Well AD was tired of loosing his weekly check to Pickerwood and found him a new job at Tunica Manufacturing with Ralph Rubin as a folk lift driver.
AD loved his folk lift: it ran on Propane gas and he was king of the warehouse. All the day you would hear “AD Fuller line one”. He would round the corner of Broadway hitting the scaffolding with the fork lift and cussing.
One day Tait Tate came to work there. It was his second job and he was 16 looking so forward to his first pay check. He had already spent it and was over-drawn at the bank. This was great, five days work to clear 75 dollars! You see Tait Tate had been the cook at the Hollywood Restaurant where Ralph Rubin spent most Saturday night singing at the piano. His favorite song being Why Why Why Delilah singing with Muriel on the piano, and Bob Hall waiting next to sing Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Old Oak Tree.
Times were good for young Tait Tate having Mr. Rubin the plant manager at Pillow Tex and Tait Tate’s pal. Tait Tate could do no wrong.
That summer Tait Tate wasn’t the only youth working. There were 10 youth summer employees. The youth would be always messin’ around with something. But AD on line one was always the star employee.
Tait Tate and John Dulaney were always fighting or goofing off. AD was always running into boxes that would have to be re-boxed by the two boys. This was getting old and one day Tait Tate told John he’d bet $5 that he could turn off AD’s gas on the fork lift with out him knowing it.
Well the bet was on, AD rounded Broadway and John yelled at AD “hey dumbass”. When he stopped to look around to see who said that, Tait Tate cut off AD’s gas. The fork lift went dead AD got off cussin’ and lookin’ for his wrench, another trick on AD. AD had to walk all the way back to the shop to get the wrench to take off the propane tank. Then back to the shop for Propane and back to the fork lift to put on the new tank. Finally, he’d crank up the fork lift and back to work. Well, it ran about 5 minutes and the two boys cut it off again.
Mr. Potter walked by plant #2 man and asked what was wrong. AD told him he had replaced the propane tank that had run empty with a misplaced tank in the full rack that was empty too. AD was all flustered when Mr. Potter said don’t let that happen again. AD thought something was fishy. Ad took the tank off, went and got another tank and put that one on.
Back to work, an hour later John went to pull the trick again AD caught him and was cussin’ mad. It was lunch time AD went back to the shop and got a piece of steel to use as a knife the next one to try to cut off his gas he swore he‘d cut their hand off.
Well about 3.30 Tait Tate tries again and this time AD saw him. AD made good on his pledge but he misses Tait’s hand and cuts the gas line on a full tank instead. Propane was going ever’where. Mr. Potter came by to see what was going on since AD’s work was all backed up.
AD was demoted to shipping clerk repacking boxes that John Dulaney had run over as new folk lift driver. Tait Tate was promoted to Ms. Gann’s assistance making labels for addresses on out going boxes.
What a life for young Tait Tate.