Baglickers, gulpers, and my pal Randy

Let me stress off the top that my pal Randy was neither. Instead, we were both welders from Ontario who found ourselves working on the frigate program that kept the Irving shipyard in Saint John busy for the better part of twenty years. After getting the contract, Irving had to go on a massive hiring spree. Once they’d scooped up every unemployed shipyard worker and welder in the Maritimes, they started recruiting in Ontario. That’s how me and Randy both ended up in New Brunswick. Randy was an interesting character. Unlike me, he had actual shipyard experience under his belt. In fact, he did his apprenticeship at the Collingwood shipyard, building the last thing of consequence that yard ever launched, the Chi-Cheemaun ferry that to this day delivers tourists from Tobermorey to Manitoulin Island. With his shipbuilding experience Randy was an obvious hire for Irving, whereas I was just a guy who could study a blueprint and make stuff look like the picture. Anyway, we soon learned some nuances about how the locals saw the guys from Ontario, and there were dozens of us; “baglickers from Upper Canada.” I shit you not! Working class Maritimers talked like that. Once you got to know the nuances you realized “baglicker” was loosely applied to anyone who did anything to please our bosses. Sooner or later, if youre gonna keep your job, you’re obviously gonna please the boss, so eventually everyone was to a greater or lesser extent a “baglicker.” What you didn’t want to be labelled as was a “gulper.” Generously speaking, that was the kind of employee who, when shit upon, said “thanks” and asked for more. Neither Randy or I fit that profile, but I gotta say Randy came with a big dose of over-confidence that got him in hot water from time to time. When Randy was doing his apprenticeship his father was the manager of that yard. Randy himself told me his family had expected much more from him. In high school he was a track & field star, an A+ student, and an all-round man-about-town. And, from his own telling, a completely arrogant and spoiled young man. Collingwood is but a short hop from Wasaga Beach, where every spring your outlaw biker types like to make a pilgrimage. So one fine sunny spring day Randy finds himself in a bar in Wasaga, and there’s several pretty gals at the bar, and they’re all wearing T-shirts proclaiming “property of Hells Angels MC.” Now, if it was me, I’d nod politely and move on. Not Randy. He fancied himself a “ladies man,” and set about charming those gals in spite of the fact a half-dozen full-patch Angels were sitting at a table on the other side of the room. Long story short, when Randy emerged from his coma a couple weeks later, he left behind twenty or thirty IQ points. What he carried with him, however, was his over-weening arrogance. I should mention that my time at Irvings yard totalled a little under two years. Those two years can be neatly cut in half. After the first year, my wife absconded with our children back to Ontario. In that first year I had never set foot in a Saint John bar. In the second year, I got kicked out of every bar in Saint John, and Randy was my trusty sidekick in every one of those adventures. But getting back to Randy’s arrogance; we were on the same crew of about a dozen or so, and we all sat together for breaks. One of the young guys was a black belt in some sort of eastern martial combat stuff. This kid was early 20s, if that, whereas Randy had a good 15 years on him. Nevertheless, Randy was convinced he could lay a whuppin’ on the young whipper-snapper. They had a couple of jousts right there, which were indecisive. It was decided they would square off after work one day. So they did. After our shift, around midnight, two dozen guys head down the railway tracks that lead from the yard into town. I gotta say I’m feeling like a bit of a dorkshit just being there. I mean… two adults having a rassle on the train tracks at midnight? What the fuck am I doing here? Anyway, as any betting man would have wagered, the kid won and the old guy lost. It wasn’t long after that I reluctantly left that shipyard job so I could be closer to my children. That eventually led to teacher’s college and, in the fullness of time, the pension that now pays my bills. As for Randy, his dad was by then the boss of the yard in Welland. Randy always promised me he’d get me a job there. Never heard from him again, but hey dude, if you’re still out there, I salute you, Randy!