Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Grandpa's Shop continued- mystery lady in photo


My mother wrote back to me about the woman in this photo. I didn't know who she was, but my mother suspected that she knew who it was. Here is what my mother wrote:

Maybe that woman sitting at the counter is Lillian, who was Grandpa's clerk. He used to tease her mercilessly about her boyfriend. One time he said, "Lillian, Doc says every time he goes to the hospital at 5 a.m., he sees Ed's [not his real name] truck parked at your place. That's mighty early for Ed to call...." Lillian answered that Ed hauled her ashes regularly before he went to work. "Oh, I see," he said. Thereafter he'd greet her now and then with the friendly question, "Good morning, Lillian. How's Ed? Still hauling your ashes?" That gave rise to one element of the Carew vocabulary in which "getting your ashes hauled" = getting laid.
Another time she had a cold sore, and he asked her "What's wrong with your lip, Lillian?" She said, "Oh, that's nothing...just a cold sore." "Hmmm...looks kind of like a bite to me," he said, with great concern.

Interesting to see the interior of the store again. Brings back many memories. One time the phone rang at the house in the wee hours after the bars closed. It was the Langlade County sheriff. Somebody had broken into the drugstore and stolen the safe. Problem was, the thieves, who apparently had been planning to open the safe once they got it home, had tied a rope
around it and started to tow it out of town on the road to Post Lake. The wheels of the safe had gotten stuck in the railroad tracks, the rope broke, and the thieves took off, leaving the safe sitting there on the tracks. Somebody came along and saw it and called the sheriff, who called Murray, who found someone to pick it up and bring it back to the store.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"getting your ashes hauled" .... I love it! I'm going to use that sometime. I'll give you credit, of course. haha

gawilli said...

Ditto, Jay! I'll remember that one. Aren't these old stories the best?

Anonymous said...

That'ds a very endearing story...I love the phrase "getting your ashes hauled" too....what a hoot. Nice post.