Recovery Day

Hello readers! Well, last night was the Phish concert at Fenway Park, and following the show, it was time for crews to remove the barricades, chairs, flooring, lighting, equipment, and stage that was used for the weekend shows. I arrived at work at 9 PM, right during intermission of the Phish concert. Phish brings a pretty eclectic crowd, I thought last summer when I went to the Radiohead concert in Charlotte I was around a lot of weed, but wow, this Phish crowd was blazing everywhere. Anyways, besides the interesting people with their crazy dancing and the tons of glowsticks, Phish played a good second set and encore that I didn't mind standing there listening to. Oh, one thing that was hilarious at the show, about 30-45 minutes after the concert ended and the fans were leaving the stadium, us grounds crew guys were allowed to leave our posts, and as we were headed back to our locker room, we saw Fenway Park security guards and medical staff standing around this guy in the stands who had passed out drunk/high, and it appeared as if all his friends had left him. He was sitting there, long gone, and we were all yelling at him, staff tapping him, and he wasn't responding at all. The medical guys ended up carrying him to a gurney by grabbing whatever they could get a handle of on the guy.

The workers first got there and cleaned up the flooring and started stacking the chairs, and unattaching the floor. During this time, the grounds crew had different things to do, including mowing and watering of the infield and foul territory since it had been neglected since this past Thursday. We worked throughout the night doing different tasks like towing the carts with the pallets of flooring or helping line up the carts for the forklift. It was pretty easy work, but working through the chilly night at times made it a little difficult. Some of the guys who work with the Union that does the concert set-up and breakdown were really nice, and the Terraplas people were also a lot of fun to work with. Definitely glad I had the experience of working with all of them. Oh, the Union guys also had a knack for giving everyone nicknames, my name for the night was "Tiny" and my roommate, Phil, was given the name of "Zippy". Haha, no clue how they came up with those, but we dealt with it.

The replacements came in at 6 AM, and it was a great sight to see those 6 grounds crew guys emerge from the tunnel after a long night of work. Phil and I left the park and stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way back to the dorm, grabbed a quick breakfast before catching some sleep. I fell asleep about 6:30 and didn't wake up until 3 PM, so, I've had a pretty lazy day after a very productive night. Phil and I ran some errands in the neighborhood, ate a late lunch/early dinner and hung out around the dorm, watched television, and I think we're about to go catch a movie at a theater in between where we're staying and Fenway Park.

I'll end with this last thing, I just want to say how cool it was to come into work at Fenway Park with it being light out, turn to night, and leave in the morning with it being light again. Seeing the sunrise in Boston off the skyscrapers and different aspects of the ballpark, and although it was a long, chilly night, it was one I won't forget. Thanks for reading, happy June!