Saturday, April 19, 2025
HUMOR - THE DAY ERNIE BROKE MR. REBER'S GUN CASE
Not to pick on Ernie, but, he's a key participant in the story...In 1973, I graduated from the University of West Florida, and was hired as a manager trainee at a Woolco store at Gateway Mall, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Mr. Reber was the manager for several departments, including sporting goods. I worked in furniture, housewares, the pet department, and lawn and garden.
Reb hired Ernie.
Ernie was a disaster. A very nice guy, disaster followed Ernie wherever he went.
The sporting goods department sold, among other things in those days, guns (nobody thought ANYTHING about it), and bowling balls.
Hmmmm.
One day as I was cruising from one or my departments to another, I heard a loud crash from sporting goods. Thinking someone might be hurt, I headed there.
What I saw stopped me dead in my tracks... well, for a second, but I couldn't wait to be the first to break (pun intended) the news to Reb. So, I ran for a house phone and had Reb paged to call the phone I was at.
The phone rang, I answered. He said, relatively calmly, since we paged each other all the time for various issues, "This is Reb, what's up?"
"Hey, Reb," I replied, in my smoothest, most professional manner, "Remember that glass gun case you used to have?"
"Sure, of course.... WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN USED TO HAVE????"
"Well, Ernie just dropped a bowling ball through it..."
Didn't know a guy that old could cross a store that fast... and with bad feet, too...
It all happened so fast, Ernie was still looking at the bowling ball lying amid the guns with a nearly perfect hole in the top and the middle glass shelf.
One of life's little moments not to be forgotten... not for Ernie, not for Reb, not for me... snicker, snicker.
True story, by the way.
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WHAT MAKES SHAKLEE PRODUCTS DIFFERENT?
Labels: bowling balls, donovan baldwin, Florida, sporting goods, St. Petersburg, University of West Florida, Woolco