Hey! Where Did Everybody Go?
Being a breaker was probably the best job at Idora Park if you worked on the games. You got to walk around, meet people, and see all the people at the park. You get to see everyone ride the rides and people play at the Penny Arcade and feed the pig with paper and see them all laugh and have fun.
A breaker could get anything to eat while he was walking around. Yummy Idora fries, hot dogs on a stick, cotton candy candy, apples, hamburgers, ice cream and more.
Really, working at Idora Park was a great job. People didn't call off because they really liked their jobs.
Another good thing about being a breaker was that you could kind of get lost. No, not saying that I didn't do my job but if I had some free time, I could walk to where the bands were playing and get in for free. Heck, that was worth it just in itself.
When I think of all the bands I saw for free! I saw the Raspberries, Left End, DeFranco Family, David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, and Badfinger and I'm sure a lot more bands that I can't even remember right now.
Plus the first time I ever saw a circus was at Idora Park. I didn’t get too thrilled about it because well, I worked at Idora Park.
They had it at the ball field by the Jack Rabbit. But then one day (DUN DUN DUUUNNNNN!!!!), it happened. Three people called off. Just on the games.
I know that doesn’t sound like that much, but when you only have two breakers, it's hard to cover everything. Luckily, we had at least one person for each game, and although it was a fairly slow day, I was told to go to whatever game got busy. And then Pat Duffy the third would give the breaks.
It seemed like we had everything covered that day. But oh, no, we did not.
For about an hour and a half into the day, the person working the Punk Rack started throwing up.
But that was okay because I covered that and Pat would have to give all the breaks.
Remember, there were at least 13 games on the Midway, so that meant he had to give everyone their 15-minute breaks – and if you do the math, you’ll see that gave him just three hours just to give everyone their breaks.
And then when it came to the lunches – whoa.
They decided to have George Goodman, the manager, help give out the lunch breaks that day.
George was a real nice guy, but it was kind of fun watching him working a game because George was, let's say, way past retirement age. He was in pretty good shape for his age but still.
Not to say that older people cannot do a type of job like that so don't take this the wrong way. I’m an older person myself.
I'm just saying that he hadn't made change or made sure the machines worked all right, and there's a lot more to it than what most people think. I remember when I got my 15-minute break, George was giving a break to the lady who worked inside the Penny Arcade. I think her name was Claire.
I asked him how it was going. He gave me that big George smile and said, “Ah it's going.”
And of course Pat Duffy Jr. was walking around the park to make sure everything was running alright.
When Pat came over to talk to me, my odd sense of humor took over and I said, “Hey, Pat, some the people want to know if they can leave today.”
He just looked at me and turned around and went, “Hmmmm.”
I guess being in charge of the park gives you less of a sense of humor.
But like I said, it wasn't that busy of a day and to some degree we were a little bored. The person who had worked at the Skee-Ball game had been working at the park for a while. And since the Skee-Ball and the Punk Rack were next to each other, we would switch off and take each other's game.
I really loved Skee-Ball, and I still do today. I think that's one of the reasons I love taking my grandchildren to Chuck-E-Cheese was so I could play Skee-Ball.
On slow days, workers on the games did different things. It seems like the girls at work usually read and the guys would find some way to goof off a little bit, like playing catch with the balls from the Punk Rack or trying trick shots from different games, things like that.
But of course Pat Junior would walk around and say, “You know, you can sweep inside there and straighten up the prizes and do stuff like that.”
As it turned out the day went fairly smoothly. And although we were kind of tired, I don't know if it was from working or just being bored part of the time. We were all glad when it was time to go home.
Luckily, the next day no one called off because it turned out to be a busy day – except for the one kid who was throwing up at the Punk Rack. He didn't come in the next day, but that was okay.
See you on the Midway!