Knobby Knuckles.
During the early 80's my job as a driver salesman would see me working very long days during the summer months. I was paid both a base salary and commission so the more I hustled, the more money I earned. I was getting married in the fall of 1982 and my boss thought I might want to make some extra cash during that summer.
I could always use some extra cash.
Knob Hill Farms was a grocery chain in the Toronto area. It was founded in 1951 and had five locations in 1982. It was the largest account by far that my employer York Ice Cream serviced. Knob Hill was an unconventional business and cut down on frills like packaging and selling several brands of the same food. The stores were uniquely different with massive end of aisle displays featuring sale items, mountains of produce piled in bins and very long meat counters.
For the most part the stores were all converted old warehouses or factories and catered mostly to the large immigrant population within Toronto. Large lineups for parking as well as at the checkouts would guarantee your weekly shopping trip would take much longer than had you shopped at a conventional supermarket. Knob Hill Farms was not the type of store you would simply run in and pick up a loaf of bread or carton of milk on your way home from work.
The stores didn’t use any bags at the checkout, instead they introduced box shopping. You would put your groceries into sturdy boxes while you shopped. When you went to the checkout the cashier would take your items out of your box and she would transfer them into another box as she rang in your items. The cardboard boxes if I recall cost a quarter deposit and once the box could no longer be used or got too ratty you simply had it replaced for free with a newer box. You usually never left the store with the same boxes that you arrived with.
Shopping at Knob Hill Farms truly was an experience in itself.
Knob Hill Farms introduced the 4 litre pail of ice cream. It was unheard of back then for ice cream to be sold in such a bulk container. York Ice Cream got the Knob Kill account because they were the only manufacture that agreed to package ice cream in a large reusable plastic pail. It was the perfect size and price for larger families at just $2.49. The 4 litre pail of mid-quality Clover Cream ice cream was sold in just four flavours, vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch and neopolitan.
Due to the fact that the stores had very little in the way of backroom walk-in freezer space, I would have to visit the busy Lansdowne store a minimum of three times a week. In 1982 the Lansdowne store was the second largest store in the chain. It was located inside the old National Cash Register (NCR) factory at Dundas Street and Lansdowne Avenue and opened in 1975.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I would visit the store first thing in the morning before it would even open to the public. On Mondays it was my only delivery, I was there for the whole day as the store would be completely cleaned out from the previous Saturday. There was no Sunday shopping back then at Knob Hill Farms. Sunday was a family day for the staff and management was pretty old school about staff not working and spending time with their families.
On every visit to the store I would have to merchandise the freezers and replenish the stock. Naturally most of my order would be the 4 litre pails since most of the freezer space was preassigned to the pails. Pretty much everything else was also sold out since my previous Friday visit. Mondays were always long days especially in the summer months.
I was going to be earning some extra cash for my impending wedding by working Friday nights. No drivers at York Ice Cream worked on Saturdays. Fridays at the store were just as busy as Saturdays and by the time the store closed on Friday nights during the summer, the store would be completely sold out of the pails. After working ten hours during the day I would go home to eat and rest for a few hours while my truck was reloaded right to the back door with pails. I would then work straight through the night and have the store restocked for the early Saturday morning shoppers.
The Lansdowne store opened at 7 am on Saturdays.
I was paid a straight commission and I earned about a quarter for each two pail bundle I put into the store. I would easily make myself an extra couple hundred bucks in commission working on a Friday night. After I restocked the Lansdowne store I would drive over to the Cherry Street store in the Toronto Port Lands and repeat the process all over again. The Cherry St. store was the smallest store in the chain and it would only take me a third of the time that I had spent at the Lansdowne store.
I remember the first Friday night I worked when I arrived at the Lansdowne store at about 11 pm. There was a chain across the receiving area and it was locked. The yard was kept locked after hours because there were dozens of skids stacked high with empty Coke and Pepsi cases. All the plastic cases were full of empty 750 ml glass bottles that had been returned for deposit. My guess is there was easily a couple thousand bucks worth of empty cases just sitting in the yard and to prevent theft they locked the entrance to the yard every night. Each week a couple of tractor trailers would pick up all the empties in the yard.
I am pretty sure many of the cases would get stolen anyway. After unloading my ice cream on any Friday night I could have very easily filled up my now empty truck with the cases and not a soul would have known. I was always by myself and there was absolutely no security. It was always very dark with the exception of maybe a few patio light bulbs on the receiving dock. On all of my visits, most of those bulbs were burned out anyways.
I needed the chain unlocked so I left my truck running and I went into the store. There was always a night crew restocking the shelves on a Friday night. Ice cream was not the only product that needed to be restocked before the busy Saturday. I found the girl who was in charge.
“I have your ice cream, but I can’t get into the yard. I need the key for the lock.” I said.
“You gotta find Knuckles, he has the key.” She replied.
The store intercom was not working that night so my quest to find this Knuckles chap began. After about fifteen minutes I found Knuckles and we headed out to the yard where it was very dark. I got into my truck which had been blocking a lane on the street and I assumed Knuckles would have the chain unlocked within thirty seconds.
A couple minutes passed.
Knuckles still had not unlocked the chain and I figured the lock must have been broken. I got out of my truck to see him struggling with the key. It might have been dark outside, but my truck's headlights provided more than enough light for such a simple task. I then realized at that moment why he was called Knuckles.
Knuckles had no fuck’n fingers.
Seriously, this guy is trying to open a padlock with a key and he has no fingers. I offered to help, but Knuckles would have no part of it. He would be unlocking the lock all by himself so I went back into my truck and waited. After about five minutes the lock was finally off and I drove into the yard, it was now half past eleven. It had taken me thirty minutes since I arrived just to get my truck to the back receiving dock.
As I backed up to the outdoor dock, I saw so many rats scurrying about distracted by my headlights. Some rats were so large I thought they were cats running under the yellow Pepsi skids. Seeing scurrying rats in the yard was a weekly occurrence during all those late Friday night deliveries.
Another crazy sight I would see often on Friday nights was frozen piss inside the ice cream freezers. The checkout lineups were so long and they would snake around the freezers, some kids would actually take a piss inside them. The freezers were always located near the checkouts since ice cream would be one of the last purchases made when shopping. I guess some parents were not willing to give up their spot in the line to take their kids to the washroom.
What kind of parent lets their kid piss inside an ice cream freezer?
I kid you not.
While working those Friday nights, on at least four or five occasions I would need a freezer cleaned out because a kid had pissed inside of it. If none of the staff agreed to clean it up, I just left it empty. You could not pay me enough to clean piss out of a freezer. Most of the time the freezer would have to be turned off anyway because the yellow puddle of piss had already frozen solid by the time I arrived.
Seriously, I can’t make this shit up.
I never lasted that complete summer working on Friday nights. One Friday night I was driving home northbound on the Don Valley Parkway and I almost crashed my truck into the bullnose guardrail. I must have dozed off for an instant and woke up just before I hit the rail.
It was very close. Too close for comfort.
Working Friday nights had become too much for me. I was just too tired coming back at 4 am and it was unsafe to be driving a truck with so little sleep. I didn’t need the extra cash that bad and I told my boss I would not be working anymore Friday nights.
Over the years I literally sold thousands of those 4 litre pails at the Lansdowne store and I made a ton of money in commission. Eventually, Knob Hill Farms went out of business and the final store closed in 2001. The company had not kept up with the times; technology was taking over the retail sector. Newer competitors like Food Basics, No Frills, Costco and the new mega size Loblaw’s stores would leave Knob Hill Farms behind eating their dust.
After Knob Hill went out of business I never saw another 4 litre pail on my truck again. There was just not enough profit margin and the big round pails left too much wasted space on the shelf compared to the more popular compact 2 litre blocks. Had Knob Hill Farms survived, I think I would have eventually left a few empty 4 litre PPP's on the floor around the freezers at my Lansdowne store.
Hell, maybe I would have gotten Knuckles to make me a simple little sign for each of them.
I could always use some extra cash.
Knob Hill Farms was a grocery chain in the Toronto area. It was founded in 1951 and had five locations in 1982. It was the largest account by far that my employer York Ice Cream serviced. Knob Hill was an unconventional business and cut down on frills like packaging and selling several brands of the same food. The stores were uniquely different with massive end of aisle displays featuring sale items, mountains of produce piled in bins and very long meat counters.
For the most part the stores were all converted old warehouses or factories and catered mostly to the large immigrant population within Toronto. Large lineups for parking as well as at the checkouts would guarantee your weekly shopping trip would take much longer than had you shopped at a conventional supermarket. Knob Hill Farms was not the type of store you would simply run in and pick up a loaf of bread or carton of milk on your way home from work.
The stores didn’t use any bags at the checkout, instead they introduced box shopping. You would put your groceries into sturdy boxes while you shopped. When you went to the checkout the cashier would take your items out of your box and she would transfer them into another box as she rang in your items. The cardboard boxes if I recall cost a quarter deposit and once the box could no longer be used or got too ratty you simply had it replaced for free with a newer box. You usually never left the store with the same boxes that you arrived with.
Shopping at Knob Hill Farms truly was an experience in itself.
Knob Hill Farms introduced the 4 litre pail of ice cream. It was unheard of back then for ice cream to be sold in such a bulk container. York Ice Cream got the Knob Kill account because they were the only manufacture that agreed to package ice cream in a large reusable plastic pail. It was the perfect size and price for larger families at just $2.49. The 4 litre pail of mid-quality Clover Cream ice cream was sold in just four flavours, vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch and neopolitan.
Due to the fact that the stores had very little in the way of backroom walk-in freezer space, I would have to visit the busy Lansdowne store a minimum of three times a week. In 1982 the Lansdowne store was the second largest store in the chain. It was located inside the old National Cash Register (NCR) factory at Dundas Street and Lansdowne Avenue and opened in 1975.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I would visit the store first thing in the morning before it would even open to the public. On Mondays it was my only delivery, I was there for the whole day as the store would be completely cleaned out from the previous Saturday. There was no Sunday shopping back then at Knob Hill Farms. Sunday was a family day for the staff and management was pretty old school about staff not working and spending time with their families.
On every visit to the store I would have to merchandise the freezers and replenish the stock. Naturally most of my order would be the 4 litre pails since most of the freezer space was preassigned to the pails. Pretty much everything else was also sold out since my previous Friday visit. Mondays were always long days especially in the summer months.
I was going to be earning some extra cash for my impending wedding by working Friday nights. No drivers at York Ice Cream worked on Saturdays. Fridays at the store were just as busy as Saturdays and by the time the store closed on Friday nights during the summer, the store would be completely sold out of the pails. After working ten hours during the day I would go home to eat and rest for a few hours while my truck was reloaded right to the back door with pails. I would then work straight through the night and have the store restocked for the early Saturday morning shoppers.
The Lansdowne store opened at 7 am on Saturdays.
I was paid a straight commission and I earned about a quarter for each two pail bundle I put into the store. I would easily make myself an extra couple hundred bucks in commission working on a Friday night. After I restocked the Lansdowne store I would drive over to the Cherry Street store in the Toronto Port Lands and repeat the process all over again. The Cherry St. store was the smallest store in the chain and it would only take me a third of the time that I had spent at the Lansdowne store.
I remember the first Friday night I worked when I arrived at the Lansdowne store at about 11 pm. There was a chain across the receiving area and it was locked. The yard was kept locked after hours because there were dozens of skids stacked high with empty Coke and Pepsi cases. All the plastic cases were full of empty 750 ml glass bottles that had been returned for deposit. My guess is there was easily a couple thousand bucks worth of empty cases just sitting in the yard and to prevent theft they locked the entrance to the yard every night. Each week a couple of tractor trailers would pick up all the empties in the yard.
I am pretty sure many of the cases would get stolen anyway. After unloading my ice cream on any Friday night I could have very easily filled up my now empty truck with the cases and not a soul would have known. I was always by myself and there was absolutely no security. It was always very dark with the exception of maybe a few patio light bulbs on the receiving dock. On all of my visits, most of those bulbs were burned out anyways.
I needed the chain unlocked so I left my truck running and I went into the store. There was always a night crew restocking the shelves on a Friday night. Ice cream was not the only product that needed to be restocked before the busy Saturday. I found the girl who was in charge.
“I have your ice cream, but I can’t get into the yard. I need the key for the lock.” I said.
“You gotta find Knuckles, he has the key.” She replied.
The store intercom was not working that night so my quest to find this Knuckles chap began. After about fifteen minutes I found Knuckles and we headed out to the yard where it was very dark. I got into my truck which had been blocking a lane on the street and I assumed Knuckles would have the chain unlocked within thirty seconds.
A couple minutes passed.
Knuckles still had not unlocked the chain and I figured the lock must have been broken. I got out of my truck to see him struggling with the key. It might have been dark outside, but my truck's headlights provided more than enough light for such a simple task. I then realized at that moment why he was called Knuckles.
Knuckles had no fuck’n fingers.
Seriously, this guy is trying to open a padlock with a key and he has no fingers. I offered to help, but Knuckles would have no part of it. He would be unlocking the lock all by himself so I went back into my truck and waited. After about five minutes the lock was finally off and I drove into the yard, it was now half past eleven. It had taken me thirty minutes since I arrived just to get my truck to the back receiving dock.
As I backed up to the outdoor dock, I saw so many rats scurrying about distracted by my headlights. Some rats were so large I thought they were cats running under the yellow Pepsi skids. Seeing scurrying rats in the yard was a weekly occurrence during all those late Friday night deliveries.
Another crazy sight I would see often on Friday nights was frozen piss inside the ice cream freezers. The checkout lineups were so long and they would snake around the freezers, some kids would actually take a piss inside them. The freezers were always located near the checkouts since ice cream would be one of the last purchases made when shopping. I guess some parents were not willing to give up their spot in the line to take their kids to the washroom.
What kind of parent lets their kid piss inside an ice cream freezer?
I kid you not.
While working those Friday nights, on at least four or five occasions I would need a freezer cleaned out because a kid had pissed inside of it. If none of the staff agreed to clean it up, I just left it empty. You could not pay me enough to clean piss out of a freezer. Most of the time the freezer would have to be turned off anyway because the yellow puddle of piss had already frozen solid by the time I arrived.
Seriously, I can’t make this shit up.
I never lasted that complete summer working on Friday nights. One Friday night I was driving home northbound on the Don Valley Parkway and I almost crashed my truck into the bullnose guardrail. I must have dozed off for an instant and woke up just before I hit the rail.
It was very close. Too close for comfort.
Working Friday nights had become too much for me. I was just too tired coming back at 4 am and it was unsafe to be driving a truck with so little sleep. I didn’t need the extra cash that bad and I told my boss I would not be working anymore Friday nights.
Over the years I literally sold thousands of those 4 litre pails at the Lansdowne store and I made a ton of money in commission. Eventually, Knob Hill Farms went out of business and the final store closed in 2001. The company had not kept up with the times; technology was taking over the retail sector. Newer competitors like Food Basics, No Frills, Costco and the new mega size Loblaw’s stores would leave Knob Hill Farms behind eating their dust.
After Knob Hill went out of business I never saw another 4 litre pail on my truck again. There was just not enough profit margin and the big round pails left too much wasted space on the shelf compared to the more popular compact 2 litre blocks. Had Knob Hill Farms survived, I think I would have eventually left a few empty 4 litre PPP's on the floor around the freezers at my Lansdowne store.
Hell, maybe I would have gotten Knuckles to make me a simple little sign for each of them.
PORTA PISSING PAIL.
Now that would have been a great idea.
Now that would have been a great idea.
