By Will Collette
My first organizing job was in the
early 1970s working in my home town of Central
Falls .
One of the local leaders was an elderly
Portuguese lady, a very strong and loyal person.
But in the window of her first
floor apartment in the three-decker where she lived was a puzzling,
hand-written sign that read “Douch Bags, 25 cents.”
I just couldn’t figure it
out. I didn’t want to think about it, but I couldn’t help it.
And of course,
this was not a subject for a young man to broach with an elderly woman.
But at one local chapter meeting,
all was revealed. Mary came to the meeting with a steaming tray of
sugar-sprinkled dough boys. I said, “oh wow, Mary, so you make dough boys?!?”
The chapter president, a guy named Charlie, said “yeah, dincha know dat…she
makes da best in CF…sells em fer two bits…dincha see the sign in ha winder?”
Our friends in the Richmond
Democratic Town Committee also make delicious doughboys and, on June 10, you
will get the chance to find out how good.
At their annual community
breakfast, the Richmond Dems will be serving scrambled eggs, breakfast
sausages, fruit cup and, of course, doughboys. $7 a head for adults and only $5
for seniors (50+) and kids (under 12).
If you’re not from around here, a
doughboy is a local specialty that a lot like a cross between a light and moist
doughnut and a flaky New Orleans
style beignet.
Here are the full details on the
event, with a late change in the location. The breakfast will NOT be at the Carolina Fire Station due to considerable work which must be
accomplished at the Carolina Fire Station. BREAKFAST WILL NOW
BE HELD AT THE ALTON FIRE STATION (RTE. 91) in Richmond.
Please explain, was the sign spelled wrong or was she just misrepresenting her pastries for feminine wash? I know it's irrelevant to the subject at hand the democratic fundraiser, but I'm still puzzled was the sign spelled wrong?
ReplyDeleteMary used a kind of cursive writing common in Europe at the time, but hard to read for those of us who were taught to use the Palmer method.
ReplyDeleteI should have picked up on that because my mother's hand-writing was also of an odd cursive style (she was a German war bride).
So if you looked real hard at Mary's sign, you could see that she wrote it out as "dough boys" in her own style. I guess another early lesson I learned was that things are not always as they first seem.
Thank you for responding. I agree things are rarely what they appear to be, perception is reality. It seems as though the zeitgeist of American culture has skewed the lines beyond comprehension.
ReplyDeleteA lively experiment it has been.