Every week at Channel Nine, a load of groceries would turn up in the studio. Huge, well marbled steaks, fresh produce and boxed goodies were there for stardom in a weekly series of commercials for the local A&P Grocery.
The camera would linger on the steak in a shot framed by orders of the director, while the booth announcer would entice people with the price and quality: “Lean sirloin steak. Add them to the barbeque this weekend at only 89 cents a pound at your A&P”; “Complete your picnic with fresh, golden corn on the cob, 50 cents a dozen”; “Betty Crocker Chocolate fudge mix completes any meal. Two boxes 49 cents.”
And after the commercial went to two-inch videotape, the floor director would wrap up the goods and put them in one of those cardboard boxes grocery stores always have too many of. Sometimes, as the new kid, I would watch the process, fascinated with the blend of words and pictures, and make a note to watch for the finished commercial when it ran in the newscast.
I did not know about the economics of broadcasting at a station, which, if I remember correctly, was ranked one hundred and something in the nation. In other words ‘small,’ even though Baton Rouge was the state capital. One day I happened to see the floor director carrying that cardboard box out of the back door and put it in the director’s car. I asked why that was and was told it was one of the perks of the job. He got the food. For some reason this did not sit well with me on the great scale of workplace justice.
The largesse was not to be added to my benefits. There was no way any rota system would be introduced for all to share the wealth. There was no way anyone but the director who made probably $125 a week would get those groceries. It would not be the $65 a week reporter, nor the $40 a week janitor.
But I later was able to enrich myself because of an advertiser’s largesse.
Price LeBlanc was well known for selling his Chrysler-Plymouths because he did all his own commercials. They were so extraordinarily bad that people loved them.
Price, a Cajun good ole boy, turned up one night to perform in his own commercial. There was a shiny new model sitting right there on the studio floor when Price came in with a cardboard box, a large one, plopped it down on the hood and reached both hands inside to retrieve a three-and-a-half-foot long alligator, jaws taped shut. In went the hand again and out came a two and a half footer. Again the hands dipped for gator and out came a skinny foot and a half gator. Price removed the tape and all three gators commenced to showing off their teeth on the hood of that shiny red Plymouth.
I don’t remember the sales pitch Price used, but do remember that these were the days before anyone had any help such as teleprompter, and Price wasn’t one to be formal with written down words, so it was all ad-lib. It probably went something like:
“For a snapping good deal take yousef down to Price Le Blanc Chrysler/Plymouth. I garon-tee we got the best price for you this weekend.”
Price and his gator collection finished working under the hot lights and I approached him to enquire about how he got the alligators, always with one eye on the gators. “Caught ‘em out in the swamp, I did. Why? You want one?”
Well…well…well Yes, Sir! I’ll have one of those creatures for my very own I volunteered, not taking the whole picture into consideration. And what I thought was going to be a quick lesson in swamp-ology, turned into a flea market for alligators. I thought I’d learn something about alligators, like how you catch them, what they eat, how to put them to sleep by stroking their bellies, but no, I’d just jumped in and became a gator owner.
“Which one?” Common sense kicked in at this point (as much as is possible with alligator adoption) and I weighed the possibility of life with a three and a half footer, rejected it. So, too, life with a two and a half footer and settled for the little one. “Hold him like this and you’ll keep your fingers,” Price showed me the jaws hold, not offering any tape. I got some and secured my prize, placing him in a cardboard box of my own.
My co-workers looked at me like I was a crazy Yankee, which I was. Yankee, I mean. “Crazy” was to be determined.
When I got the little critter home to my garret apartment on West Chimes Street, I discovered that he was damaged merchandise. Something had chewed off his right rear leg, probably the work of a relative. “Gimp” became his name and eating was his game. Little morsels of raw hamburger meat. Bits of now 17-cent McDonald’s hamburger, and an attempt at the fingers that offered it. Then bigger pieces of raw meat were thrown into the galvanised tub I kept him in.
I began to want some of that supermarket meat our director was taking home with him. A television reporter’s wages were not sufficient to keep him fit, and the sides of the tub he was in were touching his nose and tail. He was growing.
Surrounding Louisiana State University are the appropriately named University Lakes. It became Gimp’s new home. He probably fit in very nicely as the experts estimated that the gator population was several hundred. One day, (maybe it’s already happened) there will be a story about a 20-foot gator with three legs being hauled out of the lakes for rehabilitation.
I’ll know Gimp when I see him.