Lunch - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

In 1971, while I was working overtime while visiting this company in Massachusetts, the word "late" had come to have real meaning.

That company's building services were apparently being done by just one man whom I would see mopping over there and sweeping over here and emptying baskets and so forth. However, when ten PM came, he stopped working because it was time for his lunch.

I watched him take out two huge lunch pails. He opened the first and brought forth an absolutely beautiful linen tablecloth which he very carefully spread out across one vacant workbench. He smoothed it out so very, very carefully while aligning its edges to match those of the bench. Watchmakers could have learned from the precision of those moves.

Then from that same lunch pail, he took out several matching linen napkins which he placed with great care on the tablecloth along with condiment dispensers of several kinds and a variety of silverware utensils, some of which I didn't even recognize.

Next, he opened the second lunch pail and extracted from there, a lobster dinner.

He set everything up and proceeded not just to have lunch, but to partake of an exquisite epicurean experience!! I have never seen anyone enjoy a meal with such....  Frankly, words fail me at this point, but it was pretty clear that there had to be someone who loved him dearly.

Forty years later, I can still see this fellow in my mind's eye and let me mention, he was of slender build, in no way overweight at all.

Now, I have seen people's eyes glaze over a little bit at the thought of some favorite food, be it prime rib, or corn on the cob or watermelon or what have you, but I myself have never had that kind of reaction to any such stimulus. I can only look on such things with awe and wonder.

Life offers each of us the opportunities of choice and pleasures, but how many of us rise to the level that this man taught to me on that occasion?

Comments

[Howard Edelman]

I used to go to Tuckerman's Ravine in New Hampshire in May to camp out and go skiing. We would climb up for each ski run since there were no ski lifts. I used to eat lunch at the "lunch rocks". I would eat tuna fish from a can using the carefully bent lid as a fork. What a beautiful place and what great memories!