stuff under the wheels and proceeded to get his arm stuck under the wheels. The whole time Curly was thrashing about under the truck in half a foot of raw sewage and mud with Larry pulling on him Moe was screaming for rescue from inside the hole in the ground. And it took a while. Got a picture of what these guys looked like by this time? Let alone the smell! Curly came out minus his glove and spent the rest of the night complaining about that and looking for the glove, the least of his problems.
Well the boss no sooner made his escape from the depths than Eddie’s animals showed up. 30 or 40 pigs, probably got a whiff of the activities and had to come see for themselves, and made a midnight journey to the ancient burial ground to visit the ancestors’ bones. They brought the horses along for a laugh. The drunks, of course, found catching the pigs the most important thing on their minds and forgot all about the truck which was still pumping sewage all over our yard. The sun was high as Eddie and his cowboy friends, the three drunks, my dad, and the next door neighbor rounded up all the pigs, horses and a couple of stray ducks and pried Mousie out from under the fence. Forget the chickens. They also had two cats, my long lost pet horny toad and a weasel. The guy found his glove and put it on and everybody was happy - especially me, I got to stay up all night watching a much better show than could have ever been on this newfangled thing called Television, and didn’t have to go to school the next day. When I did go in I got an A in Show & Tell. And, of course one big question had been answered, and I eliminated a job from the “What I Want to be When I Grow Up” file. I know now what Buck Does.
I don’t know what new careers the night crew went on to, perhaps they’re collecting strays for the Patterson Ranch, being more adept at that than slingin’ the sh**, but I believe one of them became a sign painter in town. There was one back in them days, maybe the guy that lettered the trucks, that signed his work “Shorty Did It”. Did what? Pretty much the same ‘stuff’.
The allegation was always hotly denied that the walnut groves doubled as a dump or that the pigs were fed garbage. And then there are those who would say that El Monte is still a dump.
------------------ "If it isn't fun, why do it?" Signmike@aol.com Mike Languein Doctor of Letters BS, MS, PhD ___________________
You know what BS is, MS is More of the Same, and it's Piled Higher and Deeper here
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Had to bring this to the top. Another gem for my collection of Mike Languein memoirs. Good timing too, as I was going through withdrawal over the lack of Lenny tales!
------------------ Kelli Cajigas aka Janda Dolphin deSigns & Banners “A satisfied customer will tell two friends, a dissatisfied customer will tell ten.”
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Hey Mikey......ya did it again! (you made me laugh so hard I snorted.) LOL!!!! thanks. Glad to see you are writing again! As always, I enjoy the heck outta your stories!
One time a friend and I ran away from our Boston neighborhood and hitched to the left coast where he had an uncle that was hiding from a mob rip off back east. We found his uncle with this whole new identity living in the valley and running this scam selling bowling tickets. He had businesses donating money to get their ads printed on the tickets and bowling alleys giving away a string if so many were paid for. We were 15, and needed work and thought we could sell anything to anyone. Well, uncle annonymous taught us the rap and gave us maps of the neighborhoods to cover, and paid for a motel room up front and said he'd be back to get us in a couple days. He left us at a Motel 6 in El Monte, back when it really was $6 a night. We spent the next couple days discovering we couldn't sell those tickets in a retirement community and were very discouraged and decided he did this to teach us an object lesson. When unc returned for us and we laughed about not selling the tickets, he got a bit miffed and told us to point at any house. We selected one and unc went and rang the bell and sold a whole bunch of bowling tickets to a blind guy with a wife in a wheel chair. We stepped on down the ladder a few rungs in our opinions of ourselves.
------------------ The SignShop Mendocino, California "Where the Redwoods meet the Surf"
Posts: 6806 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Mike, that was a really crappy story. Seriously, I could visualize the whole thing as I live in the country(or whats left of it). Very funny! Thanks
------------------ Kathy Joiner River Road Graphics 41628 River Road Ponchatoula, La.70454 PH. (504)386-3313 casey@i-55.com
Old enough to know better...Too young to resist.
Posts: 1891 | From: Ponchatoula, LA | Registered: Nov 2000
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Buck did it! Hey Mike I remember Buck whem I lived in El Monte,what a guy,one day he came to do do his thing at our house,man did it reek,while bending over to check progress his shades fell in the poop tank which did'nt seem to bother him,he fished them out with a long pole (catch of the day!!)hosed them off,put them back on & went about his biz likke it was nothin'now that's dedication.!!where's the SKIPPY ?......
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Shades of Buck. Hey Mike,that was a great story about Buck does it,I wonder if they are still around? maybe they could use some truck lettering? the guy who lost his shades,probably the same one who fell in at your place,he really got into his work !! maybe I'll see ya at Paso cruize ? we can swap stories,Tales from the Tank.see ya.....
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HEY MIKE,please excuzzze my spelling on first reply,that story was a real gut buster.Hey maybe you could find that ladder,it might be useful someday for a sign job,TRUCK LETTERING?? we could be a team BUCKAROO .....is El Monte still on the map ? I went to Arroyo High,used to know a srtiper named Art Nelson who was really good,his favorite was the what me worry character from MAD magazine.
Is this a Letterhead meet coming up? How goes the Hearst Castle job?
As long as I'm on a crappy subject (thank you so much, Kathy) I was out camping with a couple buddies of mine one time and some poor guy came around begging everybody to help him get his wallet out of the outhouse. He was willing to pay if somebody had to go in there after it and everybody all around was having a good laugh at his misfortune. Then he said "Come on, you guys, my badge is in there, too - I really need to get it back". Total silence now. Then he says much quieter - "I'm a cop."
Now we heard some LAUGHTER! It ain't often we peons get to see the tables turned on law enforcement, but he had to take the plunge himself and he did. Wonder if his name is Buck...
------------------ "If it isn't fun, why do it?" Signmike@aol.com Mike Languein Doctor of Letters BS, MS, PhD ___________________
You know what BS is, MS is More of the Same, and it's Piled Higher and Deeper here
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I laughed so hard I thought I was gonna p** myself... I'm destroyed... Didja say one of them became a signpainter? Had to be Lenny! Just had to be!
------------------ "A wise man concerns himself with the truth, not with what people believe." - Aristotle
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson)
Cam Finest Kind Signs 256 S. Broad St. Pawcatuck, Ct. 06379 "Award winning Signs since 1988"
Posts: 3051 | From: Pawcatuck,Connecticut USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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