Other Duties As Assigned, part II

I volunteered to help Bill Duwell, our Technical Director, pick up 100 bales of straw. We expect to use about 9 bales in any given performance of As You Like It. We're using straw because it doesn't rot as fast as hay, and is a little lighter. Between the daily tossing of bales on stage, and hopefully less than daily rain, we decided to treat these bales a 'consumables', and estimate we will go through about 150 over the course of the season. So this was our first load. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and although I like the idea of spending time on the farm, I never have. So at 42, I threw bales from a mow for the first time in my life. When we arrived, I asked if there was anything I should know about the job, and the farmer said, 'Did you say your prayers?' I said, 'Huh?' He said, 'Oh, yeah, and the pledge of allegiance. I always make sure my boys say the pledge of allegiance every day'. I said, 'Every day'. Bill and I loaded 60 bales onto our truck, and then backed up the trailer. But the trailer got stuck in the mud, and we had to load the other 40 onto the truck, only to offload them again onto the trailer for the ride to Jerry's. Jerry is our Facilities Supervisor at APT and also owns a farm outside of town. He volunteered his barn for storage for the summer. Jerry, Bill, and I off loaded the 100 bales into his barn (first row on its side, of course, so the mice won't get at the strings that bale the straw). I thought I had worked really hard that morning, but whenever I talked about with anyone who had experience, they said the same thing, 'at least you weren't doing it in 100 degree heat like it was when I used to do it'. I'll count my blessings.