“Glad you agree, my boy! You got to be loyal to our business. Besides, the average homeowner gets the temperature too high or too low.” Mr. Jangle spoke these words as fact.
“I suppose that’s possible,” said Richard in an agreeable tone.
“More than possible. More than possible,” answered Mr. Jangle. “Nothing worse than overcooked vegetables! Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Oh yes!” Richard hated mushy vegetables.
Visibly pleased that he had elicited such a positive response from the young applicant, Mr. Jangle waved Richard’s resume and said, “I can see by this that you’re neat, orderly, careful about detail. I believe we can use you. Yes, you’re hired! See J. S. Packer just down the hall. I’ll give Packer a call before you get there.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jangle. I’ll do my best.”
Mr. Jangle, already on the phone, smiled and waved Richard out of the office.
“Hmmm, ‘Packer.’ Good name for someone working in a cannery,” Richard mused as he stopped at the door that held the nameplate: J. S. Packer, Foreman. He knocked on the door.
“Come in, Mr. Hawkins!”
Richard obeyed, surprised to be called by name. The surprise apparently registered on his face.
“You probably didn’t expect the foreman to be a woman. That right? Please sit down,” J. S. Packer requested in a soft voice.
“Oh well,” replied Richard, sitting down across from the foreman seated at a table with a stack of time cards in front of her. “I . . . uh was surprised that you knew my name.”
“Mr. Jangle just called and gave me your name. He said you would be here in a couple of minutes. Actually, he put it more colorfully: He said you would be here in ‘two shakes of a lamb’s tail’.”
Feeling a little dumb, Richard asked, “When do you want me to start?”
“I would like you to start tonight. However, when can you start? I have an opening on the graveyard shift.”
“Excuse me, but what’s the ‘graveyard shift’?” Richard’s tone betrayed some uneasiness at hearing the word ‘graveyard’.
“That’s the shift that begins at midnight and goes to 8:00 AM. You’ll have a half hour to eat and, of course, the usual breaks.”
“Okay,” said Richard. He provided social security information and signed three papers, including one that listed rules. “I’ll be here tomorrow night at midnight.”
“Good. Let me give you a note to give to our shift leader, Ben.”
While Packer wrote the note, Richard leaned back and looked at her more closely. She had short, dark hair, big brown eyes, a nice complexion, and gold-rimmed glasses on a slender nose. When she stood up to give him the note, Richard could see that she was tall, slim and somewhere in her 30s.
Richard stood up and took the note. “Thank you, Ms. Packer. I’ll give this to Ben tomorrow night.”
“Good luck, Richard.” With these words J. S. Packer shook his hand.
She has a strong grip, he thought as he left the office and headed for the parking lot.
When Richard got home, he left the car in the driveway and slumped down on the steps of the porch, wondering if his decision to work at the cannery was the right one. Soon the front door opened and Mac came out.
“Well laddie, what do ye have to report? Di’ ye get the job?”
“Yes I did, Uncle Mac. I hope I made the right decision. I’m supposed to go to work tomorrow at midnight, on the graveyard shift.”
“Then ye get off at 8:00 AM. I’ll have some breakfast ready for ye when ye get home, and see that the hoose is quiet so ye can sleep.”
“Thanks, Uncle. Since this is my last night of freedom, let’s see a movie after supper. What do you say?”
“I think that’s a gude idea, Richard. Whatever ye choose it will be fine with me.”
“There’s a John Wayne move on TV tonight that I don’t believe you’ve seen, or at least, not in a long time. The Alamo.”
“I do hope John Wayne stuck to the facts in tellin’ how the brave men at the Alamo fought and died. The truth o’ their heroic defense doesn’t need any Hollywood embroidery to be interesting.”
“They held out for weeks against thousands of Mexican soldiers, didn’t they?”
“Not weeks, Richard. Aboot 180 men held back General Santa Anna’s well-equipped army for 11 days. Now aboot supper this evenin’. Aroond 5:00 o’clock I’ll call and have pizza delivered.”
“Sounds good. Right now I’d better go downtown and buy some cannery clothes and sturdy work shoes. I’ll be home before supper.”
After shopping and a short walk, Richard took a quick shower and sat down with Mac for pizza. Then they relaxed in the living room, Mac reading Robert Burns and Richard reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln while waiting for the movie to start.
About an hour into the film, Mac said, “Uh-huh, it does look like the Alamo. They’ve built a very gude replica for their movie set.”
“Have you been to the Alamo, Uncle Mac?”
“Aye, I visited the Alamo a number o’ years ago durin’ a conference o’ librarians in San Antonio.”
At the end of the film, Mac sat in silence, shaking his head.
“What did you think of the movie, Uncle Mac?”
“It was a gude film, but it left out an important fact. There were four Scots among the defenders, and one o’ them, I believe, was an ancestor o’ ours, John MacGregor. He played the bagpipe while the men were fightin’. Davy Crocket was quoted as sayin’ that his playin’ inspired the men and lifted their spirits.”
“I bet if John Wayne had known about John MacGregor, he would have put him in the movie. Having one of the defenders playing the bagpipe would have given the movie . . . a human touch.”
“As far as puttin’ a Scottish bagpiper into the script, Bob’s your Uncle,” responded Mac.
“I agree that it could be quite easily done,” said Richard, interpreting his uncle’s Scottish expression. I remember you used to tell me about John MacGregor, but I guess it didn’t register that he played the bagpipe at the Alamo. Imagine having a combat piper in the family.”
“There was also Bruce MacGregor who served in World War I; he was a soldier in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. When his regiment charged the enemy in France, he was in the front line playin’ his bagpipe. The Germans, seein’ the pipers in their kilts, called them the ‘ladies from Hell’, because the fierce Scots would use the soond o’ their bagpipes to signal an attack.”
“Did
