Keeping Time

The first year, over on Currency Drive in south Orlando, morning break time happened when the "roach coach," in this case Bill's Quick Lunch, arrived and blew its horn. This happened somewhere around 10:30 - mostly. Well, for one thing, the horn wasn't that loud. For another, the many segments of the F/X space were sectioned off by concrete block walls. Plus, with compressors, table saws, routers and belt sanders going, one could be pretty near the front of the building and still not hear the horn. The system was: several guys who felt confident of their job security would gravitate out to the loading dock around 10:25 and hang out there until Bill came. Then they would jump down and get their food and have their break. The rest of the company could easily - and did often - miss out completely. Even the office people. If I happened to see the truck, I would yell out "break time" in my Dodger game "Charge!" voice, so that the whole company might know.

Then we moved to the Ocoee shop. My work table was in the end of the building nearest the road, and the truck, which was from a company called "Dot's On The Dot" rumbled past the big twenty foot wide door on its way to the main entrance, blowing its horn all the way. I nearly always saw it go by, so I would yell out "Dot's On The Dot!" loud enough for the whiole building to hear. It was very much appreciated by the warehouse guys six hundred feet away at the other end of the building, and by the people in the office, which fronted on the driveway, but they could always hear me even when they couldn't hear the horn.

It may have been a year later that the company name changed to "Southeastern Catering," but I never changed my call.

Mack was increasingly unhappy, as his union crew got brassier, to see the fifteen minute breaks stretch to twenty, twenty five, thirty minutes. He bought a toy truck with a sound track that said, "Let's get rolling," with revving truck engine noise, and he would play that over the phone system's public address mode. But, after a while, he began to think that he should delegate the break-ending job. He delegated it to me. So I drilled a piece of aluminum tubing and hung it by my bench. Fifteen minutes after the break truck arrived I would whack it in the rhythm of a song from the early sixties - whack... whack... whack whack whack... whack whack whack whack... Let's Go!

As the years rolled on, the rack of pipes and other noisemaking objects grew. I even bought a car horn and a button switch, because there were some who claimed not to hear the pipes clanging. The horn was so loud and obnoxious that I abandoned it soon after I installed it. I would bet it's still up in the structure over by my work table.

Before I left in 2005, the Fergermeister (Anthony Ferguson) spent a couple of days with a digital audio recorder, trying to get a good recording of "Dot's On The Dot" to play over the PA system. I heard tell he even used it a few times after I was gone. But then he found out what I already knew: keeping an eye out for the break truck takes dedication and diligence. Not a job for the faint of heart.