Veronica Martin: Can you please state your full name?
Arnold Yarber: My name is Arnold L. Yarber. L is for Lebron.
Veronica Martin: What do you do for a living now?
Arnold Yarber: Well, I had a barbeque pit that I have had for a
number of years, plus being retired from the university. Other
than that, I do the barbeque pit on the weekends. Forty five
years.
Veronica Martin: Is this what you really wanted to do?
Arnold Yarber: No, no this is not what I really wanted to do.
Veronica Martin: Why?
Arnold Yarber: Well, this isn't particularly what I wanted to
do. I wanted to be a chiropractor. And so I went to school and I
finished chiropractor.
Veronica Martin: What interested you in that?
Arnold Yarber: I was working... I was delivering ice here in
Champaign and the guy told me about chiropracting and that it
was a way of curing people without medication and I didn't
believe him so I got dealt into like I wasn't a believer and I
started looking into things. And I discovered what you could do
with chiropractic. I knew I had a grandmother she was older, my
grandmother was 70 years old at that time, and she had asthma
very very bad, and I learned how to adjust her and to relieve
her asthma. There were many different things you could do. And I
really got interested in it. And I never did get my license
because coming up in that era going to school the chiropractic
school did not accept American Negroes. And you had this, and I
finally found one in Ohio that 25 folks enrolled in it. Over in
Ohio, governor Louchy knew me very very well and I talked to him
in his office, governor's mansion rather. He tried like the
devil to help us get licensed but the medical board wouldn't do
it, so therefore I never did get my license, even though we
finished the school, and we learned a lot.
Veronica Martin: Do you think your education in chiropracting
helped you become where you are now?
Arnold Yarber: What do you mean barbequing?
Veronica Martin: Yes sir.
Arnold Yarber: No I don't think that. I'm doing it, but I'm
doing it because it's something that all during the depression
years my grandmother did, so after getting married, you have to
have something to do. Job wasn't out there. So I decided
barbeque, and it worked for us. Barbequing selling hot tamales.
People have to eat something anyway. After I got started in it
one time here in Champaign there were seven other barbeque pits
open. We weathered the storm all of these years.
Veronica Martin: How long have you been living in
Champaign/Urbana?
Arnold Yarber: Ha ha ha ha. I was born here. As a matter of fact
one two three four blocks. I was born four blocks down the
street there.
Veronica Martin: What year were you born?
Arnold Yarber: Pardon?
Veronica Martin: What year were you born?
Arnold Yarber: A long time ago. Like you ladies you evade that
one.
Veronica Martin: Did you live in a mixed or segregated
neighborhood?
Arnold Yarber: Matter of fact, dear, I have always lived right
around here in this area. It's always been mixed. Always mixed,
it would have a street with housing white white Negro Negro
white, negro, over here, white, negro all around so that's all
up around the corner. We all played together. All the time, so
it was nothing new to me, we had a lot of fun. Now you had your
likes and your agreements and disagreements at times. Then I
went right down there street down a block Gregory and went
through there. I've always been in a mixed community.
Veronica Martin: Did you chose to live in this neighborhood or
were you guys...had to
Arnold Yarber: Now when you say did I chose, you go where your
parents go, dear.
Veronica Martin: Yeah did your parents...were they forced to
live here?
Arnold Yarber: Oh no no no. They weren't forced. No no no no. At
the time, that's during the Depression. You get houses where you
could at the price you can afford to pay for. That was the Great
Depression. Like on my grandmother she was working she only made
5 dollars a week. She sold hot tamales and be out there on the
street selling hot tamales. You would do everything that you
could in order to make it. May worked and she wasn't making
anything but they put it together.
Veronica Martin: Did you attend church while you were a child?
Arnold Yarber: Oh yes. Did I? You had to. We had to. There was
no ultimatum. We had to. Baptist. I used to get a nickel to put
in at church. Until I started my store, and then I spent a penny
of candy on my way until the church caught me not putting the
nickel in just the four pennies, and he told me he was going to
call my grandmother if didn't put the nickel in the church.
Veronica Martin: A penny worth of candy was worth a lot back
then.
Arnold Yarber: Oh yes, you got solider type 2 for a penny. 2
doughnuts for a nickel... buy them a day old-get 4 for a nickel.
That's the truth. That's what I used to have for breakfast.
Before high school, I would get four doughnuts. Then I had a
dime for lunch. Lunch included cost 22 cents. Fifteen cents is
all I had.
Veronica Martin: What role did your church play in your life...
how did it affect your life?
Arnold Yarber: I don't know. There was so many kids at the time,
and we all got along as a community. It taught us a lot of
things. Togetherness. That's what I really saw at the church. A
lot of togetherness because we were all together at the same
time, and by that day, we depended on one another. All of the
activities everything, on Sunday mornings you would see what
side of town, this was called the west side, although it was not
until you got to Neil street not until Illinois central
railroad-divided into east and west all of the time. You try to
beat the kids on the east side, and we were on the west side.
Going to church, and Sunday evenings you had five'o clock they
had BYBU-Baptist young people union. Kids from all the churches
would meet at Salem Baptist church. That's when you get to see
your girl I guess if you had one. So that's where we would meet
there. All of the kids would meet there on Sunday evening. That
was it. There was no choice, that's where we had to go. So you'd
be there. You'd be talking about music and things but everyone
would be at that Salem Baptist church.
Veronica Martin: How did your church feel about racism and
prejudice?
Arnold Yarber: See during that era we lived with it. It wasn't
as pronounced as it was now. We knew it was there, and you dealt
around it. You really did. You really dealt around it. You knew
you didn't like it, but there wasn't too much we could do about
it in that era. Not really too much. The only thing you could do
was try to be a better person. We would strive to do. We didn't
have all these games, we didn't have all these... this is how
the situation was. You didn't lock your house. I lived right
here on the house. I would take the key lock the house and stick
the key right there beside the door. Many times I would think
about this. You would take the key unlock the door and put the
key right back there outside by the door and go on. No one
robbed. Things change as you went a long with people and
situations. But you know you didn't like it, but that's what was
dealt to us. Those were the cards that were dealt to us at the
time dear.
Veronica Martin: Do you remember any times when it happened that
you had to deal around it?
Arnold Yarber: You constantly dealt around it but you did it in
a manner nice way. There was no fighting. Take for instance,
down here at the dime store, what used to be the dime store on
Neil Street. You could go in there and you could eat. They had a
"L" shaped counter like this. Now that end was where, so where
I've gone through so many names, colored, Negroes makes you
wonder where you stand at the time. But see, at that era the
colored kids had to eat when you go down to the dime store at
the short end and there was no seats and down at this end where
all the seats were were for the white kids in town. And see we
went to school together, and that's how that worked. You didn't
like it but you lived with it.
Veronica Martin: Which childhood experiences which school
experiences were life shaping or life changing?
Arnold Yarber: I don't quite follow you here dear... what are
you saying?
Veronica Martin: Like when you were in school what was something
that really shaped your mindset or your beliefs?
Arnold Yarber: Oh, Ok. Well, I think it really happened, I
believe I was in grade school, up here on Gregory school. We had
a teacher no I believe she was in charge and she was a very very
fair lady. I did something one time. We had musical chairs and I
remember going around, and when the music stopped you could sit
down. But I was on the other side of the chair and they had
these arms on it. I jumped over the chair. And well, we had a
teacher that liked this little girl. That jumped over the seat
and beat her to the chair. And so, they had me all day long and
they didn't spank me, and see in those days you get spankings in
school and the teacher... I mean the principal she would spank
you and so by the time I got done crying a ton, what not, she
talked to me, it changed me a whole lot. Never was a bad person.
Kids just weren't really that bad at that time. We just really
weren't. But the fact is, you could tell the difference in the
structure of the situation didn't turn out. However, that
changed me a lot.
And then I made a big boo boo in the fourth grade. And everybody
laughed at me, and I've never gotten over it, and so many kids
I've seen and they looked at me laughing and pointing their
finger at me, and not many of them about four or five are still
living around here. So, I was being very honest I thought that's
what it meant. So I've never heard of a tree bow of a tree. So,
I raised my hand at the fourth grade, and the sentence bowel,
bowel. I knew of was the intestine. I never knew anything tree
bowl. So I made a very very bad mistake of putting up my hand
and the teacher ok Arnold. I say well, the boy's bowels have
been running. Everybody in schools screams, and I didn't know
what they were laughing at because I had never heard of anything
different. The teacher took me over to the side and talked to me
and told me, because I didn't know. That's one of the things
that changed me. It made me taking in some of the other kids
that I was there with. As I said we had integrated school when I
went to school. That was one of things that changed and made me
think differently about people. After that I never let one
person black or white tell me who I should deal with or don't
because that person... they might not be ok for that person, but
they're ok with me. So I never let no one else, and I would
advise all kids...think for yourself.. don't let other people
dictate how you should do in situations. Find them out.
Veronica Martin: Was there ever a time or a place in your life
that you thought that everybody was separate but equal?
Arnold Yarber: No, let me get that back, a time in my life where
I thought everyone was separate but equal? Now that's quite a
statement to use, separate but equal. I never did understand
that coming up. Everybody is separate but equal. I always felt
that everybody was equal. I never did get to the part of it that
we were separate... well right there because he was thinking
separatism. How can you be equal if you're separate? That's how
I looked at it. But I never I just my feeling has always been
like this, I like you because I like you, I don't like you
because I don't like you. See now, I don't have time to figure
out your color your religion and all that. Then again I always
left room for the fact that we could get together and we could
talk about it. And that has happened to me. We have come up with
a situation, and you cool off, were you that far apart... start
getting closer,... you might never get tight, but you get where
you can understand and respect each other views on specific
aspects. Does that answer your question?
Veronica Martin: Yes, sir. Where there ways you were treated
differently from other students in your school?
Arnold Yarber: Not when I was going to school...well only in the
fifth grade... only that one time. When I jumped over that
seat... oh and one other time in eighth grade. I was very I was
a good student in school until the eighth grade and I had math.
In my math class, that changed me. I went in to Ms. McGuinnie
and we had long division and fractions. I went into the room and
she says Arnold have a seat I say ok. She said what do you want
and I told her I wanted to ask some questions about these
fractions. She said ok. Three little white girls came in I'm
sitting there and she's going to help me, and they start talking
to her and she put her arms around them and start talking to
them and walked away from me. I sat there and waited for her.
She never did come back to me. Everything that I had built up
for love of people, just sort of vanished from me. It really did
because from that moment on I never was good at math. Everything
else, I was good at in school. In math, I just couldn't get over
what she did to me in that math class. I never could. And in
math that was the culprit. But it really and truly wasn't but
that's what she did. Ms. McGuinnie. Never will forget her. As a
matter of fact I went to school with her brother.
Veronica Martin: You did? With her brother or her kid?
Arnold Yarber: Her brother, and he was right here on the city
council and I was on the police and fire commission. I always
remember he would try to get me to do some things I didn't like
it. I didn't do things around the corner come straight to me and
we'll talk about it. The only reason I wouldn't do it was
because his sister had done that to me. That's holding a grudge.
Veronica Martin: Did you have any white friends when you were
little?
Arnold Yarber: Oh yes. We lived in a mixed neighborhood. We had
one boy, Charles Reno you didn't know if he was white or
black... he was an Italian kid. We all got dirty together. One
of the things we would do, we weren't stealing together. This is
a true story.. it's clean. Champaign had all the chickens come
in and they would let them off right up the street here. And
they would get lose, and the Nelson brothers, and Charles Reno,
we called him credio and myself was four of us. We would get
right here up on the railroad tracks and as those chickens would
get away, you know escape out of those pens, we would run and
grab them and give them back to the man. At the end of the day
he'd always give us a chicken. This one day he wouldn't give us
a chicken. So we got our heads together, and Charlie went up the
street and he kind of rope, we tried it on the back of the thing
that had the coups they had the chickens, that was holding them
in, and they had them packed up on this flatbed and on the other
side of the train, nobody could see us, and I tied it .and
pulled and pulled the coup down...chickens all over the place. I
lived in this house, knocked the window out and it wasn't really
a window anyway where we put coal, we were running around
throwing chickens in that basement.
Veronica Martin: Oh my, live ones?
Arnold Yarber: Yes, dear. We were running chasing them. When we
got through we divided them up between me, Nelson and Charlie.
We must have had 20 chickens. We ate chicken. From then on when
they came around we'd go up there and help out, they would give
us a chicken. You had to make your point. We the kids, we would
go to ice. We had good times, and we had bad times. We did
pretty good at times. We lived together, we lived together very
good.
Veronica Martin: Did you play any sports with your friends?
Arnold Yarber: High school? Oh, yes.. I played at Champaign High
School. I wouldn't go out for what we would do out in the street
here, we would punt, see how far we could punt the ball... for
here down to... I could punt like the devil. So we would go up
to Douglas Park and play with the white and the black together
we would play. And so that summer I decided, not too many go out
for football in high school so I decided to go out for football
my senior year in Champaign High School. So I went to Les Morar.
I said Les, I'm coming out for football this fall. He said,
you're going to have to be twice as good as the white boy to
play now. I looked at him. I said I'll play. So when school
started, I started on the first team and the kicking and doing
the running. There was one other kid, the other Negro kid, to
west Frankfort, I had never heard of it. And let me tell you
dear, when I got off of that bus they looked at me and saw me I
tried to get back on that bus. What they were calling me. I
couldn't get off the bus because other kids were getting off. I
had quite a time that night. And after that, and that was just
one incident. But it worked out ok. I played football I played
basketball. I was the starting guard in basketball. I was first
baseman and shortstop in baseball. I think I was the pitcher
there when I was in high school on the baseball team. I think I
have one under there. I did that, the only reason I didn't play
soccer was that something else came up. They started playing out
in Douglas Park, and so I wouldn't go out. Three sports that
here was enough. I lettered in all of them and played in first
string all the time.
Veronica Martin: Uou played them all together...
Arnold Yarber: Well, no well, as the season came on. Well, my
senior year, I didn't do anything in my senior year. The most of
the negro kids didn't go out for sports around here during that
time. Just didn't They would go up to Douglas park. We'd play
all the time. That's where we were. We were there all of the
time.
Veronica Martin: Was it the same?
Arnold Yarber: No, no. When we first started everything used to
be up here on.. it used to be the Lawhead school and we played
back there in Lawhead school, and then they got that park over
there at Douglas Park and we used to have games, and all of the
kids in town, every night, you didn't see any fighting around
here, among the negro kids, there were no fighting. Now, if you
want to fight, you get down there on that field and fight and
beat the other team, and you know how that goes, you brag about
how we beat you and blah blah blah that was our fighting,
fighting like that. When we played football, really funny. Guys
had no gear for football, so we would get socks put rags in
them, and put them up here for shoulder pads arm, and whatnot.
That was it socks in it put it on your knees because your knees
are going to hit that hard ground out there. And, the kids I
know that they went over there to one of those schools over
there... they didn't have anything but asphalt and rocks on
their grade school, so it was a little rough, but we enjoyed it.
We'd be all skinned up and we'd be showing, my scar is bigger
than yours.
Veronica Martin: What kinds of things did your parents teach
you?
Arnold Yarber: Oh ok. My mother died when I was two and my
father lived in Chicago at the time, and I lived with my
grandmother and aunt. They taught me was good fellows part of
life. Respect people, respect people, respect others, and
they'll respect you. And I grew up on that. Just respect the
other fellow man and I think it got me by pretty well. I really
truly do. Just a respect for other people. I enjoyed it. And I
received respect from other people. I still try to do it.
Respect others.
Veronica Martin: Did they have any expectations for you?
Arnold Yarber: Well, nothing particular really because during
that era, what they wanted you to do was be a good person. We
didn't see that much for the Negro. Wasn't that much out here
for us to gain. Those things that should have been gained were
not, didn't have the opportunity to do it. We'd love to. So much
of it you just couldn't do. Just couldn't do it. Your job, they
oh god so many of the kids were trying to get just this one job,
because there wasn't nothing for us around here. I know that if
I were to go up to Chicago and live with my dad, I didn't. I
didn't do nothing up there, because up there they, during that
time up there, when I was a teenager it was during the
Depression. It's not like it is this time.
Veronica Martin: Did your school experience any new way or put
up road blocks to your goals.
Arnold Yarber: No. no I don't think a school... personally my
dear I don't think is able to do it. I think you do it to
yourself. It's always going to be things you have to climb over
little, blockage. But if you stop and think you can get around
things. People put a lot of... that's in all life. I don't care
how you are how high you are in big business. There's no road
blocks. Just stop and think and you can master it. You can make
it. It may not turn out how you want it to, but it will succeed.
If you really try hard enough. Quite blaming on the other person
that they can't do it. I could have done this if... just get
that out of the way and just go do it. Or get caught dead trying
to do it. If you do, you'll feel good about doing it. I know
that.
So, no I remember when something happened in the service. WWII.
Things were going on that were real bad, and here come along
officers to me, grabbed me on the side and said Yarber, I says
yes sir. He said I want you to go out and we were at a dry dot.
I always thought about this. He said I want you to do something.
He gave me 10 dollars and he said, I want you to go out, it was
in New York City, and get me some whiskey. I said what? I said,
you want me to do what sir? He said I want you to go out and buy
me a fifth of whiskey. I said I don't know where to buy no fifth
of whiskey. I don't drink. He said but I know you can do it.
Well now he put that before me. I know you can do it. Now I'm
going to do it now just because he said that. And I found a way
to do it. I went out and I did it. I came before ship and I went
out and how am I going to get this stuff to this officer to let
him know that it can be done against all odds. I got it done,
and I went to but me some tape and I went to this place and I
bought it and taped it to my leg, and I walked wide legged up on
the ship.
Veronica Martin: Because they wouldn't allow you with it.
Arnold Yarber: They wouldn't allow it. You weren't supposed
bring it on the ship. Anyway, but he's going to test me in some
type of way. And I'm going to show him that it could be done if
it had to be done. I wasn't going to let him get me. And I
brought it back to him and he never knew how it was done and he
never asked I just knocked on his door and said here it is sir,
and he just looked at me and I just walked away. Just to prove
things could be done and things in life that can't be done, but
it can be done.
Veronica Martin: Do you think that changed or affected you in
anyway?
Arnold Yarber: What changed?
Veronica Martin: Like telling you can do this, or trying to test
you in anyway?
Arnold Yarber: Well, no it hasn't affected me. I just believe in
myself and I know I'm right. Mostly the right things in life,
I'm going along with it and try to do the best that I can. And I
have a sense to know when things are wrong. I knew that was
wrong, but I knew what he was trying to do to me. See, not
letting him get to me and let him know I'm dumb, because doing
that era, they wouldn't let us as negroes do certain things
aboard ship during WWII. You couldn't fire a gun you couldn't do
this, you had to wait on the officers. That's all you could do.
We didn't know enough of doing things. So, since we didn't know.
We are smarter than you think we are. Can't get things done. I
guess life is somewhat like that. I guess. I don't worry about
it too much now, but I enjoy when they say you can't do it but
they don't say but they know they can't put you to the test. You
can sit down and think. Don't think you can't sit down and take
the time to think. It's got to be another way to get around it.
I do things. I stop thinking. They said you can't do anything
with a barbeque pit with the others. And I say I haven't tried
yet. Things like that.
Veronica Martin: What do you know about integration of the
schools and the culmination of Brown v. Board of education.
Arnold Yarber: Brow v. Board here in Champaign? Or all over?
Veronica Martin: All over.
Arnold Yarber: Well, all I can say through my experience I have
seen one heck of a change. I've seen a tremendous change. And I
was just looking at something that I've seen a change was down
in the south and up here, see by growing up here I never did
know so much about it as being a bad situation with the board of
education. I guess they did have other things... highlights in
it, but I didn't know about it. All this stuff, and the kids
were able to go to school and obtain the grades and go on to
higher colleges. And then I found out, I went to the south and
checked out that, and I didn't like what I saw I really and
truly didn't. But I don't know that much about the board, I
haven't been that close to it. I really and truly haven't.
But I, there has been a tremendous change that I know. I
remember here in Champaign, the teachers, how they only teachers
that they had that were negro teachers over the Lawhead school,
that was the first school, and then at Willard school, and then
Mrs. Westly got in, and she became a principal and then I saw
how the little things start working out. And so, I was past it
then, I got behind that sort of in all my life I have never had
a negro teacher. Never have. So, I can't see if a person knows
it they know it, no matter who they may be. So, I don't know
what to say but the fact, that I have never been in that
position. Actually to try to make a difference. The teachers
that I did have with the exception of one that Mrs. McGuinne.
I'll never forget that women. I'll never for that that one, but
other than that I'll never forget my teachers. And like the kids
that are coming up now, they have younger teachers coming up
now. They're more worldly. They're more readily can they see the
situations as they are happening and I think they're more, if
you're thinking about it for the white people I think they're
much more friendlier than they were many years ago. They're not
as afraid to do as they wish but they do what their mind tells
them to do. Years ago, they may have felt like it but they
couldn't do it. I don't believe.
Veronica Martin: Were there people around you talking about it..
about the Brown v. Board of education?
Arnold Yarber: no, never. My son, he's deep into that. Now my
son, he's deep into that. I'm not. My son is deep in it. I'm
not. I very seldom discuss it. As a matter of fact I never
discuss it. My son does. He and his guys get into talking about
it. So, I like to I just listen to him. I have never gotten into
it, but of course I have never studied it at all. Really and
truly haven't.
Veronica Martin: Do you think about opening your business, or
help somebody else that have gone through the struggle.
Arnold Yarber: People come up to me and I've always really the
problems that I have had they're really funny. All the problems
that I have had in this business has been from the negroes.
Really.
Veronica Martin: From saying bad things?
Arnold Yarber: You look at them and I look at them I look at
them . I think oh god, there were so many of them. I had a guy I
did a dirty deal on him one time. I didn't do anything to hurt
him personally, well I guess I did. What I did was this. Usually
I do hickory wood kind of pitch we would have you would have to
get hickory wood. I asked if he had some. I said where did you
buy the hickory wood. See I was the first one to open up year
around. I was the only one that did that. Just in summer time.
So he wouldn't tell me where he bought his hickory wood. I found
out where he got his hickory wood. I went and bought every piece
every stick that was in, I bought every gad dum stick that was I
couldn't get. I had a whole lot of hickory wood in the back
stacked up. And he came to borrow some and I told him I didn't
have any, and he could see it it was stacked up. Just because he
wouldn't tell me.
Another thing that I know that happened to me that was about
when I started the barbeque, I got nothing but negativeness from
everybody. The police officer... the Champaign the only thing
they ever sold was ribs, and that was only in the summer time.
People would have round tubs and selling ribs. 75 cents a
sandwich, 25 cents a bone... you would get three bones for 75
cents. So I said, heck you can do that in the winter time.
People eat ribs in the winter time like in the summer time. So I
decided to try that. I caught the devil from them. Then I
decided no one else would try, so I decided to try beef. I
didn't know how to buy the beef and on top of that I didn't know
how to cut the beef. So, I got some beef and I got the worst cut
of beef you could get. I had a heck of a time. Oh god. So we
finally go along. I finally got a slice, I was cutting it by
hand and that wasn't getting me nowhere, and I finally bought a
slicer. Then I got that and I decided I saw these sausages, I
was in Chicago, and I saw these sausages. No one sold a polish
sausage yet. They didn't sell them in any stores. I had to go
one day over to alagnus, alagnus over here on fifth street and I
saw these sausages so I asked. I said where do you buy these
sausages. They wouldn't tell me. I said, I'll be darn. Ok. I
said, I don't argue with people. There's got to be another way
around it. So I said when can I come and buy some. Well the
truck will be in Wednesday. Ok. 7 in the morning I was out in
front of her house over there on fifth street. Waiting in my
car, because I didn't know what time they came. So when they got
there I walked up to them and said do you got polish sausages?
He said I got them. I said where did they come from. They made
them right over there in Danville. I said, I'll be darn. I went
over to the place where they made them and I start talking to
the fellow now, I know in the beginning, I bought a couple of
football tickets and gave it to the guy over there so, I could
get in with him to get the polish sausages. So I had him add
garlic to them, add a couple of other things to the sausages,
and then they became a good hit. Polish sausages. Another thing,
I didn't know how to cook the thing. I got them and now what do
with them. How do I cook them. So I decided... oh I was up in
Rantoul and I saw a guy cook hamburgers. Not on a grill deep
fryer.
Veronica Martin: Like French fires.. you put them in the grease?
Arnold Yarber: Just like the French fries. They had hamburger
patties, they put them right in there and like anything else,
they're down in there and when they're done they rise to the
top. I got these polish sausages and they have this casing
around them. So, I'll try that.
Veronica Martin: And so you fry them now?
Arnold Yarber: 40 some years, I've been frying them. That's the
only way.
Veronica Martin: I've never heard of that. I've heard of them on
the grill and in the water.
Arnold Yarber: You haven't heard of any polish sausage on the
grill.
Veronica Martin: Them little red things
Arnold Yarber: No, that's a different type of sausage. I 'm
talking about like I get, they don't put them on the grill. Copy
after me from what we've done. So that's when we did that. I was
selling a whole lot of polish sausages. Now some of the guys
that have left and gone into Indianapolis, they get sausages,
but they were more meal in it than meat. I always believed in
getting the purest sub. No imitation.
Veronica Martin: Yours have more meat?
Arnold Yarber: Yeah mine's 85 percent meat. That's what I do
still today. They have meal and beef... but I go ahead and get
it. They charge me more you don't be cutting down. You give me
what I ask for so, I got them and now they bring them to me all
of the time the way I want them. That was it. You're in
business, you want to keep your business a little bit. If you
want to keep your customer.. you don't want to be out there
messing up your customer you can't be feeding them not what they
want. You can't or you won't have customers. I just hate to see
somebody mess up and start I have a business going, I can
cheapen this I can cheapen that product. Same thing with the
pork. I started with the pork. I didn't know anything about
pork. And so I got a guy that was going to be selling me pork, I
was going to have pork sandwiches. And what he sold me was tight
Veronica Martin: And small.
Arnold Yarber: Well, something else has got to give. I went
somewhere. It was a guy here in town. It was a dentist. I ask
him man what's wrong with my pork. He was from the southern part
of the state. He said you ought to go down to Harrisburg.
There's a man down there blah blah blah... I've never been down
to Harrisburg. So I got a friend of mine we got in the car and
we went down to Harrisburg. I was talking to this fellow about
pork. He said what kind do you? He didn't say nothing. I said I
guess he's not going to talk to me. So then he started
talking... and later on he said we'll be open at 11 'o clock.
And I saw all of these kids coming through and I said golly
mosses. And everything he sold was a pork sandwich. A pork chop.
Boy, I said no ribs? No beef? No just a pork sandwich. I'll be
darn. All they sold were pork sandwiches. And so I said I was
going to try what he's doing. So I start buying what he tells me
to buy. And we did.
Veronica Martin: and so now you sell all of them together.
Arnold Yarber: no I sell beef, pork sandwiches, sausages and
ribs. I started ribs and now if I don't sell another one it
would be too soon for me. I don't particularly care for selling
ribs. No because what they have done like with the ribs they are
all ... the hogs used to be 200-275 pounds, but now they have
these 500 pounders. They're raising them large, ribs coming out
bones, one bone that thick and now 2 bones and the meats that
thick and so full of fat and by the time you get done rendering
it out, you don't have nothing but solid fat, and you paid for
solid weight. I was looking the other day they raised the price
of ribs one dollar a pound. I just shook my head last week, and
said well it's coming back down, and thank god, it just jumped
one dollar a pound in one weeks time. so, it's just cruelty at
times, but I just enjoy it because I enjoy the people.
Veronica Martin: You did tell me your age you went around the
situation.
Arnold Yarber: Age? Ok let me ask you how many of you women talk
about your age? What's age got to do with it anyway. I'm 78
years old.
Veronica Martin: She has some questions for you.
Tierra: Were there times when whites called you names at the
football games?
Arnold Yarber: Oh, yes there were times. They through the biggie
in on me.
Tierra: what were some of the names that they called you?
Arnold Yarber: I just told you. You know nigger that's what they
did to try to hurt you. See the idea here was to make you feel
inferior to them. But you see me and my buddies it would just
make us angry. This one time when I first went down south, they
said that to me. I really felt bad. As the night progressed, I
felt better. There were only 2 negroes down there. Me playing
left half and my buddy playing right half, and I did most of the
running that night. And got in a fight down there, and all of my
teammates helped me and so they were from up here. Other than
that I didn't have too many problems in high school.
Tierra: Also did the whites at your school threaten that they
would beat you up and stuff and have you like scared to go home
after school?
Arnold Yarber: No way my dear. No no no.... no not at all. You
always have one or two that want to bluff you like they want to
bluff. You can get around that. Jack one up real quick, no I
won't fall for that. I didn't have that problem. Only one and he
lived right down the street from here. My buddy George Floyd. We
grew up together and he wanted to... and so we had to get things
straightened out, and as a matter of fact I haven't seen George
in 20-25 years and the other day I had just happened to be
thinking of him and I looked him up in the phone directory and
called him. Right down the street there, that's where he was
living. He's been living, he's sick and I called and talked to
him. I haven't had no problems otherwise.
Tierra: That's good to know. Well it was good interviewing you
today and thanks for your time.
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