Yesterday I stopped at Sentry on Lisbon and saw an apron-ed teen there bagging groceries. I felt for him. I remember when I was him.
Now that Red Owl Logo has logged onto Twitter and lots of folks retweet its musings, I'm reminded more often than ever.
I moved to Milwaukee in 1983 right when I turned 17 and I got my first job here (I'd had jobs on and off in Brooklyn since I was 9) at a Red Owl supermarket, where I bagged groceries, emptied mouse traps, collected carts in the parking lot, carried out groceries to cars and was the daily target of the derision of the owner, who seemed to think -- quite ironically -- that having a handful of people working for him made him better than them.
Thanks to the way I (like the others) was often treated, I joined my first union at Red Owl.
Lately, I've been seeing tweets from @Red_Owl_Logo -- with its angry, beady-eyed gaze -- on Twitter and I wondered if the defunct chain was making a comeback.
The profile bio reads, "I am the logo of the now defunct Red Owl Grocery Store chain. I'm filled with opinions and low on patience. I speak through the people of Boelter + Lincoln."
The opinions and low patience part sounded familiar. But I doubted Boelter + Lincoln, a local PR firm, would be involved.
So, I contacted the Boelter folks to see what was up. The always helpful Andy Larsen pointed me to his co-worker Garth Cramer, a senior writer and producer.
"My mom was a hardcore Red Owl shopper in my youth," Cramer reminisced in an e-mail. "I always remembered being intimidated by that logo, especially since it was everywhere in our house (my mom saved every grocery bag ever).
"I saw it again one day when I was helping my mom clean out some storage. It just seemed to have something to say. Mostly, 'I haven’t forgotten you knocking that produce display over when you were 7 years old.' So, I started pinning up phrases in my cube and it became kind of a thing."
Interesting that, even though Cramer was not an employee like I was, his memories of Red Owl also seem to stem from fear and anger. Perhaps he knocked over that display at the store where I worked.
If so, maybe he can take some comfort in the knowledge that I likely got yelled at, too, for putting it back up incorrectly, too slowly, or like a sissy because I don't hunt deer ... or all three.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
