Strawberry Shortcake Is A Young Man’s Game
THIS MORNING IS THE MORNING AFTER our church’s Annual Strawberry Fest and I feel like a piece of meat with shoes on.
The Fest, which draws approximately 10,000 people, is one day from 10 AM until 8 PM. In a town of 60,000 people that is quite a turnout.
My job this year was to man one of the six ticket vending tables along with another person who acted as cashier. I kept referring to him as Bernie Madoff. Not many people got that reference as he was taking their money.
I did that from about 3 PM on and by the end of it at 8 PM I had a headache and paper cuts. I was no longer capable of coherent speech and my butt hurt from sitting on the most uncomfortable folding chair in existence. Oh, yeah, and it was 93 degrees and muggy.
One of these years I’m going to have to try some of the strawberry shortcake. I’ve been a volunteer worker on this for a number of years and I have yet to taste the product. It must be good – people keep coming back year after year with no ill effects.
The busiest time of all is in the 5 PM to 8 PM window. Last night the line with people trying to get to the goodies was half a block long.
With that many people jammed in line and sweating like a nun in a whorehouse, I ended up calling on some of my questionable skills. I started cracking jokes to keep them entertained while waiting. I figured that if I can keep them laughing, or at least smiling, I had a better chance of getting out of there alive. It must have worked.
There are about 200 good people who volunteer to help us put on this shindig. Most of them don’t go to our church, but on this one day we gladly welcome them into the fold.
There were people dishing up the Strawberries outside where the mobs were. People in the church basement kitchen were putting together the delicious dessert for pickup orders that numbered close to a thousand. There were people counting money and people lifting and carrying the tons of ingredients. The football team from one of our high schools toted and carried all of the trash to the dumpsters and also helped out where needed.
While it may technically be a church event, it has morphed into the biggest one day community event in the Wabash Valley. Ain’t it grand?
This event makes D-Day look like a day at the beach… Oh, it was, wasn’t it? No offense, but you get my drift.
Some of our people, my wife (The lovely and diligent, Dawn included) got to the scene at 7:30 AM and stayed to the bitter end and then some.
There were both radio and TV stations there doing live broadcasting. Dawn was on the air a couple of times, smiling through the wall to wall diners.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. When I do it makes me sound like a whine-ass, doesn’t it?
Too late now, I suppose.
But next year, on the second Thursday in June, I’ll be out there again. I’ll do whatever they ask of me and the next day I’ll grumble and moan.
It’s what I do. I’m good at it. And maybe next year I’ll try “The Works” – biscuit, berries, ice cream and whipped topping. It can’t be more than a few thousand calories. After all, my nutritionist was there with his whole family and he loved it!
Down the Hall on Your Left 