Bookmark Project - Rattlesnake Skin (background patterns) / Saving Pancreases

The first time I took the Bigger Cahoona to the Houston Zoo, back in 2018, I went nuts.  And with over 600 pictures taken in five hours it was a very fruitful shoot.  This is one of those images, one that turned out well due to the light color of the snake's scales, which helped keep the shutter speed a little faster.  While the entire picture was not all that great, I thought this sliver makes a pretty good background pattern.

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[continued from yesterday's post; series started 10/20]

The third part of the fat washer's job was to freeze pancreas tissue.  Someone from the gut table would put the pancreases in a plastic bucket (since it was not consumed as food by humans the bucket didn't have to be stainless steel) and send it my way.  I would immediately carry the bucket into a deep freeze and spread the contents evenly in a large plastic tray and slide the tray back into its rack.  Time was of the essence here, as the pharmaceutical industry extracted insulin from the tissue, and we could not afford to allow any contamination or necrosis.  This I considered to be the most important part of the job, as someone's health and quality of life down the road depended on the insulin that came from those pancreases.

I was very content with this job, and was glad that they didn't reassign me to another part of the floor for the duration of the summer.  It was hard labor, but I got my time management down and developed a rhythm that allowed me to wonder around and learn about the other jobs.  One time I even walked past the shroud line, through cold storage, and made it all the way into the north half of the plant, where the sides are cut up into steaks and such.  Boy was I out of place there in my apron and bloody garb from the kill floor!

It was all fascinating to me, and my enthusiasm was certainly unique among my peers.  Before long, as I was about the only one on the floor that claimed he liked his job, "Mr. IBP" became my nickname.