Swindell Swindle

In this excerpt from David Brinkley's autobiography, titled simple David Brinkley: A Memoir, ©1995, he remembers his first job, at the age of twelve, in the 1930s:

Mr. Swindell explained to me that the A&P sold butter in two forms-- "print" butter in quarter-pound sticks wrapped in paper printed with the dairy's name, and a cheaper butter that came in bulk in wooden tubs and set on the floor open to dust and insects. When bulk butter was sold, it was scooped into pressed cardboard trays and weighed on a scale with a sliding balance out of the customers' sight. Mr. Swindell explained to me that when I weighed butter for black customers, "You should set the balance about here," he said, placing the balance weight at thirteen ounces. If the weight was out of sight of the customers, it was also out of sight of the store manager. I always set it for a pound at nineteen ounces.