Oddest moment at the Food Show

[gordonzola]

At the beer and cheese tasting that I was working, I got cornered by a couple of higher-ups at a local cheese distributor. They were grilling me about why I buy this from one company and that from another one and basically why I don’t buy everything from them. They seemed hurt when I told them I think of them as a commodity cheese seller first and a specialty one second. And geez, it’s not like I didn’t order half a pallet of Basque sheep cheese from them last week.

Anyways, one of my favorite cheese folks walks up and I introduce everyone. The main distributor guy is probably younger than me by the way; the guy who just walked up runs a store in Milwaukee and I would take to be a just too young to be a real hippie back in the day. When I tell Distributor Guy that this person is from Milwaukee he responds with, "Oh wow, my brother is a weatherman in Madison."

Now, I know it’s probably a function of age and whether one did college-based activism, but this is the kind of statement that lets you know who you’re dealing with. Milwaukee guy and I almost jumped in surprise.

"No way!" I said. "What did he bomb?"

"I didn’t think there were any left. " Milwaukee guy said.

Now, we were joking. But Distributor Guy had no idea what we were joking about.. Even as we tried to explain it, he just got more confused and, I think, a little horrified that a group of old underground revolutionaries popped into our heads so easily. Obviously, this had never happened to him in his usual circle of business associates and friends.

His brother was not Karl Armstrong, for the record.

Comments

[felicks.livejournal.com]

Did you say that the cheese higher-ups were 'grilling' you?!

I skimmed that Armstrong article. I hope he's just kind of inarticulate because "I feel real badly that Bob Fassnacht died in the bombing." is a pretty weak response to murdering someone.

[gwenzilla.livejournal.com]

*groan*

[susannochka.livejournal.com]

mmm, grilled gordonzola sammies.

[barthanderson.livejournal.com]

To look at it another way, Armstrong gets interviewed at LEAST once a year about it and always has a host of Freshman-class, would-be Che Guevaras chasing him around Madison now. After 20 years of that and doing time for the murder, the dude might be a little jaded by the question to begin with by now.

On the other hand, he's also been accused of working his fame (infamy?) in Madison, so you might be right. All too blithe...

[felicks.livejournal.com]

Ya, it would be unfair of me to put to much on a pull-out quote from an article. Who knows what context that was taken out of, what was happening for him that day, how accurately the reporter conveyed the conversation, etc.

Still, if you've been speaking about the issue for so long, I'd hope you'd have a pat line down along the lines of "I'll never be able to make up for killing a human being that day" somewhere between the "we were desperate to end the war in any way we could" and "why don't you shove that Che t-shirt right up your own ass".

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

hee hee hee on the first sentence. Ugh on the second.