december 18-19 , 1973 he got to the laundry around eight in the morning and they did n't start to tear it down until nine , but even at eight there was quite a gallery on hand , standing in the cold with their hands thrust into their coat pockets and frozen breath pluming from their mouths like comic strip balloons-tom granger , ron stone , ethel diment , the shirt girl who usually got tipsy on her lunch break and then burned the hell out of unsuspecting shirt collars all afternoon , gracie floyd and her cousin maureen , both of whom had worked on the ironer , and ten or fifteen others .