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For nine fast, furious years, Clarence Ellis worked at EconoFoods as a midnight stocker. For nine years, he made us, the midnight crew, grumble and laugh. This is our eulogy to him.
To us, Clarence was known simply as "the Old Man." We called him that almost all the time, a name given to him by his longtime co-worker Paul Strachan. Clarence resisted the name at first, but gradually he accepted it--so much, in fact, that he often introduced himself to any new stocker by loudly proclaiming, "I'm the Old Man of the crew." (He was almost always loud.) On one occasion, on a farewell card to a departing co-worker, he even wrote "Old Man." Everyone else knew him as "Junior," but only we, the midnight crew, called him "the Old Man."
Clarence was a workhorse--a loud, tough-as-nails, black-haired, leather-skinned, five-foot-five workhorse who strutted around with a pricing-gun holster and two fists by his sides like an Old Western gunslinger. When he wasn't muttering to himself, he was barking insults and profanities at his co-workers, especially Paul. Many a night Paul would shrink away and mumble, "That darn Old Man" (yet "darn" wasn't quite the word he used).
Clarence revelled in practical jokes, especially on Paul. One night, Clarence pretended to be angry with him: Clarence snarled and snapped at him, and then chuckled and grinned when Paul sheepishly went to work in an aisle all by himself for three hours. The rest of us laughed and laughed. Another night, Clarence duct-taped Paul's locker door shut.
In addition to duct-taping lockers, Clarence once duct-taped his own shoe. The heel had split loose and been flip-flopping for days ("I got a blow-out!" he announced, he being a big NASCAR fan), so he wrapped the heel in duct tape--bright silver tape on a jet-black shoe. We told him he needed to match the colors better, but he grumbled and kept on working. Then, weeks later, he came to work with brand-new white sneakers, and we praised him on how they made him look 20 years younger. He smirked, shook his head, wiped his nose, and told us he would take us out to the parking lot if we didn't clam up.
Clarence's age was a mystery to us. From 2001 to 2005, he was 67 years old. He told us his house was 90 years old, so we told him he must have built that house himself. (He then shook his forefinger at us--a big, gnarled, menacing monstrosity with a long, dense nail that we affectionately dubbed "The Claw.") Clarence would work circles around kids less than half his age, to his own proud acknowledgement.
Clarence was one of the guys. He admired pretty girls, often while driving heavy equipment toward wine displays. He rattled off one-liners in machine-gun rapidity. And he enjoyed an occasional, frothy, adult beverage, many of which he and Paul shared at a local establishment called Pat's Bar, a watering hole that they called "Church" (with the owner/head bartender referred to as "the Preacher"). Morning mass began at 7:00. They attended sometimes until 10.
Clarence was quick of wit, short of temper, and long on stories of the old days. Many a time he told us the same old stories, over and over and over again. Countless times he told us about his days at Cohodas where he unloaded 100-pound crates of bananas off the train by hand. ("That was bull-work in those days," he said.) A favorite story of ours was how he, a young lad with a few too many drinks under his belt, out-raced a cop and ducked into the Harvey Inn late one night. He snuck inside, sat at a table with some friends, grabbed a glass, and watched as the policeman walked inside, looked around for a little while, and left. "Old Man," we said, laughing, "you were an outlaw!"
Clarence hated it whenever someone would hide his coffee, thus forcing him to get a second cup. Then, with his back turned, someone would pull the first cup out of hiding and place it by the second cup. How Clarence's head would shake when he turned back to see both cups side by side. After sipping one and setting it down, he would turn back to work while someone would sneak off to get a third cup and place it by the other two. He would turn back around and fling an irate hand at the three side-by-side cups.
Whenever Clarence occasioned the casino before work, his hair would be messed up "like a hurricane came through" according to Paul. Clarence was proud of his impeccable jet-black hair. "Kiwi shoe-polish," a co-worker once said. "A mini-Elvis!" said another.
Clarence's obituary says that he was an avid outdoorsman; something we never knew. "I didn't know there was a wild-game preserve behind Pat's," one co-worker said. Another co-worker remarked that Paul and Clarence did have to go outside to get to Pat's. Yet Clarence did cherish one outdoor activity at the store: he liked to star-gaze four times a night. "I'm going out for a puffer," he would tell us, grabbing his flannel shirt. "I'm gonna count the starzzz!" "But it's snowing outside, Old Man," we'd say. "Then I'll count the snowflakesss!"
Always one to diffuse a tense situation, Clarence one morning said hi to Dave Moore, a Little Debbie vendor, an old friend, who was having a rough morning. When Dave grumbled something back, Clarence folded his hands like an angelic little boy and said, "Ya want a knuckle sandwich?"
Here is a very G-rated sampling of Clarence's insults at Paul:
"Do sumthin' even if it's wrong."
"Grandma's slow, but she's old."
"Yer slow now. What are ya gonna do when you get my age?"
"What a dinglehoffer. You'd trip over yer own feet."
"You'd lose yer head if it wasn't screwed on."
"I've seen a better head on a cabbage."
"I've seen a better head on a nickel beer. And I haven't seen one of those in over t'irty years!"
The obituary says: "Clarence will be remembered most for his ability to jokingly harass family and friends."
Paul questions the word "jokingly."
Mike Hazard
Marquette, MI
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