Since I've failed so far at documenting my journey through any means other than pictures (See the Endless Summer, and FallFest albums on my facebook) its going to take me a few tries to simply get caught up since, honestly, why spend my time latched to my computer when I could be out doing the very things this road trip is for? What is it for, you may ask. I shall tell you.
I spend most of my high school and college career never going on vacations, never traveling, never having adventures all for the sake of saving the mighty dollar bill. I didn't grow up with a lot of money. My parents are also both staunch workers which means no time off - ever. I owned that trait as well. Until recently, that is.
I graduated from WVU and moved directly into graduate school. Knowing the expense that was about to be handed to me I went right into working full time during the summer of 2008, as I'd done all the summers before.
The difference between that summer and summers past was the nature of my job. Having worked in an office job at Sears for three years, then an office job in the automotive industry (my father's business) for another three, not to mention the same all though high school, I was ready to do something different.
I had started working as a stagehand for the WVU Arts & Entertainment division in the fall of 2006. I'd just returned to WVU and needed the best paying, most flexible job I could get. My A&E stagehand job allowed for that. It also wasn't too far off from the type of experience I wanted. I was studying broadcast journalism and knew behind the camera or soundboard was where I was meant to be. I signed up to work concerts and theatre productions as much as I could. The job was and is still fascinating to me. Never the same thing twice. Never a dull show. Never a day when I don't learn something new. Those of you that know me well can likely recognize my need to constantly learn new things. This job, on most days, satisfies me in that very way. This is something I could never EVER get from an office job. And unlike most jobs with bosses that fear losing their jobs to their ambitious subordinates, wanting to learn new elements of the entire production is encouraged.
So back to the summer of 2008. It was the first summer I stayed in Morgantown so I was able to take more gigs with the stagehand union. Oh, I guess I should say for those that don't know, after working for the A&E crew for a year I started working for the union also. Its a mixed house at WVU, meaning that all calls for labor are filled by both A&E and union hands. Getting more work meant learning more. It wasn't enough to work full-time so being ambitious to work but knowing no one would hire someone who was leaving town in 2 months, I called a local temp agency. They fixed me up with a few gigs - cleaning the new Mon General wing, doing some office filing..., and I was able to keep pretty busy.
But as much as I loved the excitement of my stagehand work I was still left working all summer when my fellow grads were celebrating graduation by traveling, getting jobs in big cities, and otherwise taking a break before starting in "the real world." In the fall I started seminary in Gettysburg and it forced me to look back over the past 8 years since graduating high school. I evaluated my choices in life and thankfully regret none of them. However, I did decide to make one change. I would simply do more.
I was done with saying no to chances to go, see, and do because I was afraid of losing income. So this year, after a great summer of working as a hand building steel staging, and setting up, running, and tearing down shows, I am able to take a break. This is the first semester that I won't be taking classes too. There's no better time than now.
That's not to say I won't be working - volunteer work and stagehand work are in the sights, but I will be using most of my time to visit high school friends and grad school friends. I have a lot of connections because of work too and I am thankful for every single one of them.
Here's the quasi plan (Oh, that's the other thing - schedules will mean little to me over the next few weeks) and where I've been so far:
I finished working in Virginia at the Boy Scout Jamboree on August 4th. After making it to my mother's house in Maryland for a few days (and working in Baltimore with local 19 for the first time!) I returned to Gettysburg to work on my house. I left there and the adventure began on August 20th.
I headed for Morgantown WV, home of WVU and my home IATSE (Interna
tional Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) local, 578. The first day of classes at WVU means there is also a free concert for students. FallFest usually features 2 bigger names and 2 smaller acts, plus recently the ballrooms inside the Mountainlair have been used for DJ sets. The staging is built outside, on top of the Mountainlair parking garage. It’s a truss tower system and we start building it on the Saturday before classes. We work until the show on Monday at setting it up, we run the show on Monday night, and then immediately following the show we tear it all down and load it out. We wrapped up load out at about 9am on Tuesday morning, August 24. I worked as a truck loader, meaning I unpack and pack the tractor trailers, and at one point at about 8am Tuesday morning I fell asleep inside the trailer I was packing. We’d been waiting for about 10 minutes to get our next piece of the load so I told the other hand I was working with to wake me when it got there. Apparently I was out for a good 15 minutes! The weekend also included a fun trip to Gibbie’s and then McClafferty’s with guys from RCS Corp, the audio, video, and lighting company WVU often works with, a bunch of my local brothers, and a few other fellow stagehand friends…see the FallFest 2010 album for evidence of some of that fun.
On the Sunday of Fallfest weekend I was able to make it to worship at the Lutheran campus chapel. It was great seeing Riegel, Bennett, and most of the Lutheran chapel gang. I tried to make it back for Compline later in the week but work, exhaustion, and one serve headache got in the way.
Now, here it is, not four days into my adventure, swearing the purpose was to live life, and I was already turning down fun for work (not that work isn’t fun….). A few hours south of Morgantown was a group of Baltimore stagehands, friends of mine, that had gone to the Summersville, WV area for a week of adventure sports – white water rafting, climbing, hiking, golfing (ok, not an “adventure” sport), and more. My original plan was to work FallFest and head down. But I couldn’t leave! I was having too much fun with my Morgantown friends (Kendall Eby, Mara Nadolski, and Isaac Crow were my hosts – THANK YOU!) Then of course there were dollar signs. If I stayed I would be working the Lee Brice / Jason Aldean concert at the WVU Coliseum on Friday the 27th. We built the stage on Thursday and picked up the spot lights from the Creative Arts Center, so Thursday night lasted until Friday at 2am. Load-in started at 8am. I didn't go to bed until 4:30am because I stayed up talking to a friend so I knew I'd be exhausted for the show day. Fortunately a truck driver for FallFest had given me an energy shot. It tasted horrible but boy did I need it.
There was no guarantee of a show call but I was praying for it – without it I’d likely be upset I missed out on WV adventures for just an in and out. I got the show call – spot op for all the main artists – and it was a pretty fun night. An old (not in years, lol) guy, John Fritz now works for the Aldean tour. It was great seeing him. Since my adventures will hopefully be taking em to Nashville he said to give him a ring while I'm there and he'd take me to The Red Door, which is apparently the crew bar in town. I can't wait!
The load out moved quickly for Aldean because he only has two tractor trailers. Moving out the RCS stuff took a lot longer. For the load-in and load-out I was, again, working as a truck loader. My last truck finished packing at 5am so I was cut. The rest of the crew finished around 5:30am. Brendan and Nate, RCS guys, and I went to Eat & Park around 6am since we hadn’t eaten in about 12 hours. I went back to Kendall, Mara, and Isaacs’, and proceeded to sleep for the few hours I had before my next adventure.
I was glad I stuck around for a few other reasons. One of which was that my friend Rachel McCormick recieved a call that she is being considered for a job in Corpus Cristi Texas. She had to be there in two days so I took her to the Pittsburgh airport on Thursday morning. I was happy to help and am super proud of her just for being considered. It also gave me an excuse to have Pittsburgh shopping adventures. I went to REI, Cabela's, and the Sears outlet and spent lots of money I haven't earned yet.
Saturday meant film training with the WV Film Office. Sponsored by my local, the training at the CAC went over basic film hierarchy, gaffer and electrician, best boy/girl stuff. We got to do a lot with the lighting fixtures, and I was surprised at how different the lighting is compared to theatrical lighting. Many of the fixtures I’ve seen in TV studios but had not had an opportunity like this one to use them. I was told that I can put my resume into the WV Film office and placed in a directory for when films shooting in WV are looking to hire. There’s an upcoming film to be shot in September/October. I don’t know if I’ll be back from my trip in time but I think I’ll let them know I’m interested just in case. I would love to work on a movie! At least one – before I retire from this whole stagehand thing and maybe put my seminary education to work ~ Though the likelihood of that happening is something I’ll be questioning during my road trip. Ah, introspection.
Saturday night I went to see my friend Brandon Pro play the lead role of C.B. in Dog Meets God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead. It’s an amazing story of the teenage Peanuts gang. Pro did a phenomenal job too! After that I had some hot wing and gin & tonics with Meredith France who’d just taken the GRE on Friday. I’m so proud of this girl – she’s got such a commitment to studying. I wish I had 1/10th of her determination. After another good night I slept late Sunday and then decided to give my friend Rebecca Grate a call before heading out of town. I thought she would be in Charleston, where I was headed. Boy was I wrong! She said she’d be in Morgantown in an hour. Perfect. Lunch with Becca and the LSM crew was just the kind spontaneous joy I’m looking for on this trip.
I left Morgantown after re-packing my over-packed car and headed towards Charleston, WV. Actually I ended up in Scott Depot, just a few miles west. I got to see my friend Kerry Midkiff-Vannatter who I hadn’t seen since I was in her wedding over a year ago! It was much too short of a visit. Her husband Tommy made us homemade mashed potatoes, corn on the grill, and barbeque chicken. It was delish. I’ve been super starved for homemade meals since, oh, mid June, and I was delighted to enjoy this one.
Monday I packed up from Kerry’s and headed south. What happened then? You’ll have to wait and see. Not because I want to add suspense, but because I’m writing this while outside and its getting dern hot!!!!
