The Legend Of Hunky Bill And The Little Perogy Maker

 

If you lived in Manitoba during the 1970s you saw this commercial on local TV all the time. It seems like I can't remember a time when I did not see a Hunky Bill Little Perogy Maker for sale during my favorite programs.



Let me tell you something about this Hunky Bill. He made a FORTUNE with that little perogy maker. And that was in 70s dollars. And he was a singe man in the Winnipeg Ukrainian Immigrant Community. Very involved in the culture and traditions of his people, he played several mystical stringed instruments like the tradition fluted horn called the Myshtuck.

The Little Perogie Maker came along at a time when Hunky Bill thought he ruled the world and in a way he did. He had the freedom to dream in a community that loved and supported him. One of his most fevered dreams involved a cheap and easy way to sell perogies to the masses beyond Manitoba. He tried both church kitchens and industrial food production to create a single perogie to represent an entire people. But still the perfect solution to distribute so many perogies eluded him.

Then one day it hit him like a bolt of lightning. If 9 Babas can make 5000 perogies in six hours how many more could they make if they had the right technology? Was there a way to speed up the process by eliminating the need for each perogie to be individually hand made?  Something with a design so brilliant and simple that anyone who had ever made a perogy would want and need one? And what about non-Ukrainians? They needed the Little Perogie Maker the most. It simplified the whole process and now a delicious perogy feast for their loved ones was not just a dream. It was a futurist reality. Hunky Bill has found a solution and soon created his first prototype perogy maker.

This simple piece of molded plastic could make ten times the perogies in the same time. the women could fill while others pinched.

But how to manufacture the massive numbers of Lil Perogy maker that would be needed for global sales? Hunky Bill just didn't have those kind of connections in the Manitoba capital.

After a tense meeting with Chinese sweat shop owners Hunky fortuitously gained a lifelong friend when he saved the life of Tao Mein Jo, a very powerful and underworld connected 'busnessman' during an assassination attempt in an area of China where the production of molded plastic in every variety was a way of life.

Using his training as a Shumka dancer, Hunky Bill jumped as high as he could, kicked out his legs and intercepted two arrows aimed for Tao Mein Jo's heart by having them instead impact on the heavy heel of his rugged dancer's boots. Suffice it to say it impressed the hell of the crime lord who took Bill under his wing and made the Little Perogie Maker a reality.

Of course with such a patron Hunky Bill made a fortune. More than a fortune. Greater than treasure. He introduced perogies to a whole new part of the world who thought they had the filled dumpling all figured out. It was a sensation. It was estimated by Ripley's Believe It or Not that it's estimated that nearly 7 out of every ten people on the ENTIRE planet have seen used or has used a Hunky Bill's Little Perogy Maker. Overnight Hunky Bill became the 3 richest human on the planet. After the Queen and Colonel Sanders, Hunky Bill sat on top of the pyramid and it remained so until his death.

Most of his wealth went into philanthropy all around the planet. He always said that as long as he had some cash in his wallet and gas in his truck, he would feel like the luckiest man in the world.
He could have bought and sold the ass of any of us on planet Earth. He had BEYOND 'fuck you' money. I taking about the kind of wealth that would allow a man to spring for new shirts for the boys in his five pin Wednesday night Men's League. Legend says the shirts were made of he finest hand woven Chinese silk and were blessed with mystical powers.

Magical Bowling Shirts? Most thought Hunky was in the early stages of dementia when he would recount the Chinese tailors stories about the bowling shirts. It's a crazy thing to believe in, right? but there was no way you could have predicted what happened next. Five years in a row Hunky Bill and Little Perogies were a legend in Manitoba curling. They faced all challengers be they league members or scrappy Mongolian kids with something to prove. And in that five year run, they remained UNBEATEN till he end. As a foursome, this Canadian bowling team could not be defeated. Five straight times they were Canadian Five Pin Bowling Champions.

Unfortunately we have no footage or images of those times on the lanes because for some reason the shirts did not allow themselves, or the person wearing them to be captured on film. All part of the magic we were told at the time.

After that amazing time in Five Pin Bowling History, Hunky Bill travelled the world leaving each place he visited better than when he found them. Many times he paid to repair churches. Often he would fiance the repair of school in poor villages around the world. And to each person he came into contact with, no matter their race, gender or color, he gifted them with knowledge of the glory of the perogy.

WOW...That is some GOOD Writing.