6/6/2010 will be 50 years
June 28, 2009
Dear friends and family,
I think about my company, the R. L. Zeigler Co.,Inc. and how long I have worked for the same company. The company was founded in 1927 in Bessemer, Alabama USA and this guy began working part-time for them the summer of 1955. But the next few years until 1960, I only worked part-time most summers until I finished at Alabama.
I was looking for work and called my old company and sure, they needed someone now. The summer of 1960 I worked all in the plant, boxing or slicing bacon, stuffed bologna or was the muscle that put it on the bologna tree to be cooked in our smoke house. I helped on the sausage mill, lifting 90lb bags of trimming into the grinder, building more and more muscle.
I worked in our bacon forming room, helping Mr. Higgenbotham take the bellies in and then out of the forming machine, squaring the bacon, then stacking on a pallet and moved to a bacon cooler ready for slicing. Then somewhere, someone found out I could write legible so I ended up helping taking weekly and monthly inventory. Now where would this land me?
I was moved to shipping and receiving working under Mr. Burl Bradford during the day and then if working at night, under Mr. Jimmy Snow, both hired by Mr. R. L. Zeigler himself. Two of the nicest guys in the world, but both task masters requiring high output by all concerned. City sales then needed someone to work in filling orders for stores and restaurants picking up their orders. This I seemed to have a knack for and filled them fast and the customers began asking for me when they called in their orders. I especially got the tough ones that most of the other guys seemed to avoid...
Somewhere in time I found myself working in our beef cooler under Mr. Harvey Davis again another hired by the man. I boned beef trimming for manufacture then Harvey and Mr. Smith taught me how to cut wholesale cuts for stores like rounds, loins, chucks both cross cut and square, flanks, ribs and the like. After several months of working with them, I found myself filling in for vacations in the beef cooler! This is a job I will always remember. And you ask why?
Working day or night in a beef cooler and filling orders called in or invoiced by salesmen or called into the cooler, this was hard, hard work. You are talking about lifting beef sometimes more than your own weight. How do you do that. It is an acquired skill, leverage, and always lifting with your legs and not your back! When filling in the two weeks at night for the night shift person, that was it! Mr. Cliff Lambert was built like a tank, maybe 75 lbs of muscle heavier than Jeff. I was dumbfounded as to how much work you did in the 8 to 10 hours at night moving beef to the sales rail and out the door to be put on our trucks...For two weeks, I did 3 things and three things only. WORK, EAT, AND SLEEP. Nothing else.
Then back into shipping and learning how to drive a truck. This I must have done well as I did this for almost 3 years, even learning to back a trailer into and out of the loading docks. I delivered to stores, driving a bobtail, a stick shift, with a Columbia rear end, and with 6 forwards and the Columbia shift, you had a choice of 12 forwards, giving you the speed or power when needed. And these were transmissions that had to be double-clutched, meaning shifting into the neutral coming out of one speed, shifting again, then into the next gear. No A/C, No Power Steering, Not even a radio. Cold in winter, hot in summer, delivering local or central and north Alabama...Great experience. *finish later, more to come...Jeff
