{"id":1906,"date":"2021-02-09T19:07:35","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T01:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1906"},"modified":"2021-02-09T20:32:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T02:32:18","slug":"hey-joe-where-you-going-with-that-gun-in-your-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1906","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Joe!  Where you going with that gun in your hand?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?attachment_id=150\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-150\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-150\" src=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>WARNING!\u00a0 Do not read this while eating!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>After writing about one of my favorite watering holes when I was younger, I had a few people ask me to write to about Homer\u2019s brother, Joe.\u00a0 I blogged about Joe\u2019s brother, <a href=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1898\">Homer<\/a>, last November.\u00a0 If you thought Homer was one-of-a-kind, you didn\u2019t know Joe.\u00a0 He was far beyond what you have ever seen.<\/p>\n<p>As Dave Berry would say: \u201cI\u2019m not making this up.\u201d\u00a0 That is probably the biggest reason why some former Vailians (people who used to live in Vail, Iowa) wanted me to pen this.\u00a0 No one would believe it.\u00a0 [I never noticed how much Vailians is similar to villains.\u00a0 Huh!]<\/p>\n<p>Almost anyone living in a rural area will know what is meant by a rendering truck.\u00a0 For those who don\u2019t know, a rendering truck is a truck used in the process of transporting deceased animals to a rendering plant where the carcasses are used to create byproducts.<\/p>\n<p>For years, the rendering truck driver in the Vail, Iowa, area was Joe Devaney.<\/p>\n<p>Joe drank a bit.\u00a0 Actually, Joe was impaired all the time.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe I have ever heard anyone talk about a time when they had seen Joe sober.\u00a0 A faithful Catholic, Joe never missed Mass on Sunday mornings.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t actually sober then.\u00a0 He sat in the back with the rest of us who fulfilled our weekly obligation out of fear of our mothers, and then continued long after out of habit.<\/p>\n<p>At communion time, Joe would stagger up to the front of the church to receive the blessed sacraments.\u00a0 As church etiquette goes, everyone should have been praying, most symbolically with their heads down, but a stray eye couldn\u2019t miss Joe coming up to have a eucharistic minister hand him a host, which he chomped on as if it were a Ritz cracker.\u00a0 Next, he would waddle over to the minister with the wine (blood of Christ).\u00a0 He would take a huge sip.\u00a0 Anyone in line after Joe passed on the wine, if there was anything left.\u00a0 Except for choir members.\u00a0 None of them saw Joe drinking from the chalice.<\/p>\n<p>The reason why no one wanted to follow Joe in drinking from the chalice had nothing to do with his occupation, nor his permanent condition.\u00a0 No, it had everything to do with the fact that Joe chewed tobacco.\u00a0 It was unusual to see Joe without a dribble of tobacco-stained dribble running down his chin.\u00a0 He may have had a wad of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northerner.com\/us\/red-man\">Red Man<\/a> chewing tobacco in his cheek at the time of communion. \u00a0I doubt anyone wanted to know for sure.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, Joe would be wearing clean overalls, a neatly pressed flannel shirt, and have his thinning hair neatly combed.\u00a0 The red baseball went on his head after Mass and never came off until next Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, during the week, Joe was someone to avoid.\u00a0 His overalls would be dirty, and they would smell.\u00a0 What would you expect from a guy who manhandled dead cow, sheep, and pig carcasses all day long?\u00a0 I believe he may have even soiled his overalls a time or two.\u00a0 Rarely did he wear gloves.<\/p>\n<p>I have heard from some friends of mine a few stories that I cannot verify, but knowing Joe, I attest to their truthfulness:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Joe was known to sit on a dead cow eating his lunch prior to loading it in his truck;<\/li>\n<li>There was a corner intersection somewhere out in the country where farmers would bring their diseased or dead animals, drop them off in the ditch and when Joe Devaney made his rounds,\u00a0he would collect these animals and throw them in the back of his truck.\u00a0 One day a farmer was on his horse checking his fields.\u00a0 He tied up the horse and started walking the fields to check the crops.\u00a0 Joe came along and saw the horse without a rider and shot it and put it into his truck!\u00a0 (Often, a farmer would leave the animal in the ditch still alive so Joe would have to shoot it because they just couldn&#8217;t do it.)<\/li>\n<li>Occasionally, a stray dog would show up in town. Someone would complain and the city officials would tell Joe. \u00a0He would find it, shoot it, and throw it in the back of his truck with the other dead animals.\u00a0 He shot more than his share of someone\u2019s pet, but I don\u2019t think he ever knew it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Homer\u2019s had a good-sized room in the back with two large round tables for playing cards and a pinball machine in the corner by the entrance to the bar.\u00a0 If you heard the back door slam, you needed to look up. Homer\u2019s brother, Joe, would come by and ruffle the hair of the guy sitting nearest his staggering route through to the front. \u00a0You learned never to sit on that side of the table.\u00a0 You also learned to tilt the pinball game quickly and move on.<\/p>\n<p>Daily, except on Sunday, he would stop in Vail and go to his brother&#8217;s bar for a shot of whiskey with a dead carcass or more in the back of the truck.\u00a0 If you were anywhere within one block of where his truck was parked, you smelled it!\u00a0 He tried to park it in the shade, but some fool working downtown would beat him to the shaded parking slot in the alley.\u00a0 It served them right to have the window rolled down a bit.<\/p>\n<p>Joe also owned a windowless building in an alley off of Main Street.\u00a0 He aptly called it the wool shed.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t a shed as you might picture a shed; it was a solid brick building no larger than an average one-car garage.\u00a0 He used it to store wool.\u00a0 Wool was stored in burlap bags that were over seven feet in length with a circumference of about four feet.\u00a0 He used the building to nap, often.\u00a0 During summer months, it was hot as hell in there.\u00a0 Yet, it didn\u2019t bother him.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t bother him to store a bottle in there, either, and take a nip upon waking.\u00a0 He once offered me a drink from the bottle.\u00a0 I was walking down the alley.\u00a0 1) Hot as hell; 2) tobacco juice around the rim; 3) the obvious stench surrounding us?\u00a0 I turned down the invitation.<\/p>\n<p>Marvin\u2019s Provisions was a wholesale meat distributor in Vail.\u00a0 Naturally, once meat is cut up it produces unwanted products like bones, tallow, fat, etc.\u00a0 These byproducts were tossed into large 50-gallon drums, and Joe would pick them up on a regular basis and dump them into the back of his truck.\u00a0 Many times, there would be a dead animal or two in the back.\u00a0 The bones, fat, etc. was dumped on top.\u00a0 No matter whatever truck needed loaded or unloaded, Joe\u2019s haul took precedent.\u00a0 You can understand why at this point in the blog.<\/p>\n<p>I worked at Marvin\u2019s during three years of high school, and for a while after I graduated.\u00a0 In the early days of working there, I would punch out after work and go back to the slaughter house portion of the facility and watch Joe slaughter.\u00a0 I wanted to learn how to butcher pigs, cows, and sheep so that I might be able to take over when Joe quit slaughtering.<\/p>\n<p>Marvin\u2019s began as Marvin\u2019s Market, and part of the retail store was a locker service.\u00a0 You could rent a locker (approximately 4\u2019 x 3\u2019 x 2\u2019) in the huge freezer in the back of the store.\u00a0 Lockers were used for storing frozen food when people in town didn\u2019t have a deep freeze at home, or needed additional freezer space.\u00a0 Part of this business was slaughtering, butchering, processing, and freezing.\u00a0 I was fascinated with the slaughtering part of it.\u00a0 I watched Joe every chance I could.\u00a0 I knew I could do it all, except for shooting the poor animal.\u00a0 However, I was psyched to overcome that struggle if I ever had the chance.<\/p>\n<p>Joe didn\u2019t get much for slaughtering.\u00a0 He may have received $10 and the hide.\u00a0 I am sure the hide was worth much more than the $10 at the time.\u00a0 As far as I know, as drunk as he might be, I never saw him cut himself, or damage a hide.\u00a0 I did assist once in a while, but Joe was faster without help.<\/p>\n<p>A sow he was butchering once carried about 5 or 6 piglet fetuses.\u00a0 Joe was going to dump them into the barrel with other non-edibles, such as lungs, when I asked if I could have them.\u00a0 He never asked what I was going to do with them.\u00a0 I wrapped them individually in freezer paper and placed them in the sharp freeze section of the freezer.\u00a0 The following morning, before I had to catch the bus to school, I made a stop at Marvin\u2019s and picked up the frozen piglets.\u00a0 I was proud as hell bringing them into Sister Carlyce, the biology teacher, hoping that someday we could dissect the pigs rather than earthworms.\u00a0 I never knew what became of those critters, but I\u2019m going to assume that she couldn\u2019t use them because they weren\u2019t soaked in formaldehyde.<\/p>\n<p>Marvin quit slaughtering before I graduated from high school.\u00a0 He focused his investment in growing the wholesale business.\u00a0 The only chance I had to slaughter after that was working for IBP in Dakota City at the age of 18 on the kill floor.\u00a0 I can still butcher, but you\u2019re gonna pay me more than $10 and a hide if I accept.<\/p>\n<p>Joe died at the age of 67 in 1973.\u00a0 He never married.\u00a0 He was a corporal in the U.S. Army during WW II.\u00a0 I learned a long time ago that many men served their country in the military, and you never heard a word about it while they were living.\u00a0 You know only when he is given a military honor at his funeral.\u00a0 I wonder if Joe suffered from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ptsd.va.gov\/\">PTSD<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Surprisingly, to my knowledge, or to the knowledge of anyone I know, Joe was never arrested for driving under the influence.\u00a0 The rendering plant on the east side of Carroll was over 20 miles away, and he had to drive through Carroll on busy Highway 30 to get there.\u00a0 I do know, however, that he received a speeding ticket once.\u00a0 I heard him complain about it.\u00a0 Can you imagine a law enforcement officer wanting to walk up to the driver side window after pulling over a rendering truck?\u00a0 Joe\u2019s rendering truck?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Acknowledgements<\/u><\/strong>:\u00a0 Thanks to my sister, Kathleen, Terry Murtaugh, and Dennis Mohatt for their contributions to this blog.\u00a0 After publication, there may be more stories to post about Joe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WARNING!\u00a0 Do not read this while eating! After writing about one of my favorite watering holes when I was younger, I had a few people ask me to write to about Homer\u2019s brother, Joe.\u00a0 I blogged about Joe\u2019s brother, Homer, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1906\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[813,816,812,330,811,728,814,815,423],"class_list":["post-1906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dave-berry","tag-dennis-mohatt","tag-homers","tag-iowa","tag-joe-devaney","tag-marvins-provisions","tag-redman","tag-terry-murtaugh","tag-vail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1906"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1908,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions\/1908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}