Hard Labor – Part 4.2 – KALAMZOO! That Factory of…Rust?!

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NOTE – I had planned to continue posts about my 2024 made and purchased pizzas, doughs, and breads. After reading, it’s boring! Thus, I’ve decided to create a separate posting (https://femike99.com/2025/01/09/2024-in-review/) if you’re interested in that information.

Hard Labor – Part 4.1 (here), introduced my first summer job while in college at the Linde wire plant in Ashtabula. The initial parts of that job involved fixing a roof with a high school friend and fixing another roof with a “professional” roofing crew.

Hard Labor – Part 4.2

As that summer wore on, I started to receive more responsibilities from the plant’s engineers.

They asked if I could gather a small crew of friends to seal the asphalt around the plant. I was game! Naturally, my first call was to Capo Carm.

I’ve mentioned Carm many times in this blog. Probably the most famous was in the post from September 11, 2020 (here – 70’s V4, Wearing Moodons ‘Cause It’s Cold! & GPa #4! During that post, we had a single summer job to paint a house after our senior year in high school.

To do the asphalt sealing, all that we had was a large 55-gallon drum of sealer and brooms. As a group, we’d tip the drum by hand and pour sealer out its bung hole to fill smaller buckets. We’d then dumping the buckets and use the brooms to squeegee the sealant onto the asphalt. It was slow going and messy. More sealer got on us than the pavement. There was over a mile of asphalt to seal, it would have taken weeks, but we were near the end of summer.

As Tim the Toolman Taylor would say, “We need more power!” So, I hatched a “(not so) brilliant” idea.

Enter the KALAMAZOO

I secured a vehicle that had been sitting around the plant—a KALAMAZOO. By that part of the summer, I’d actually met and befriended the head of maintenance. He had observed my handling of the fork truck earlier in the summer, so I’m guessing that earned me the privilege of using the KALAMAZOO!

From – Kalamazoo Manufacturing Company Home Page

The Experiment Begins

For our first attempt, we hoisted the 55-gallon drum of sealant onto the bed of the KALAMAZOO, set it on its side, and tried pouring the sealant directly from the bung hole of the drum down the 3′ drop from the KALAMAZOO’s bed to the pavement. We’d pour, squeegee, move the KALAMAZOO, and repeat. It was better, but the sealant splattered everywhere—mostly on us!

Cue Tim Taylor: “More power!” So, I went back to the head of maintenance for some advice.

The maintenance head then granted me access to the “cage.” The “cage,” a magical place full of equipment and parts for maintaining the plant. Inside, I found small-diameter pipes and fittings. Using these, I constructed a distribution manifold system that attached to the drum’s bung hole allowing sealant to flow directly onto the asphalt in a controlled, efficient, and less messy manner. So, I thought!

Well, Best Laid Plans…

With Carm driving, I stood on the back of the KALAMAZOO and tipped the drum slightly from the side; barely a trickle of sealer came out of that “finely crafted” manifold. The pipe and fittings were too small to allow the thick sealer to flow.

“More power” I declared as I stood behind the drum and tilted upwards significantly more. Finally flow! Incredible – my first of several inventions!

Then…we hit a bump!

I lost control of the drum and fell off the KALAMAZOO. As if that weren’t enough, Carm hit another bump – me, as the KALAMAZOO ran over my ankle.…OH F..k (or maybe I screamed Muck Fichigan)!

Off to the ER. Unfortunately, that was the end of my summer job and some tendon ankle damage that caused my Allegheny football season to be a non-starter for me as I was unable to recover for the start of the season. That ankle still haunts me today whenever it gets cold.

According to Carm, and unfortunately for him, he was stuck finishing that asphalt sealing job. Carm said, “I still had to finish out the summer…90[F] plus every day. Finished the road then went to [patch] roofs. Even hotter on the roofs!”

Even though I love listening to swing music, whenever I hear “KALAMAZOO,” from Glenn Miller, I shudder. (Maybe, it’s also because of that friggin’ State and Team Up North!)

Nebaletan Word of the Day – Caccazote!?

CACCAZOTE!? Pronounced: kah-kah-ZOTE

Ah, CACCAZOTE—takes me back to my childhood, when Uncle Chip and I would hurl it at each other like it was an insult grenade. Its meaning? Well, that depended on the day, the mood, and whether we wanted to mildly roast or outright annihilate each other. It ranged from a harmless jab to downright dirty. Such versatility!

Bing Blunder – I turned to Bing for answers (who doesn’t trust AI these days!?). What a let down. The first result (see here) told me CACCAZOTE was slang for capicola—aka “gabagool.” Delicious, yes. Accurate? Not even close!

Calling the Nebaletan Experts – So, I called on the pros! My Nebaletan panel (a.k.a. Uncle Chip, Cousin Richard, and Capos Don and Carm) had mixed takes.

Uncle Chip actually didn’t remember using it (what?!) but suggested Grandma Rocco (a.k.a. Grandma Flo) might have been the source. Cousin Richard vaguely remembered Grandma Rocco using CACCAZOTE , it but couldn’t pin down a definition.

Capo Don had no recall of its usage in his family.

Meanwhile, Capo Carm knew CACCAZOTE but gave it a meaning entirely different from what Chip and I recalled. Think of Carm’s definition as a little poopy!

YouTube’s Turn – Uncle Chip, stumbled on a YouTube video (here) using the word catta sotto—which aligned more with Carm’s definition. Intriguing. This discovery prompted me to refine my search using variations of the spelling, and voilà! A few gems popped up:

Cacasotto (see here): Defined as a “fearful, cowardly person.” Aha! This fits Chip’s and my childhood usage perfectly. (Take that, Bing.)
Cacca sotto (here): Literally “poop underneath.” Less elegant, but hey, this might be where Carm was coming from.

In Context: – And finally, a classic example of usage: “Ma (Grandma Joanne): ‘He’s a CACCAZOTE!’” — her go-to insult for anyone who dared cross her.

So, there you have it! Caccazote—a word with a rich tapestry of meanings, from cowardly to downright dirty. It’s like the Swiss Army knife of insults! 🛠️

Pizza Review – Valentino’s Pizzeria & Trattoria

Tucked away in a plaza on Clark Road near Sarasota’s Gulf Gate and the world-famous Siesta Key, Valentino’s Pizzeria Trattoria has been an elusive pizza paradise. Just a stone’s throw from us, this joint seems as elusive (for me) than the popular girl at a high school dance, Valentino’s is always too busy to notice us, err fit us in without a long wait.

So, finally, we decided to let Uber Eats do the heavy lifting! It was time to see if Valentino’s pizza lived up to the hype or if we should’ve swiped left on that popular girl, err searched for a better slice. Spoiler alert: the pie showed promise, but I might stick with other, less expensive NY slices in Gulf Gate next time.

Date	12/7/24
Pizzeria	Valentino’s Pizzeria Trattoria
City/Neighborhood	Sarasota, FL / Gulf Gate / Clark Road
Website	Valentino Pizzeria Trattoria
About Us	About – Valentino Pizzeria Trattoria Some info, but not very much detailed
Style	NY / New Jersey
Ambiance	Uber Eats Delivery
Beverage Pairing	Cigar City Florida Man Double IPA

Shape	Round
Dough/Crust	Tickness – Thin, NY Style Thin Cook – Soft, Crispy, Chewy – again like a typical NY Style somehow the bake is crispy but soft and chewy at the same time. This is fabulous! Flavor – given how great the bake was, the flavor was lacking. There was basically little flavor and a somewhat of a bready taste. Both of these are characteristics of very short, same day fermentation and usage.
Cornicione	As with the main body, the cornicione was crispy, chewy, and somewhat spongy. It had very dense, tiny air bubbles yielding an airy look, but it doesn’t provide the same flavor as a longer fermentation dough.
Toppings	Cheese and pepperoni Fresh – not likely
Sauce	Tangy, Sweet, salty. Medium tickness, though not chunky, like canned puree. Nice richness to the tomato flavor – likely cooked down a little or the puree/sauce used already cooked out some of the water
Cheese	Cheese Type – Moozedell Cheese Distribution – All over Greasy, Stinky, Salty
Cheese to Sauce Ratio	Sauce – Medium to a lot – I love lots of sauce Cheese- Medium to a lot Balance –well balanced, a nicely done version of a NY slice

Value	$21.58+0.49 delivery fee (what’s that? I paid for Uber Eats and paid them!) for what they advertise as 17″ but is actually about 15.5″ (and that’s being nice, see picture). This turns out to be $14 for a 12″ equivalent. Not bad, but I’ve had less expensive and better NY slices recently in Sarasota like it’s nearby neighbor Capo Pazzo (see here)
Overall Rating	Good (but not Great)
Would I Go Back?	Likely – although there are lower priced NY Slice options nearby, we really want to try their “hard to enter” dining room and see if the pizza is better in-house versus Uber Eats delivery