The A&P on Thunder Road

Census worker hanged with 'fed' on body

Picture for flavor only (Hazard KY) Maybe news that ACORN was no longer doing the census never made it down there.  My condolences to the poor guy's family, but I'm none too fond of Census people coming to my house either. Anyway, if you're thinking that story reminded me of another'n, you're right. The Louisville, KY sales district was too small to have a training supervisor, so I was dispatched in the early 70's to train a new guy.  The food company I worked for had a strict dress code; business suit, white shirt, wingtips, business haircut and no facial hair.  They were obsessive about enforcing it.  This day we worked the area around Harlan County, and pulled into a town with an A&P store.  My salesman very nervously suggested that we go in sans coat and tie.  Nuh-uh, I perfunctorily replied, citing the dress code.  But, he explained, with a coat and tie we might be mistaken for Feds.  "And ...?" says I.  "And they shoot feds here." He seemed  very earnest about it, so I agreed and we ditched them. After we checked stock, rotated cans, etc., we went to the manager's office to make our pitch for stocking additional product.  Working from memory here, the office was in the rear of this small A&P, and the manager was a very convivial sort, wearing a white short sleeve shirt and bow tie.  While trainee did his stuff, I perused framed pictures cut from, I think, Life magazine that were hanging on the wall.  Depicted: three dead men laying in the street, just outside this very store.  The manager, he'd been a stock clerk at the time, explained. The dead men were feds.  Revenuers.  Shot dead, and left to percolate in the hot summer sun because the other feds were reluctant for obvious reasons to move them.  After dark,  a small army of them hauled the bodies away.  The A&P manager was pleased as punch to relate this story.  I never wore a tie on in Harlan County again. I tried Googling this story up, but after an hour of wading through Thunder Road hits, I gave up.  I have a story about Thunder Road too. About working the kiddie car ride at the Maryland State Fair with a guy'd been in the movie.  But that's for another time.