Dances With Words: The best show in town!

Nick Wolochatiuk ~ Dances With Words
Dances With Words: The best show in town!
LET THE SHOW BEGIN! – At the sound of the concrete truck’s arrival, each performer takes his place, at the ready to play his part. No lights, no music, but lots of action. (Photo by Nick Wolochatiuk)

There’s a wonderful display of choreography of along our St. Lawrence Street in Ingleside. The workers of Malyon Excavation Ltd. are replacing all the concrete slab sidewalks along its the entire length.

As soon as the ready-mix truck’s chute begins to spew out its concrete, a crew of about ten men work as a coordinated team. Each one has a different tool to do a different job: angling the chute, directing the fast-flowing concrete to be deposited between the forms, spreading the rapidly accumulating mounds around, evening out the accumulation, smoothing it out, making fine adjustments until the finished product is as smooth and level as a billiard table.

The tools are as varied as the tasks. Some have handles as long as a shovel. Some are just shovels, ordinary shovels. Others have specialized articulated heads. Some tools are like trowels, almost small enough to fit into the workman’s pocket.

Some of the men work on their knees, others dance about as quickly as boxers in a ring.

So very entertaining to watch!

Their performance could be made into a movie. Opening scene: the men wait for the truck to arrive. They could be mistaken for a street gang loitering about on a street corner, ready for a rumble.

Before the pour starts, the sound track could be Aaron Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring”. But when the slurry begins to be disgorged from the chute, the music would switch to Rimsky-Korasakov’s “The Fight of The Bumblebee”. Leroy Anderson’s “The Typewriter” would also be appropriate.

Job well done! A tip of my Tilley to one and all. Cue the applause. Let the concrete harden.

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