Bill Davis - "Georgie"

Georgie supervises the bleachers.
No one else would do it for twice the pay
and supervisor's pay was twice ours
and then some.
He joked and drank confiscated beer
and brought us some every now and then
in the room we dressed in
under the stairway.
Having to work bleachers
was like being sent to Siberia,
but nothing seemed to bother Georgie.

Georgie grew up in Lowell
and had been a fighter.
Whenever he talked about it
he told about the same fight,
when they had to stop him
from killing the guy,
and he's been the heavy underdog.

Don told me once
the last time he fought
(in the 1941 Golden Gloves
in Bridgeport Connecticut)
he kept getting knocked down
and getting up again
and getting knocked down,
and when his head hit the canvas
it sort of gave.

He only had trouble once
and Brady and Russo pulled him off
before he really got going on the kid.
That was the only time
they ever talked about firing him.
Usually he did a good job
and he seemed to like it there.


Local 254, 1974