Paul Harvey divided the ten hour workday in half. His noon program did not start until seven minutes after noon, after the five minute Mutual Broadcasting System’s Top of the Day World News followed by a minute of local news and a minute of commercials, usually the same one: Phil Ranskelter’s Ford, the Mega Tri-County Region Leader. By the time Paul said “Stand by for NEWS!,” they were all settled into each one’s usual spot around the entrance to the shop where there were benches, an old church pew, a few metal folding chairs and three unused drafting tables. It was where we gathered for lunch.No one left the shop for lunch, except Mr. Mitchell, Rachel his secretary and Mrs. Bunning, the bookkeeper. They world go on staggered shifts and not take even half an hour. The two dozen men who worked in the shop, including the three summer hires, of which Thom was one, all stayed in the shop for lunch.
Lester always had the radio on at his lathe; even though most of the time he could not hear it because of the noise of the shop, but it stayed on and stayed loud. The station was out of Kernersville, a small AM station. The morning programming was local news, farm reports and weather forecasts and a good bit of syndicated talk, The afternoon was four hours of Trading Post inter-dispersed on the quarter hour by the station owner reading two minutes of headline news from AP or the closing numbers for Wall Street and the Chicago Board of Trade. Then the station went off the air at sundown.