One more quick story from that 70s period, there was a mink farm out on steamboat island, and since I was a snot nosed teenage trapper in high school who needed some $4 an hour work , I put in an application, and to my delight I was hired, $4 an hour back in 79 was pretty good money for a high school kid.
The owner was german with a thick accent, good guy, but a straight shooter, no bullshyting around him, he wasnt into jokes and light talk.
My first job was feeding the mink and cleaning and shoveling the poopy (I didnt want to say *censored*ty) shavings from under the cage into a wheelbarrow and taking it away, I didnt mind being around a lot of mink of varying colors, it was pretty cool.
I did that for awhile and finally the Ol boss says one day, "We harvest next week, are you ready?" I was like Hell Yeaaaaa! ( I had been hounding him about wanting to be on the skinning crew)
Fast forward next week, I'm introduced to the dispatch methods, which I was part of, you take a mink outta the cage, and with a stiff wire tool that reminds me of the old wheelo toy without the wheelo(if you were born after 75 you probably are confused) you would put this tool around its head and pull back to snap its neck, sometimes it was a gas in the box kill type thing (didnt really care for those, especially with the german accent thing going on...lol, sorry thats sick)
Finally I got on the skin team (no, not the swim team, the skin team!) it was a fast paced operation, which I was having a hard time keeping up with the better skinners, among them the bosses two daughters who were about my age, and pretty to boot, these two girls skinned mink like olympic champions, they were skinning 4 mink to my one, and of course I'm making bad cuts, tryin to keep up, these girls were nice and helpfull (Did I mention they were pretty?) but the old man didnt like the way I skinned and he didnt like the way I glanced at his daughters, I could tell by the the blood vessels in his neck.
So anyway I'm skinning away trying to keep up......anybody ever hit a mink gland sack and have it go in you're eye? Thats what happened, and I was wearing contacts, and it burned! I finally told the ol man, I cant keep up with the pace, it was cool, he was probably gonna fire me anyway and we parted ways on a good note.
I did run into one of his daughters at a party a few years later we laughed over that mink musk in the eye trick.
OK, enough stories, I got an auction to do in the morning..............
