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Subscribe to this blog - Forever Undefeated
By Gary Lord
Gold Coast United
A true warrior can never be defeated, because his spirit can never be broken.
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The Butcher Of Gosford
Posted On 23/01/2010
By Gary Lord
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a butcher named Lawrie McKinna.
Now Lawrie had a paddock out the back of his shop where he would fatten up his sheep and pigs. At three and four and five o'clock in the morning, the village children would jump awake in terror, hearing the horrific screeches of animals being slaughtered in the tin shed behind Lawrie's stables.
It might have been all well and good if the local villagers had enjoyed eating Lawrie's produce. But in fact the lamb chops were as hard as horse leather, the bacon had an acrid stench, and the mince made anyone who sampled it sick for days. So people seldom went anywhere near Lawrie's shop, and the meat was left to rot in the window.
Do you think Lawrie was deterred? No, not he! You see, Lawrie was a stubborn old sod.
"I butcher me animals like what me grand-father done," he explained. "If them folks don't like it, they can chew on old boots for all I care!"
But what was Lawrie to do with all that rotting meat? Some say he ploughed it back into his fields, or mixed it with hay and fed it back to his animals. Some say that's why his farm always smelled so foul, and his animals always looked so poorly.
But of course Lawrie always insisted that he had the best animals within a hunded miles. In fact, he was so proud of himself that he decided to convert his butchery into an academy.
One morning the local children awoke to the pounding of hammers and the squeal of a wood saw. When they passed Lawrie's shop later that day, a big sign had been erected over the door: "McKinna's Academy Of Butchering Excellence - Learn With The Master".
And right there in the shop window was another sign: "Apprentices wanted. Good pay for hard young workers. No whingers."
Well, you might think the local villagers would have had the good sense to keep their children well away. But times were tough and some of the mothers were weary from spinning yarn and darning socks all night.
"Look at me, Mummy!" bleated one young lad named Simon. "I am tough! I never winge! Please, please can I go make some pocket money at Mister McKinna's?"
And so it was that a steady stream of young men began flowing through the doors of Lawrie's butchery. Over the years, many fine, strapping lads passed under that sign, learned the dark secrets of Lawrie's stomach-turning trade and then, as they grew older, spread his foul philosophy through the neighbouring regions.
Eventually, things reached such a sorry state that you could not buy a decent piece of meat anywhere within a hundred miles of Lawrie's shop, even long after Lawrie had died and his old stables burned to the ground.
And that is why, even today, the villagers from those parts all stagger about in such a sickly fashion, and the grassy fields of that region still carry the foul stench of death.
:'( 
