Speaker 1: It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast special report. The Lapse
Speaker 1: Fan presents the complete Hull Coogan, a real American story.
Speaker 1: We're brought to you by Garage Pierre.
Speaker 2: Oh, Billyoks speaking Hi Billy Johnson. Yes, sir, Hi, this
Speaker 2: is Jack at the Lapsed Fan. How are you real good? Good?
Speaker 2: Can you hear my co host JP? If you could
Speaker 2: say hi to Billy JP? Hey, Billy, how's it going
Speaker 2: real good?
Speaker 3: How are you doing today? Good? Thanks?
Speaker 2: Thanks for doing this, really looking forward to it, So
Speaker 2: we'll jump right in, Billy. We really look forward to
Speaker 2: getting your insights here because this is a part of
Speaker 2: Terry's life that a lot of people don't know anything about.
Speaker 2: So yes, let's get started.
Speaker 3: In seventy nine, I.
Speaker 4: Worked in the port. I worked for a company called
Speaker 4: L R. Stevedoring Company. And Terry was a union checker
Speaker 4: back then with the International Longshoreman's Union, and basically he
Speaker 4: was working all over Florida wherever you know they had,
Speaker 4: they had checking jobs. Basically his job was to check
Speaker 4: the Back then, we really didn't have cargo ships. This
Speaker 4: was back in seventy nine, and we really didn't have
Speaker 4: container ships. We had actually cargo ships where we bulk
Speaker 4: loaded the ships and his job was as a checker,
Speaker 4: was to make sure the goods were coming in.
Speaker 3: Mostly we were handling.
Speaker 4: Oranges and grapefruit at the time, and we were shipping
Speaker 4: out it at the time in Canaveral Fort Pierce, Port
Speaker 4: Everglades and then over and Port It Tampa, And I
Speaker 4: believe he was based out of Tampa. Yeah, but he
Speaker 4: you know, he worked wherever they called him to, whichever
Speaker 4: port because they those guys made pretty good money.
Speaker 3: They made real good money back then.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting, Billy, because we tried to piece together
Speaker 2: how he moved through the seventies. You know, he got
Speaker 2: into wrestling in seventy seven, and then in seventy eight
Speaker 2: he went to Cocoa Beach. He was managing a bar
Speaker 2: there and he also worked in a in a gym,
Speaker 2: and then in seventy nine he kind of got back
Speaker 2: into the wrestling. In like March of seventy nine, he's
Speaker 2: wrestling mostly out Alabama Pensacola area. Then he goes to Memphis,
Speaker 2: Tennessee in like the summer of seventy nine. But it's
Speaker 2: not clear to fans did he go back to Tampa
Speaker 2: like every other weekend and worked the docks, or do
Speaker 2: you remember exactly when in seventy nine he kind of
Speaker 2: showed up.
Speaker 4: Actually, I might be a year off on that, because
Speaker 4: I'm thinking I started with them in seventy eight.
Speaker 3: Okay, how did I think about it?
Speaker 4: Because I just graduated from high school in seventy seven.
Speaker 4: So it was it was that fall after high school
Speaker 4: that I started working for Eller, I mean for Coastal
Speaker 4: Stevedoring back then. And I know he told us back
Speaker 4: then he was doing a lot of training at that time.
Speaker 4: He was really training for Mister Universe more than anything.
Speaker 4: And him and another guy were training a lot over
Speaker 4: over in Tampa. And I want to say Sunshine Jim,
Speaker 4: if I remember correct, And I remember he used to
Speaker 4: like I said, he was a union checker for us,
Speaker 4: and we were working anywhere from Port Everglades, Fort Pierce,
Speaker 4: Port Canaveral and Tampa.
Speaker 3: And so I mean, you know, you know that.
Speaker 4: And at the time I really didn't know him wrestling yet.
Speaker 4: I mean it was later on that we started watching wrestling.
Speaker 4: I see wrestle, but I do know this. Uh, in
Speaker 4: my office, I had a refrigerator and he used to
Speaker 4: keep his lunch in my refrigerator.
Speaker 3: And his lunch. Back then.
Speaker 4: He actually he was kind of a freak about his body,
Speaker 4: you know, as.
Speaker 3: Well as what he ate and everything.
Speaker 4: And he had real long blonde hair, straight blonde hair
Speaker 4: back then, and I mean he looked almost like uh,
Speaker 4: I can't think of who that like Fabio almost with
Speaker 4: the long blonde hair and all back then.
Speaker 2: Is what good one?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And uh but he used to in my refrigerator
Speaker 3: leave his lunch in there.
Speaker 4: And I remember him always every day he had like
Speaker 4: seven pounds of grapes and he always had this uh
Speaker 4: this this juice or this uh shape that he drank. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it smelled the high heavens. I always told him,
Speaker 4: I said, Terry, I don't mind you keeping this in refridger,
Speaker 4: but don't open it up my office. Open it up
Speaker 4: because it I don't know what was in that shape,
Speaker 4: but it smelled.
Speaker 3: But he always explained to us.
Speaker 4: That that he ate the grapes because when he was
Speaker 4: doing all of his weightlifting, and all the grapes made
Speaker 4: his skin thin so that his veins would bulge out more.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yes, And that's why he ate so much grapes every day.
Speaker 4: But I never will forget the first day I met
Speaker 4: Terry when I first went to work there. My boss
Speaker 4: back then was Bruce Brannigan, and he was probably all
Speaker 4: of about five foot to maybe five foot three, and
Speaker 4: he was taking me around the port, just introducing to
Speaker 4: me all these guys, and he goes, this is Gene
Speaker 4: the meme machine, and this is Dick, and this is
Speaker 4: you know, Tom, and this is Paul and you know
Speaker 4: and and uh and all of a sudden we come
Speaker 4: walking up to Terry and I said, and each one
Speaker 4: of these guys he was telling me what they did.
Speaker 4: You know, Oh, he is an operating engineer, he is
Speaker 4: a he's he does this, he does that. Well anyway,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, here we come up to
Speaker 4: Terry and I go, who is this And what does
Speaker 4: he do? Because you know, he was really big. He goes, Oh,
Speaker 4: that's Terry. He does whatever he wants.
Speaker 2: Right Yeah, who's going to tell him something he doesn't
Speaker 2: want to do.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that's Terry. He just does whatever he wants.
Speaker 4: But uh, yeah, we just you know, we we really
Speaker 4: had a good time. And I mean, uh, I remember,
Speaker 4: you know, Terry didn't back down from nobody, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean when we joked down. I mean he didn't
Speaker 4: care what he said or anything else. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: and uh we we just all had a really good time.
Speaker 4: And I mean I never felt uh scared of Terry.
Speaker 4: I always enjoyed being around. I enjoyed being around Terry.
Speaker 4: I like him being around there. In fact, I remember
Speaker 4: we had a guard at the port at night, and
Speaker 4: this was at Christmas time, and the company paid for
Speaker 4: us all to go to this fancy dinner uh cafeteria
Speaker 4: up in Vero Beach and we go up there and uh.
Speaker 3: And anyway, uh we had this guard there.
Speaker 4: His dame was uh Felix, I think alex Or Felix,
Speaker 4: and he was like we always made fun of this
Speaker 4: old guy.
Speaker 3: It was funny.
Speaker 4: He had this little clock on him and he had
Speaker 4: to go everywhere and get.
Speaker 3: A key and push the clock on his waist or whatever.
Speaker 4: And uh, anyway, he would he was always worried about
Speaker 4: everything about security and all that. Well, anyway, he gently
Speaker 4: left at like two o'clock in the morning or one
Speaker 4: o'clock at night.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, went in the morning.
Speaker 4: And we got here about one point thirty and he's
Speaker 4: already left. And there the whole place the gates were
Speaker 4: all locked up, and none of us could get to
Speaker 4: our cars inside. So we jumped over the fence, went
Speaker 4: into the shop and got a cut forklift and came
Speaker 4: out with a cutting torch on there, and we went
Speaker 4: in there and cut the locks off of the fence
Speaker 4: and got our cars and just kind of like dummy,
Speaker 4: locked the.
Speaker 3: Gate back up.
Speaker 4: Felix come back the next morning. Man, he was like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, let me call the long let me
Speaker 4: call along, and we're all like this guy laughing, like Felix,
Speaker 4: we did that. We couldn't get to our cars. Did
Speaker 4: you see all of our cars gone? And he goes, oh,
Speaker 4: I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2: That's a good time. What's the What was the routine like?
Speaker 2: As far as the schedule, Billy, is this like a
Speaker 2: Monday Friday thing? You know when Witarry report to work.
Speaker 4: We had to actually work whenever the ship was in
Speaker 4: the port. And they these ships, we had so many
Speaker 4: days to get them loaded up, and a lot of
Speaker 4: times it was like two and a half days we
Speaker 4: had to get them loaded up. And we started at
Speaker 4: seven o'clock in the morning. We stopped for lunch for
Speaker 4: thirty minutes and then we'd stop again at we'd stop
Speaker 4: at six and take a dinner break until seven, and
Speaker 4: then we'd work till one o'clock in the morning. Now,
Speaker 4: these ships, these ships, if they were a day late
Speaker 4: or whatever, generally they would send the ships on before
Speaker 4: they were late, because I think they got charged like
Speaker 4: a million dollars a day for these ships if they
Speaker 4: were late or whatever. And I can remember one time
Speaker 4: we had a ship in Tampa. It was called I
Speaker 4: believe it was called the Sun Belt Dixie, and it
Speaker 4: was it was on its maiden voyage. It had just
Speaker 4: came from Japan to Jacksonville and it was loaded with
Speaker 4: two thousand Toyota cars and then it went over to
Speaker 4: Tampa where we loaded it up with I think it
Speaker 4: was grapefruit that we loaded on there, and we had
Speaker 4: to load three thousand semi loads, which was a thousand
Speaker 4: boxes per semi load. We had to load three thousand
Speaker 4: semi loads on there. We had three days to get
Speaker 4: it done. Wow, and it has it turned out one
Speaker 4: of the trucks, one of the trucks got in just
Speaker 4: at the last minute, and another one was broke down
Speaker 4: somewhere and it showed up at the port as a
Speaker 4: truck as the ship was going out in the port,
Speaker 4: because we couldn't afford a million dollars for one truckload
Speaker 4: of grapefruit.
Speaker 2: You know, so so much great. He seemed to take
Speaker 2: a lot of pride in being able to look In
Speaker 2: his book he talked about these days and like sort
Speaker 2: of being mathematically minded as far as how to perfectly
Speaker 2: stack the cargo so that it would fit the container
Speaker 2: and the dimensions of the container. Was that was that
Speaker 2: a big part of the job was sort of like
Speaker 2: that judgment called.
Speaker 4: No, we didn't have containers back, well, we did.
Speaker 2: I might be using the wrong turn, Billy, Yeah, but.
Speaker 4: We had is we had we had to bulk load
Speaker 4: these things, like the Japanese fruit that we send a
Speaker 4: japan It was kind of like laid on skid sheets
Speaker 4: and dropped right on the ground and they actually picked
Speaker 4: them up well off the ship and loaded them out.
Speaker 3: You know in Japan.
Speaker 4: We had these big hoists and we drop them down
Speaker 4: there and we kind of like move them over in
Speaker 4: the ship and off and uh wherever we couldn't get
Speaker 4: them to uh we had to stop or whatever. Gentally,
Speaker 4: we put wood shoring in there and and uh they
Speaker 4: nailed it down and off. But we actually drew up
Speaker 4: stowage plans before the ship came in, and we actually
Speaker 4: figured out weight, displacement, till and everything else so that
Speaker 4: we knew where we were putting everything before we even
Speaker 4: started loading on each one of these cargo ships.
Speaker 2: Like that, I'm trying to figure out as far as
Speaker 2: the routine goes, like, how would you guys get word
Speaker 2: that a ship's coming. You kind of said that it
Speaker 2: wasn't like a set day that you'd be there, It
Speaker 2: was sort of whenever the ships arrived. How would Terry
Speaker 2: or yourself get word Because we're trying to figure out
Speaker 2: how he balanced doing the wrestling with with.
Speaker 4: You know, well, we actually knew I had a time.
Speaker 4: I mean one of the we had a couple of
Speaker 4: big people that ship the fruits and vegetables that we handled.
Speaker 4: One of them was D and E Sales that they
Speaker 4: were out of Fort Pierce, which they were a huge
Speaker 4: citrus distributor, and the other one was a do in
Speaker 4: somen American Foods which did a lot of vegetables and all.
Speaker 4: So they actually arranged it to where they had a
Speaker 4: refrigerated cargo ship whenever they had one coming into the area.
Speaker 4: You know, they knew days ahead of time, and they
Speaker 4: would schedule it out so we'd actually know when we
Speaker 4: were dealing with the ship, you know, And like I said,
Speaker 4: we might be two and a half days or three
Speaker 4: days on a on a a refrigerated cargo ship loading
Speaker 4: it with oranges and all.
Speaker 3: And we knew that. Now.
Speaker 4: When they worked down in Port Everglades, they had all
Speaker 4: kinds of ships coming in, cruise ships and cargo ships
Speaker 4: and everything else. And I mean that was pretty much
Speaker 4: a routine thing there. But I don't think Terry well, yeah,
Speaker 4: I guess they did use union checkers to bring bring
Speaker 4: the supplies in and stuff for the ships and all,
Speaker 4: because that's what he was. He was a union checker,
Speaker 4: and he checked in the supplies and stuff that would
Speaker 4: go on the ship.
Speaker 5: It's interesting that I was a union checker since he
Speaker 5: became so anti union later on his wrestling career.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he kind of gave it up after
Speaker 4: a while back, you know, later on.
Speaker 3: I mean it got to be where it was a hassle.
Speaker 4: But you know, he's I think he kept his Union
Speaker 4: card and every once in a while if he didn't
Speaker 4: have work he'd come back and you know, fill back
Speaker 4: in with the union and stuff.
Speaker 2: So is it that easy, Billy? Is that how it works?
Speaker 2: You really just whenever you're free, you can pretty much
Speaker 2: get work.
Speaker 4: Well, we're talking about nineteen seventy eight and seventy nine.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm quite sure it's a different ballgame today.
Speaker 3: You know, they just have so much cargo coming into ports.
Speaker 4: There's no way that you could, you know, you could
Speaker 4: be a musician and be a longshoreman at the same time,
Speaker 4: or you know, be a wrestler or a longshoreman at
Speaker 4: the same time. You know, I mean today, But you know,
Speaker 4: back in those days, you know, it worked out for him.
Speaker 2: You know, did he ever express any desire to do
Speaker 2: something other than that? He seems to when he talks
Speaker 2: about this time in his life in his books and
Speaker 2: stuff and interviews, he always seems to be of two minds, like,
Speaker 2: I'm doing this because it's good money and I want
Speaker 2: to make the most money for the time in But
Speaker 2: at the same time, I've got these dreams. Did he
Speaker 2: ever talk about that.
Speaker 4: I'll be tripping with you when I knew Terry, I
Speaker 4: never knew that he was going on to be a wrestler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always his goal.
Speaker 4: Back then, his ultimate goal was to be mister Universe.
Speaker 4: I mean he was training him and a couple other
Speaker 4: guys were training to be mister Universe and that's what
Speaker 4: they were working on. And uh, I guess that never
Speaker 4: really but then all of a sudden, wrestling came along.
Speaker 4: I think he made it when we was up in
Speaker 4: Port Everglades up there around Cocoa Beach. He started seeing
Speaker 4: well they actually had wrestling and Coco Beach and Fort
Speaker 4: Pierce and he actually thought it the Armor in Fort
Speaker 4: Pierce here at one time too, I believe, Uh that's
Speaker 4: where he got to start because yeah, uh, the Florida
Speaker 4: Wrestling Alliance or whatever, I mean they I think they
Speaker 4: were out of Tampa or whatever, and that's how he
Speaker 4: got And it was funny they had wrestling pretty much
Speaker 4: everywhere where. He was working in the ports too. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it's interesting.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask you if you could help
Speaker 2: us understand kind of back then what people from the
Speaker 2: area what drew them to the ports. Was it pretty
Speaker 2: much the best money you could make, was it? Did
Speaker 2: you have to get in through like a referral? Like
Speaker 2: was it easy to just sign up. But what was
Speaker 2: attractive sounds like a backbreaking job for sure. Back then.
Speaker 3: Well, his job wasn't because he drove.
Speaker 4: I mean all he did was walk around with a
Speaker 4: clipboard and papering and check off stuff. He this was,
Speaker 4: you know, it was high paying jobs. I mean basically.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know, our company fought about down in
Speaker 4: Port Everglades one time they you know, the union came
Speaker 4: in and they had what they called alignment, and his
Speaker 4: job was when the ship came into port, they would
Speaker 4: throw that monkey's pole over with a small rope and
Speaker 4: then he'd pulled the big rope over and then drop
Speaker 4: the loop on the cleat and he'd go down the
Speaker 4: ship to run down real quick and do the other
Speaker 4: two down there so that they could winch yourself on
Speaker 4: into the seawall there. The unit came in and said,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, we're not going to let a.
Speaker 3: Guy do that like that.
Speaker 4: We want three guys for the ship when it comes in.
Speaker 4: We want to give him a four hour minimum. And
Speaker 4: this was back in nineteen seventy six, I believe, and
Speaker 4: or no, seventy seven. I think it was seventy seven
Speaker 4: or seventy eight that they did that and they said,
Speaker 4: we want three guys to do this, and we want
Speaker 4: to pay them a four hour minimum, and it was
Speaker 4: eighteen seventy five an hour back then, you know, which
Speaker 4: that was good gravy money. Yeah, and these these guys got,
Speaker 4: These guys got and that's for each ship that came in.
Speaker 3: You know, they didn't and.
Speaker 4: If they did three ships that day, they worked twelve hours,
Speaker 4: even though that was you know, that was like ninety minutes.
Speaker 4: They got paid for twelve hours.
Speaker 2: I'm starting to get it now. Okay, not only was it.
Speaker 4: Not only was it twelve hours, it was you know,
Speaker 4: overtime paying all after eight hours, right, even though these
Speaker 4: guys were only working ninety minutes.
Speaker 3: And we they fucked that tooth and nail.
Speaker 4: But the union won that one there, so they just
Speaker 4: kind of let it slide, to let it go because
Speaker 4: they originally talked about putting four to six guys on
Speaker 4: some of these ships, and they ended up for the
Speaker 4: linemen and uh, they ended up going with they settled
Speaker 4: for three and uh.
Speaker 3: But I mean that's the kind of things that they
Speaker 3: were doing.
Speaker 4: But I'm gonna tell you, we we did all kinds
Speaker 4: of things. I'm telling you we we did a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff, and.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure Terry was with us.
Speaker 4: And in uh Port Everglades. One time the Dea busted
Speaker 4: a cargo ship off of uh uh Sebastian near the
Speaker 4: golf stream there and it had I can't remember how
Speaker 4: many bales of square grouper it had on it, but
Speaker 4: they caught it and they brought that ship in.
Speaker 3: To UH to Canavil.
Speaker 4: And UH we were high to uh unload all of
Speaker 4: it and loaded up on Semis and all of the
Speaker 4: the uh the international longshoremen that worked on there. They
Speaker 4: had to basically strip down and wear these white jumpsuits
Speaker 4: that that the customs gave them, and they had to
Speaker 4: be checked every time they came off.
Speaker 3: Of the off of the ship and everything else.
Speaker 4: And UH, I remember we had some guys in there
Speaker 4: that were working and and UH.
Speaker 3: I probably shouldn't say this, but.
Speaker 2: I think where you're going feel free. Just do you
Speaker 2: leave names out of it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, anyway, UH we were joking about this. One guy,
Speaker 4: Frank uh said, you know, I don't trust that guy.
Speaker 3: Right We said to the custom we don't trust that
Speaker 3: guy right there.
Speaker 4: You know, he may he may need a cavity search because.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm sure he got stuffed.
Speaker 4: Head, and we're all like, no, that's not true.
Speaker 3: You know, you're lying.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. So the cavity search guy was Terry
Speaker 2: or was somebody else?
Speaker 3: No, it was it was just a joke, Yeah, of.
Speaker 2: Course, yeah, yeah, I thought, Okay, I just want to
Speaker 2: be sure you weren't saying that Terry was the guy
Speaker 2: that needed to be cavity searched.
Speaker 4: No, okay, I'm thinking it was Terry that said it
Speaker 4: about Frank, but it was.
Speaker 3: One of the guys, one of the guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And uh, but you know, we we cut up a lot.
Speaker 4: I mean, we did a lot of crazy takes, but
Speaker 4: we worked a lot of hours and we had a lot,
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of work to do.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, that was no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. That must have been a component of the job, right,
Speaker 2: or people smuggling illicit things, right, you don't know what
Speaker 2: you're handling sometimes. I bet the DEA was always kind
Speaker 2: of sniffing around.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, in the seventies, you know, there was
Speaker 4: so much square group for being around this area.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, Jimmy Buffett wrote his song.
Speaker 4: You know pirates look at forty, you know, and he
Speaker 4: talks about smuggled so much weed that you know, and
Speaker 4: he pissed.
Speaker 3: It away in Miami. Well that that really did.
Speaker 4: That really was happening back in those days. And we
Speaker 4: had customs check every single ship that came in. There
Speaker 4: wasn't no doubt about it. But that ship that we
Speaker 4: unloaded and port Port Canaveral up there, that was busted
Speaker 4: out in the ocean out there I see, off of Sebastian.
Speaker 4: It was about ninety miles from I don't know, thirty
Speaker 4: miles from Canavil.
Speaker 3: I think thirty or forty five miles something like that.
Speaker 4: But they ended up the coast Guard ended up bringing
Speaker 4: it into Canavil and that's where we unloaded all of it.
Speaker 4: But yeah, they they actually checked every single person when.
Speaker 3: They came off the ship. That's why they had to.
Speaker 4: Wear these these white jump suits and almost like and suits,
Speaker 4: you know, the orange jumpsuit that prisoners wear. Well, what
Speaker 4: these guys had to wear load pot off there. If
Speaker 4: I remember right, I spent so many years ago, but
Speaker 4: I think there were twenty eight truckloads of the pot
Speaker 4: that was unloaded. The square grouper that was loaded on
Speaker 4: the semis Wow, and uh, there was twenty eight of
Speaker 4: them and they hauled it all over to Sumter County.
Speaker 4: They kept some for evidence, but the rest of it
Speaker 4: they hauled in bulked to Sumter County and they had
Speaker 4: they had a large incinerator there and that's what they did,
Speaker 4: is they burned it all.
Speaker 2: That was kind of the joke, talk about a contact
Speaker 2: high need to go to Sumter.
Speaker 3: Man they sell a lot of brownies and.
Speaker 2: Something like, Oh that's great. So you guys standing there
Speaker 2: like on the front lines, you must have gotten a
Speaker 2: pretty good flavor of like this is how this business works.
Speaker 2: Like here you know what I mean, here's the import
Speaker 2: export game everybody's playing. It must have been kind of
Speaker 2: kind of interesting to be able to see be on
Speaker 2: the front lines of that kind of hidden commerce.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, be truth, What is the only drugs
Speaker 4: that I ever seen like that? Was that one particular
Speaker 4: that wing. But I mean that was all legitimate for me.
Speaker 2: Yeap for sure. Do you remember the Jim you mentioned
Speaker 2: that he was going to Any chance you remembered is
Speaker 2: stands natural write Jim or stands Jim in Tampa.
Speaker 4: Well maybe that's the name that he said, But I
Speaker 4: always thought it was Sunshine's Jim is what I remember.
Speaker 2: The only reason I ask Billy is because around this
Speaker 2: time he showed up on a few wrestling television shows,
Speaker 2: him and his buddy Ed, who he was working out
Speaker 2: with and who he grew up with in Tampa, with
Speaker 2: that T shirt on. So I wondered if maybe that
Speaker 2: would help us, because I'm trying to figure out what years,
Speaker 2: to the best of our ability, that this took place
Speaker 2: in the seventy eight or seventy nine. To you, it
Speaker 2: doesn't make a big difference, but when you're trying to
Speaker 2: put together Hulkogan's life story, there was are two very
Speaker 2: different years for him. So I was trying to wonder
Speaker 2: if that was a hint.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm pretty sure we were definitely working in seventy nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that was your first.
Speaker 3: Thing to you like this. It was when they do citrus.
Speaker 3: We were doing citrus.
Speaker 4: Late in seventy eight, we were shipping citrus, and then
Speaker 4: spring of seventy nine, you know what I'm saying, Ye,
Speaker 4: the mark the season on that.
Speaker 3: I mean, it had to be fully.
Speaker 4: Ripe citrus before we started export it, and it was
Speaker 4: generally like closer to even though they were picking citrus
Speaker 4: in November and in October and all that. It was
Speaker 4: almost late November, just before Thanksgiving before we started shipping
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that that.
Speaker 4: Would have been seventy eight when we were doing that,
Speaker 4: and then we were doing it in the spring of
Speaker 4: seventy nine.
Speaker 3: I know Terry was there all during that there.
Speaker 2: So you're thinking maybe fall seventy nine, Is that my
Speaker 2: figuring this out right?
Speaker 4: No, I'm talking about spring of seventy nine, Spring seventy
Speaker 4: eight and fall of I mean fall of seventy eight
Speaker 4: and spring of seventy nine. I know he was working
Speaker 4: there then got it great, and I think I worked.
Speaker 4: I worked there until late nineteen seventy and then that's
Speaker 4: when I I went off into another I went to
Speaker 4: work for some on my own that time.
Speaker 2: And starting when that belly, When did you start your
Speaker 2: own company?
Speaker 4: I started actually started kind of part time in seventy nine,
Speaker 4: but by eighty I was full time in the I
Speaker 4: was doing a long maintenance and then I started a
Speaker 4: Lawmore shop. By eighty three, I had a love More shop.
Speaker 2: And then so you would have been off the docks,
Speaker 2: so to speak, by nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: By nineteen eighty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and do you remember Terry?
Speaker 2: Do you remember Terry being gone before you left or
Speaker 2: was he there when you stopped?
Speaker 4: I know he was there in seventy nine a spring,
Speaker 4: I mean the you know, the Winner of seventy nine,
Speaker 4: you know, the early spring spring seventy nine, and we
Speaker 4: we quit shipping citrus probably by uh. I want to
Speaker 4: say that big load of grapefruit we sent to Japan
Speaker 4: out of Tampa was somewhere around I mean, I have
Speaker 4: to double check it. I'm just trying trying to thinking
Speaker 4: off my head, but I'm going to say that it was.
Speaker 4: It was like, uh, December of nineteen seventy eight, that
Speaker 4: big load that we sent out.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I can see that making sense for his
Speaker 2: story too, because he didn't start until like March out
Speaker 2: in Pensacola. But and I don't know that that seems
Speaker 2: like a big drive to get back to Tampa for
Speaker 2: that spring of seventy nine. But you don't think there's
Speaker 2: a chance he worked there in the in the fall
Speaker 2: or late seventy nine as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I know in the spring.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think did he work seventy nine?
Speaker 2: Gosh, sorry to be so specific.
Speaker 4: Yes, he would have still been working in the fall
Speaker 4: of seventy nine.
Speaker 3: But like I said, I left after that. I left.
Speaker 4: I probably left because I started my own company by January.
Speaker 4: For sure, I was already you know, part time in
Speaker 4: it and before that, and then I went off.
Speaker 3: I mean, we all were looking for a better life,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: So Yeah, were you about to say, I'm sorry to
Speaker 2: cut you off, Billy. Were you about to say that
Speaker 2: you kept in touch with him after you left to
Speaker 2: start your company.
Speaker 4: No, I only seen him one time after that, and
Speaker 4: I went to go see him another time when I
Speaker 4: showed you that picture of Yes, I went to go
Speaker 4: see him there, and I couldn't see him because.
Speaker 3: He was in a hurry to leave to go somewhere.
Speaker 2: Else at his karaoke bar or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh but uh I, uh I seen him one year
Speaker 4: when his daughter was down in West Palm Beach at
Speaker 4: the uh I forget what they call that, the uh
Speaker 4: I think it's the Sunshine Fast or what festival or
Speaker 4: whatever down in West Palm Beach there and his daughter
Speaker 4: was actually singing there, And uh I seen him down
Speaker 4: there and then and my son was with me, and
Speaker 4: I kind of walked behind him, and I said, I
Speaker 4: hear that. You know, I made a I kind of yeah,
Speaker 4: did a loud thing. I said, I hear that Hulk Cogan.
Speaker 4: He's uh, he's kind of not you know. I didn't
Speaker 4: say it quite yeah, I got to say it to words.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he's uh, you know, if he's straight,
Speaker 4: you know, and like that, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: he turned around and looked at me and goes.
Speaker 3: Jock gave me the biggest and my son's eyes were
Speaker 3: like so big. I mean, he's like, dad, he's going
Speaker 3: to kill you, you know.
Speaker 4: And he turned around and he just kind of like
Speaker 4: gave me a big bear hug and lifted me up
Speaker 4: in the air and he just says, good to see you, brother,
Speaker 4: I haven't seen you forever.
Speaker 3: And I said yeah. I said, uh, some of us
Speaker 3: peawns are still, you know, poking away down here.
Speaker 4: And were you rich guys or you know, did you
Speaker 4: I'm knobbing it down here in West Palm Beach.
Speaker 2: You know, do you remember when you realized, I mean,
Speaker 2: especially if you didn't know when Terry worked there that
Speaker 2: he was trying to become a pro wrestler. Do you
Speaker 2: remember what it was that you realized that the Hulk
Speaker 2: Cogan that everybody knew was the guy that you worked with.
Speaker 4: Well, he's that was a long time before he really
Speaker 4: became Hulk Hogan. Yeah, I mean we watched him when
Speaker 4: he became you know, you know kind of.
Speaker 3: I remember he was a mask wrestler too.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's when I really that's when we were all
Speaker 4: starting to keep I mean I really didn't watch wrestling
Speaker 4: that much, but then when I knew Terry was wrestling,
Speaker 4: that's when a bunch of us would started watching it.
Speaker 4: I can't remember what his name was, but he was
Speaker 4: one of the mass wrestlers. There was a pair of them,
Speaker 4: and he wore a mask and.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, he was Super Destroyer under the mask
Speaker 2: in nineteen.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, super destroyer. Yes.
Speaker 2: See that's interesting, Billy, only because he was a Super
Speaker 2: Destroyer in seventy seven. And it doesn't sound like you
Speaker 2: knew him in seventy seven.
Speaker 3: I didn't know him as a wrestler for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Because that's a fascinating thing too, because wrestling fans
Speaker 2: would love to see video of him back then, but
Speaker 2: there wasn't any video that survived. There's hardly any photographs
Speaker 2: even of him wrestling as Super Destroyer. That was a
Speaker 2: a very short period of time in seventy seven where
Speaker 2: he first tried to make it as a wrestler, suffered
Speaker 2: injuries and just wasn't making enough money and gave it
Speaker 2: up and then went to Cocoa Beach. So that that
Speaker 2: was the fact that you remember that is interesting because
Speaker 2: it seems like that would have happened before you knew him,
Speaker 2: and there's no photos or video of it.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's what it is.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but I remember him more as being
Speaker 4: a bodybuilder when you know, going for mister Universe, when
Speaker 4: I knew him.
Speaker 3: When he was doing that.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, sorry, finch him.
Speaker 4: I mean that's just what I remember the most about Terry,
Speaker 4: you know, being around him, and I just remember his
Speaker 4: seven pounds of grapes every day and as his uh
Speaker 4: you know, it was like a half gallon of I don't.
Speaker 3: Know whatever it was, but it smelled the high heavens.
Speaker 2: Had to be there. There must have been exiting, must
Speaker 2: have been ra eggs in there.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: He had it in a refrigerator, but you didn't smell
Speaker 4: it until he took the lid off of it.
Speaker 3: It did it did quite have a tinge to it.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: Now, well, I want to ask, was you know when
Speaker 5: he when he was in when he was doing this
Speaker 5: the bodybuilding and training for mister Universe, did he or
Speaker 5: did anybody ever compare him to the Incredible Hulk at
Speaker 5: that time?
Speaker 4: No, because I don't think Incredible Hulk when did that
Speaker 4: come out?
Speaker 3: Seventy eight?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, so if it's it's possible, but it's possible.
Speaker 4: But I I mean, I only thing I remember is
Speaker 4: Terry was telling me he was training with some guys
Speaker 4: over in Tampa and he kept talking about this one
Speaker 4: particular guy that he's working out with a lot.
Speaker 3: He said that guy might be mister Universe.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know what his name was, but I
Speaker 4: remember him always talking about this one particular guy that
Speaker 4: he was trained with a lot.
Speaker 2: Okay, well he had a good friend ed Leslie. Is
Speaker 2: that the guy it could be? I mean, okay?
Speaker 3: Would he have been younger than Terry?
Speaker 2: Yes, by two or three years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's probably him, because I remember Terry was
Speaker 4: older than me, and I know he was saying that
Speaker 4: this guy was probably about seventeen at the time. If
Speaker 4: I remember right him, I was I was I turned
Speaker 4: eighteen and I turned eighteen, and I want to say seven,
Speaker 4: either seventy six or seventy seven.
Speaker 3: Seven, I think seventy seven.
Speaker 4: I turned eighteen in and he was telling me that
Speaker 4: this guy he trained with was seventeen at that time.
Speaker 4: So I was probably eighteen nineteen when we were talking
Speaker 4: about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In his book, Billy, I'd love to get your kind
Speaker 2: of thoughts on this, he kind of characterizes this part
Speaker 2: of his life. He kind of mixes it together with
Speaker 2: some time he did as a laborer. He got into
Speaker 2: the laborers union as well, and he said, at first
Speaker 2: they sent me out a construction jobs or pouring concrete,
Speaker 2: helping electrical workers. Then one day they sent me out
Speaker 2: to the docks to help load and unload ships. I
Speaker 2: took to that real quick. I was good at anything
Speaker 2: to do with math, figuring out how to load these
Speaker 2: ships the right way. It was all about math and balance.
Speaker 2: It was important too, if you had a big ship
Speaker 2: going to Singapore or Tokyo and that ship wasn't loaded correctly,
Speaker 2: you could sink it no joke, is that true.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what I was telling you about the stowage planets.
Speaker 3: That we had to draw.
Speaker 2: That's the same thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that was one of my jobs. Me and
Speaker 4: another guy.
Speaker 3: I want to say that is Terry.
Speaker 2: Bruce Terry, another guy named Terry.
Speaker 3: You're saying, yeah, I'm thinking another guy.
Speaker 2: Okay, we had to.
Speaker 3: This is the thing. I mean, we had to.
Speaker 4: We already knew exactly how many boxes we were going
Speaker 4: to put in each hole, and how they had to
Speaker 4: go in there, and how they had to be boarded
Speaker 4: up short and everything else.
Speaker 2: Well, I heard you talk about him with the clipboard,
Speaker 2: and then he writes, they threw me down in the
Speaker 2: hole and I worked real hard to the point where
Speaker 2: they invited me to join the lung Shorman's Union.
Speaker 3: So I don't I don't ever remember him working. Uh
Speaker 3: that was the I l a. That was a different
Speaker 3: bunch of people. He could have.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, it's possible. He talks about it.
Speaker 4: He did.
Speaker 3: He didn't do it where we were at.
Speaker 4: He was a union checker by the time I met him,
Speaker 4: and that's all he did was he checked and Uh,
Speaker 4: his job was with a checkers jobs.
Speaker 3: We had four or five checkers there. They were to
Speaker 3: receive the.
Speaker 4: Cargo and market in and then they also had to
Speaker 4: note what cargo was going in which cargo hole and
Speaker 4: how how many boxes and how many you know, how
Speaker 4: it's to be loaded and everything else?
Speaker 2: Got it? And uh he talks about a guy he
Speaker 2: used to because he used to do rock and roll
Speaker 2: too as a kid. He used to be a guitarist.
Speaker 2: And he talks about a guy named Gary Devrend, who
Speaker 2: I guess was a hot shot in the long Shoreman's Union.
Speaker 2: Do you know that name? He was in the band
Speaker 2: with him, and I think he helped him too. As
Speaker 2: far as the lung shorman's part of it, I don't
Speaker 2: remember him. Yeah, Okay. Firstly, something else, he says, I'd
Speaker 2: love your thoughts. He says, I was the first white
Speaker 2: guy ever to get into the long Shrman's Union in Tampa.
Speaker 2: Believe it or not. Was that a thing? Was that
Speaker 2: like really like a job for black guys? Or was
Speaker 2: he like what's he talking about?
Speaker 3: Were all black in the I l A.
Speaker 2: In the il A.
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 2: Look at that? Interesting?
Speaker 4: That's the International Longshoremans Union and most yeah, most of
Speaker 4: them were.
Speaker 3: Brother all right?
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, yeah, most of them were black.
Speaker 3: But now you had several differents. Who's that?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 4: Most of the uh you had different unions. You had
Speaker 4: operating engineers. Those are the ones that ran the cranes
Speaker 4: and run the equipment, the heavy equipment and all down
Speaker 4: to Port Everglades too. I mean you had you had
Speaker 4: uh uh tankers come in with with uh like gasoline
Speaker 4: and jet fuel and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I mean they had guys that.
Speaker 4: Did that and uh Terry was actually a checker for
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. And they had they had a
Speaker 4: lot of white guys that.
Speaker 3: Did that too. But yes, that most of the I
Speaker 3: l A.
Speaker 4: Were were black goat as far as the labor part
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 5: The labor, right, Okay, got it? And I wanted to
Speaker 5: ask one thing, did you ever uh did did uh?
Speaker 5: I don't know if they ever made it down to
Speaker 5: the uh to the docs or now, But did you
Speaker 5: ever meet his parents?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, I only seen his daughter once in and beach
Speaker 3: down there. That's the only time I remember that. Got it?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: I got to tell you not a little story. You
Speaker 4: may not want this on there.
Speaker 2: Or whatever, but all right, leave it up to us.
Speaker 4: Yep, we hit We had a big Christmas party at
Speaker 4: the time, and one of the guys from Tampa, I
Speaker 4: mean from Port Everglades he was a supervisor too, like
Speaker 4: I was. And uh he worked for Ler Stevedor back then.
Speaker 4: And I'm not one hundred percent sure if the name
Speaker 4: is right because I'm getting so old down and forgetting
Speaker 4: some things, but I want to say his name was
Speaker 4: Michael Cash.
Speaker 3: And one of the ally, I mean, I l a
Speaker 3: guys had.
Speaker 4: Fell off of the superstructure of the ship and landed
Speaker 4: on the uh uh landed on the uh the deck,
Speaker 4: not on the deck of the ship, but on the
Speaker 4: He went over the side of the ship onto the
Speaker 4: platform on the the dots there, laying it on the
Speaker 4: dots and uh and the guy, the guy, uh, I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, he was pretty bad shape and all. And
Speaker 4: and Michael Cash was worried about the guy. And I
Speaker 4: mean we all had to take CPR and all of that.
Speaker 4: You know, that was part of our training in the CPR.
Speaker 4: And uh and the guy, Uh, the guy you know,
Speaker 4: ended up going to the hospital and he was in
Speaker 4: pretty bad shape.
Speaker 3: But they he was back to work, you know, the
Speaker 3: next year or whatever.
Speaker 4: The guy.
Speaker 3: And but anyway, we was at this Christmas.
Speaker 4: Party and uh, we were all together and uh we
Speaker 4: were at this club and uh, Terry goes to Michael.
Speaker 3: He goes, hey, Mike, he.
Speaker 4: Said, when that guy fell off the ship and you
Speaker 4: had to give him CPR, he said, and you doing
Speaker 4: that mouth to mouth, did you?
Speaker 3: You didn't slip him a little tongue?
Speaker 4: That just.
Speaker 3: And we were all like, oh my god.
Speaker 4: And uh and Mike's probably you know, my size, you know,
Speaker 4: and Terry's you know, had us both by about you know,
Speaker 4: probably eight inches or ten inches more.
Speaker 3: And I mean, what is Mike going to do? Like,
Speaker 3: you know, and you know, we.
Speaker 4: Just all just started laughing and joking around. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I just never will forget him said, hey, Mike, you
Speaker 4: didn't have to slip the little tongue in there when
Speaker 4: you were giving him mouth to mouth.
Speaker 2: That was that the Terry You knew that kind of
Speaker 2: sense of humor. I mean, oh yeah, I would force
Speaker 2: myself to laugh if he was that big.
Speaker 4: But you know what I mean, well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: I mean, the guy wasn't gonna, you know, Michael Cash
Speaker 4: wasn't gonna you know, go, you know, jump on Terry
Speaker 4: because uh, you know, but you know, we were in
Speaker 4: an environment where people said what they want to say,
Speaker 4: and I mean Cus Cussin was uh you know, that's
Speaker 4: just part of the.
Speaker 3: Language, you know.
Speaker 4: Uh. But yeah, but I mean we had you know,
Speaker 4: we were continuously every day, you know, joking and eat.
Speaker 4: We all ate lunch together whenever we were together. You know,
Speaker 4: we always a lot of times we'd be eating with
Speaker 4: our feet hanging over the seawall, looking out at the
Speaker 4: pretty water and looking at the fish and eating lunch
Speaker 4: and everything else at the same time.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
Speaker 3: We joke around.
Speaker 4: But uh, Terry was uh, you know, I don't know
Speaker 4: who Terry was at the end, but I know Terry
Speaker 4: was downright super nice guy.
Speaker 3: Uh. He wasn't above anybody, you know. I mean I
Speaker 3: know people who.
Speaker 4: That are billionaires and you know, they're down to earth
Speaker 4: and everything else.
Speaker 3: I always felt Terry was one of the guys. Yep. Uh.
Speaker 4: He had a he had a really good job with
Speaker 4: the Union back then as a checker. Uh and I probably, yeah,
Speaker 4: he probably was, you know, being his size, he probably
Speaker 4: could have handled doing the uh the labor part of
Speaker 4: it when they were loading ships back then. But then
Speaker 4: later on, I mean, you know, by the late eighties,
Speaker 4: I mean the type of ships that we were loading,
Speaker 4: all of that went by the wayside and everything was
Speaker 4: loaded up on big open ships with containers loaded stacked
Speaker 4: up on him. And I mean, you know that's that's
Speaker 4: that's shipping now, you know.
Speaker 2: That's that's a lot less grabbing things with your hands
Speaker 2: and more truck to truck kind of transport.
Speaker 4: Basically, yes, yeah, And I mean and uh, basically a
Speaker 4: union checker today, I mean his job is to check
Speaker 4: the seals on a container, make sure the seals are
Speaker 4: and say, okay, yep, there it is, that one's on
Speaker 4: the that one's going into port. Or then you know,
Speaker 4: when it's in the port, Yep, there it is. It's
Speaker 4: going off to the ship.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: And I'm not I haven't been around the ports long
Speaker 4: enough to know, but I'm quite sure the rule of
Speaker 4: thumb of what we did probably applies to what they
Speaker 4: do too with these containers that they load. I mean,
Speaker 4: the ballasts and the trim and everything else has to
Speaker 4: be just right for these ships to maneuver to go
Speaker 4: across sea, you know, to Japan or whatever.
Speaker 2: And he would he himself would soon be traveling to Japan,
Speaker 2: but not as not as Margo, but as a big,
Speaker 2: bulked up wrestler who made a bunch of money over there,
Speaker 2: so Japan got he got he got his money back
Speaker 2: from Japan, I think tenfold.
Speaker 4: Well, we he was involved with us too when we
Speaker 4: were there was a set of ships that were from
Speaker 4: a shipping company in Japan. I can't even think of
Speaker 4: the name, but they were all brand new ships that
Speaker 4: were built back then.
Speaker 2: They were called were they that could have been okay, but.
Speaker 4: I forget, but I remember the name of the one
Speaker 4: ship with sun belt Dixie, and I've got pictures of
Speaker 4: other ones at my house.
Speaker 3: I'd have to go look up the names.
Speaker 4: But uh, these ships were built back then in the
Speaker 4: days to be able to come from Japan and go
Speaker 4: through the Panama Canal.
Speaker 3: And back then these ships would the.
Speaker 4: Biggest one of them was like nine hundred and something
Speaker 4: feet long, but they were only like one hundred and
Speaker 4: five to one hundred and about one hundred and five
Speaker 4: to one hundred and seven feet wide. And the reason
Speaker 4: why they were only that wide is because I think
Speaker 4: the Panama Canal was only one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 4: or one hundred.
Speaker 3: And thirty feet wide at that time.
Speaker 4: Now that Panama Canal is much wider and they could
Speaker 4: get much bigger ships going through there. Now but back
Speaker 4: then in the seventies, and these ships were all built
Speaker 4: over in Japan Nschiewa, I think it is, or either
Speaker 4: Nagasaki or NiTi Nagasaki.
Speaker 3: They were built over there, I think.
Speaker 4: And they all were somewhere around one hundred and seven
Speaker 4: to one hundred and one hundred and seven to one
Speaker 4: hundred and five feet wide, and they gently were somewhere
Speaker 4: around nine hundred the longest one and probably seven fifty
Speaker 4: to eight hundred feet, more like eight hundred feet eight
Speaker 4: to nine hundred feet. And these ships could go to
Speaker 4: Japan and come through the Everglades. And like I said
Speaker 4: that that one we loaded up in Tampa, it came
Speaker 4: through the it came through the Panama now, and it
Speaker 4: went all the way around Key West and down the
Speaker 4: Florida Straits, and it came up and went the Jacksonville
Speaker 4: and unloaded two thousand Toyota cars back then and then
Speaker 4: went back all the way around the Keys.
Speaker 3: And then came back to Tampa.
Speaker 4: And that's when we loaded the two hundred and ninety
Speaker 4: nine semi loads of grapefruit.
Speaker 2: Look at that. Wow, that is a full circle moment. Well,
Speaker 2: Billy Johnson, we want to thank you so much. This
Speaker 2: was such a great color for a part of Helk
Speaker 2: Hogan's life that he's made reference to, but a few
Speaker 2: lived shouldered to shoulder with. So thanks so much for
Speaker 2: joining us on the show and reflecting it's been awesome.
Speaker 3: Thank you. We'll show you, Buck.
Speaker 2: Milsan.
Speaker 1: As a TJ Disantis production, its contents is intended for
Speaker 1: private use only.