Frank and Roosevelt: Stories from the bakery #3

Like Ernest and Harvey, I also inherited Frank and Roosevelt when I began as the night shift supervisor at the bakery. For nearly a year, I would come first at night, review the day’s orders and set the schedule. About thirty minutes later, Roosevelt reported, took the schedule and headed to the mixing room where he began to weigh up buckets of ingredients. As the mixer could hold 3000 pounds of dough, only the ingredients that were used in small amounts, such as salt and whey (a milk substitute), enrichment and preservatives were added by buckets. White flour was blown into a hopper on top of the mixer, whole wheat, cracked wheat and rye flour was added by 100 pounds sack. Corn syrup and shortening and fermentation brew (the yeast) was all added mechanically. Mixing time depended on the type of dough and the strength of the flour, but was generally in the 10 minute realm. Once the dough was ready, it was dumped into a hopper and pumped over to the make-up area where Frank oversaw the operation. The dough was first sent through a divider, cutting it into proper portions which were then shaped in a rounder and allowed to rise a bit before being sheeted out flat and then rolled into a loaf shape and dropped into a pan. This all worked smoothly as long as the machines were set up and the dough of the proper consistency.

A seaman earlier in his life, Roosevelt had served as a cook on an oil tanker. He told about being at sea for 8 weeks, when his ship which was hauling oil from the North Sea to Philadelphia. In a storm, the ship’s hull split and they were in danger of sinking. Two ocean going tugs reached the ship and helped it limp into Jacksonville, Florida. During this time, Roosevelt said he slept with his life vest. When they finally got to port, the Captain told Roosevelt the ship would be ready in about ten weeks, but he decided that his days on the sea were over. Although he still had his seaman papers, he came back home and took a job at the bakery. Roosevelt proclaimed himself to be a Black Muslim, but he wasn’t a radical and didn’t seem to mind having a white supervisor. However, he was probably a Muslim in name only as he smoked pot and enjoyed a drink.

Roosevelt was dependable and he made my job easier. Frank wasn’t dependable and on some days made my job a living hell. He often came in late. Several times he reported in a condition in which he wasn’t capable of working, which created a problem for me. It’s hard to find a last minute replacement at 2 AM and I often ended up doing his work. One night he didn’t show up and when the wrapping crew came in three hours later, they found him passed out in his car. Having become fed up with him, I asked permission to fire him, but he cried to the personal manager who only allowed me to put another warning in his rather thick file. A few months later, they regretted their actions. Frank, while on break one morning, had gone over to the slicing and wrapping area. When the bread came out of the cooler, and entered the slicing area, it would be crusty on the outside which allowed it to be sliced easier. Joking around, Frank took a loaf that hadn’t been sliced and wrote on the bottom with a knife, “Fuck You.” He then put the loaf back onto the conveyor. Unfortunately, they were bagging the bread in a special “private label” bag that had a clear bottom. This bag found itself on a shelf of a store in South Carolina and then in a family’s home where Frank’s handiwork was discovered. A few days later, our General Manager got an angry call from the head of the grocery chain. They dropped their contract with us and we lost several thousand dollars a day in sales. I was then called in and told to find out who did it. As Frank had shown this loaf to several employees, it only took a few questions to pin it on him. We called Frank into the office and when confronted by the General Manager, Personal Manager and me, he admitted that he had done the “deed” as “a joke.” Frank was fired and I had to walk him to his locker and see that he cleaned it out and turned in his keys before I escorted him to the door.

I ran into Frank a few years later, after I had left the bakery. He talked about how he was fired because we “couldn’t take a joke.” I just shook my head and said “whatever,” realizing that hadn’t learned anything from the consequences of his actions. I never saw Roosevelt after I left the bakery, but a decade or so ago, another supervisor I knew from the plant told me the sobering news that he had quit and returned to the sea. Six months of so afterwards, he was found floating next to his ship which was docked at Norfolk. He had been stabbed and it was assumed his death was drug related. My heart grieved over his demise.

Linda and the summer of '76: Memories of the bakery #2
Harvey and Ernest: Memories of the bakery #1