Ever had one of those feelings of love, hope, excitement and joy all wrapped into one little emotion all at once? Been stunned by the mere sight of something you have not seen in a long time? We get that feeling with people, but machines? Well, I had those feelings yesterday when my son Jim and I went to Las Vegas to see the doughnut machine my parents had their Donut Shop when I was growing up . To make a long story short, my brother and I gave the machine back to the company that originally made it (DCA/Moline Manufacturing in Duluth, MN) and they restored the machine and now send it around the world to baker's conventions and make donuts with it for conventioneers!
We were met at the convention by Charlie Heinmuller of Moline Manufacturing and led into the giant hall where the machine literally was positioned in the middle of the arena. As we turned corner of the exhibit and spied the machine, the visual of the machine and smell of the heating oil wafted me into a sea of dreams. There I was, back in the Donut Shop in Hoopeston with Mom at the end of the table icing those treats and Dad adjusting the air pressure to make them perfect.
A lump rose in my throat as Charlie explained how they had left many of the pieces, including the motor, intact and had retooled some gears. We laughed as he told me how the machine draws crowds overseas when it is at exhibitions there and how many foreigners clamor for the doughnuts it puts out. These people want to buy the machine, but they are rebuffed by Gary Moline and the others at Moline Manufacturing because of the machine's history both with their company and with America. The machine, he tells them, is priceless.
I went to the side of the machine, peered inside at the spider where the doughnuts are separated so they can cook. It looked as though it was still 1964, and was just as clean as it was then.
The smells got even more powerful and the images clearer as the two men responsible for running the machine, Bob and Chris, were introduced to us. I told them how my dad used to dress in khaki pants and a V-necked T-shirt. They looked at each other, and broke out in laughter and recounted how they wanted to dress in khakis and then each unbuttoned their shirt to show me their V-necked T=shirts! We roared! As I explained to Bob and Chris how Dad used to coax the machine into getting the just right pressure, they constantly chuckled and said, "We have to do that, too!" At one point, Bob turned to Charlie and Don Moline (the Chairman of the Board of Moline Manufacturing who had joined us) and said, "We ought to hire him to run this thing!" We met the entire Moline family from Gary the President to his sons. It was good to see that the machine was involved still in a family business where many of the employees were also multi-generational.
Chris backed out of a small storage area carrying a mixing bowl full of dough. Though smaller than the one Dad used, he climbed on top of a small ladder and poured the dough into the machine. As he did this I told him how Dad filled the plugged cannister on the ground, then lifted it onto the machine and pulled the plug just as he got it over the cutter. He agreed that would be much easier. (the next file might be a bit sideways!)
Next came the moment of truth.... Bob and Chris turned the machine on and let it do its magic! The orginal motor chummed like clockwork and the gears ran flawlessly. The dough dropped magically into the hot oil and floated around the moat, getting flipped after 27 seconds by a flipper and 45 seconds later emerged from its circuitous route as a delicious globule of glutenous delight!
We all stood there transfixed by the metaphysical relationship that frying doughnuts work on the human psyche. As they rolled out the fron chute onto a table similar to what mom had, I had the urge to pick one up and place it into some ghostly bowl of icing. Chris reached over with a stick much like Dad and Mom used and placed it gently on the wire basket to cool. a lump rose in my throat that could only be choked down by a bite from that first one! Like Dad had done so many times, I picked it up, broke it into two pieces to check for doneness, and popped one piece into my mouth! For a fraction of a second, Mom and Dad stood next to me and I defied the laws of physics and went back in time. The doughnut was perfect!
The batch continued to run until the inevitable end where the "crippled" doughnuts came out. (I know, it is not PC, but that is what we called them.) For old times sake, one even got caught under the flipper in the back and had to be rescued. (In my book, Arnold Schuff would have gotten these.) There was no icing, but Chris did put about a dozen of them into a sack of sugar and coat them.
Bob and Chris were gracious enough to sack up a half dozen for us (I am sure I could have had more.) and Jim and I bid adieu to that doughnut machine. Mom and Dad get to spiritually go to places they could otherwise never see, and whenever I think of them and that machine, I will not see the rusted piece of junk that was in my garage for so many years, but rather I will remember that iconic piece of my childhood and Americana and the two loving people who taught me to always "keep my eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole!"
Doughnut
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