The New Pier

In years gone by there was a pier with railroad track built by the Arundel corporation to load gravel, brought in by barge, into railroad cars where this present pleasure pier for docking pleasure craft is located.  My father had worked here in his late teens loading the gravel - it was all done by manual labor at that time - along with other 'strong back but weak mind'  young men of the times one of whom was a well know young black who faced the 'white' world head on as a fighter of renown.  And my father was a poor but hard white who faced the whole world the same way.  For what ever reason they ended up coming to 'blows' as a hard fist-fight was then called with all the loading crews gathered 'round with work at an end for a good rousing time.  My dad said it was his second hardest fight in which he and his opponent (I no longer remember his name) fought brutally for some fifteen to twenty minutes with neither giving ground until they both were exhausted with bloodied noses, knuckles, and swollen eyes with no winner between them.  He, my dad, told me though that both he and the black guy were given a 'wide berth' by the rest of the crews from then on.  No one wanted to take a chance on challenging either one.