The Ox Bosses watch over 1,000 pounds of roasting meat. The Corn Boss presides over pots of boiling water and simmering butter. And inside the food assembly tent, three meat-slicers are going non-stop, along with the eight plate assemblers, five cashiers, the salad team and a commissioner of coffee.
It’s 1 p.m Sunday on Sonoma Plaza. The Ox Roast crew is a well-oiled machine, and the first shift is about to lubricate.
Is that an adult beverage being poured for crew by a seemingly well-trained rehydration committee? “I hope so,” says longtime event organizer Howie Ehret. “They’ve earned it.” As one of the group who lit the coals at four that morning, he acknowledges a full day’s worth of work with a sip of cold beer. “I guess it’s five o-clock for me.” He’ll be around for 5 p.m., too.
Ehret started with the event when he was in the Navy, and he and fellow sailors manned the all-volunteer crew. Years later, he’s still at the helm, overseeing “friends, neighbors and anybody who wants to participate,” he said. “One way or another, they all love it.”
From the food crews to the ticket takers – “everyone you see out here, and all the folks you don’t” – Ehret says more than 100 volunteers participate.
The camaraderie – or is it something in the sauce? – brings volunteers back year after year. The Bell family has worked enough Roasts to have made an art out of cooking corn. “Boil, butter and serve,” says Corn Boss Pat Bell, giving away his secret recipe. And because 1,877 ears of corn don’t shuck themselves, he gets help from son Ted and wife Margaret. She would have gotten there sooner that morning, she said, but had to help slice 2,100 rolls of bread.
The sense of family and community permeate the Plaza like the smell of grilled beef. The 42nd annual event will raise about $9,000 for the Sonoma Community Center, but while SCC Executive Director Kathy Swett welcomes the support, “it’s more about the tradition.”
