Goodwill: Disillusion

    Continuing with my experience working in a Goodwill Store in 1970 as my two year Conscientious Objector service:

    Every morning I worked with Floyd Dennison pushing the pedestal desk around as we priced the furniture and electrical appliances.   Although I really liked and enjoyed being around Dennison and he was always kind to me, I was often left me conflicted.  

    He had the type of personality that I generally avoided in my personal life, because his values were so much different than mine.  I was a quiet, polite, and politically correct-type of guy, who neither drank, cussed, nor smoked, Dennson was just the opposite in all of those characteristics.  He was a small town “good ol’ boy” whose speech was laced with expletives.  It wasn’t hard to imagine him spending his weekends in a dingy, dimly-lit small-town tavern, smokin’, drinkin’, and telling stories to the boys.  

    He loudly flirted with the female coworkers as they walked by us.   Fortunately most of them knew Dennison and his ways, and so they would give back as much abuse as they had gotten.  As they got further away, Dennison would tell me how he would just love to “snuggled in between those tits and root around.”  I hated that kind of macho talk and cringed every time he started with it.  

    I did admire how well he coped with the loss of his left arm, which ended just above the elbow.  I was amazed every time I watched him stoop down and tie his shoe using just his right hand.  I still have trouble comprehending how he did it.  

    He was also able to use his handicap in a devious ways.  One day was we were pricing the electrical goods, I saw him grab a nice electric shaver from the pricing table and slip it into his left suit-coat pocket.  When he saw that I had noticed, he brazenly told me he had been needing a shaver, and I watched as he then took his empty left sport coat sleeve, and tuck it’s end into the pocket over of the shaver.  Tucking an empty coat sleeve into a pocket was something I noticed many amputees do, but to see Dennison do it to hide a theft was a bit disturbing.  He explained,, “They never check me at the door.”

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