Working the Blue Ash Airshow
For the second year in a row in the beginning of September I got a phone message from Dad asking if I wanted to work the Blue Ash Airshow. (click here for webpage) The annual two day event here in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati raises money for the continued operations and maintenance of the airport. General Electric usually supplies a large part of the volunteer workforce for the show, and as a retiree of GE, Dad usually gets a call to come and work. Why I volunteer is still a mystery to me....
As usual, there is no training session before hand, just me racing by Blue Ash Airport last Thursday from CVG airport (where I work about 30 miles south) at the peak of rush hour to get the staff t-shirts, name tags, and parking passes for the event. I was delayed by a backup on I-71 North but got there just in time before they were packing up to leave for the night. Unfortunately, it appears that we had been signed up for 1-5pm on Sunday rather than the 9:30-1 shift we had requested. No matter, Isaac (the co-ordinator) told me "just show up when you can and we will find a place for you".
So Sunday morning at 9:30 Dad and I show up at the Blue Ash Airport. First issue was when we pulled up to the parking lot that the local National Guard unit had roped off for volunteers, as it appeared they did not want to let us in. It appears they could not see the parking pass on the dashboard due to the acute angle it was lying and also that Dad's Lexus "pimpmobile" has tinted windows making outside view difficult at best. Eventually though, I thought to roll down my window and they caught a glance at the lime green official volunteer t-shirt I was wearing and decided that we must be part of the volunteer crew, as no self respecting member of the North American male species would be caught dead wearing a shirt this color.
We ambled over to the gate we were designated to work, only to find it pretty much fully staffed already. However, there was a separate booth they wished to open up after it got busy so we were told to hold in support until that booth opened around 11am. No problem, we just hung out and watched a large amount of people come through the gate on their way to the airshow. Two other latecomers showed up that we eventually worked with, a middle aged couple. I knew they would be fun to work with when I heard her saying out loud "Look at all these people, no way they were scheduled to work the morning shift... I know they weren't all on the schedule." With that I just stared the other direction and whistled at the sky. Uh oh....
Sure enough when 11:00am rolled around we opened the second booth to hand out armbands and take cash from the happy go luck public, along with the happy couple previously mentioned. I enjoyed this more than this year than last as in the prior year we were working inside the actual event (in an extremely stylish red volunteer t-shirt with cheesy graphics) and people are much happier when they are arriving then when they have been in the hot sun for a couple of hours.
The entryway where we had the ticket booth was on the front of the airport's eastern most ramp, with two airplanes from the "Warbirds" group sitting nearby. In fact, the aged noisy airport fueling truck came by to fill them up while we were there, a scary scenario as we were within 25 yards of the closest plane and the fuel truck (vintage my first birthday in 1963) sounded like Dick Van Dyke was manning it in a famous sixties family film.
There was a large cross section of the public coming to see the airplanes. Tons of excited young children dragging their parents along with glee, lots of excited young parents pushing or carrying their infant children with merriment, biker dudes with black Harley shirts, beer bellies, and balding heads trying to look as bored as humanly possible, and scrawny teenage "gangsta" wannabees with J-Lo's in tow with their pants hung low enough that the front pockets can officially be referred to as "knee pockets". And old men, lots of old men coming to see the aircraft of their youth, conversely wearing their pants around their nipples.
We opened the second ticket booth around 11:00am with four of us and proceeded to work out a pretty efficient system for taking cash and attaching wristbands to patrons. We had several "Sea Cadets" assigned to our booth, which their only assignment was to ensure no one got in without a wristband. It wasn't until around noon that we noticed a sign set up 10 yards ahead of our booth that stated that all bags were subject to search. We didn't really think much about it, until an Indian couple came through with a large bag, and then the "not on the schedule" lady asked to inspect it. I thought about mentioning to her that the little red dot usually meant that they were Hindu and the only terror usually associated with them is when an elderly Hindu woman is driving a car within a hundred yards of you, which was not the case here. But I thought the better of it and just mentioned we probably ought to be checking a few more bags so we don't come across as profiling... which in a sense we were doing.
The only angry customer was a large young man with a bald head, bad teeth, and a Steve Austin wrestling t-shirt on his person. He approached with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and I informed him that there was no smoking on the tarmac. Good thing we weren't in a ring, because I would still be in a sleeper hold with a half Nelson, and full Napoleon for good measure, judging from the look I got from this guy.
Around 1:00pm we mentioned to the couple that we would have to leave soon due to a prior engagement and we hoped that a relief crew would be along soon. The woman again went into "where on the schedule was a 10-1 shift?" and I proceeded to act dumb and search the sky for pretty clouds. (it was a beautiful day by the way) I found mubling to be the best answer in this situation but I was getting close to the point that if she kept up her line of questioning I would remind her of what a "volunteer" actually was, and that there was a perfectly suitable punching bag in the form of her husband with us in the booth if she felt the need to continue this tirade. He must of sensed this however, as he said that with the slowdown of people coming that we could probably go ahead and leave and they could handle it from there.
So 1/2 later than expected, Dad and I left for our prior engagement... the Bengals-Browns football game....
As usual, there is no training session before hand, just me racing by Blue Ash Airport last Thursday from CVG airport (where I work about 30 miles south) at the peak of rush hour to get the staff t-shirts, name tags, and parking passes for the event. I was delayed by a backup on I-71 North but got there just in time before they were packing up to leave for the night. Unfortunately, it appears that we had been signed up for 1-5pm on Sunday rather than the 9:30-1 shift we had requested. No matter, Isaac (the co-ordinator) told me "just show up when you can and we will find a place for you".
So Sunday morning at 9:30 Dad and I show up at the Blue Ash Airport. First issue was when we pulled up to the parking lot that the local National Guard unit had roped off for volunteers, as it appeared they did not want to let us in. It appears they could not see the parking pass on the dashboard due to the acute angle it was lying and also that Dad's Lexus "pimpmobile" has tinted windows making outside view difficult at best. Eventually though, I thought to roll down my window and they caught a glance at the lime green official volunteer t-shirt I was wearing and decided that we must be part of the volunteer crew, as no self respecting member of the North American male species would be caught dead wearing a shirt this color.
We ambled over to the gate we were designated to work, only to find it pretty much fully staffed already. However, there was a separate booth they wished to open up after it got busy so we were told to hold in support until that booth opened around 11am. No problem, we just hung out and watched a large amount of people come through the gate on their way to the airshow. Two other latecomers showed up that we eventually worked with, a middle aged couple. I knew they would be fun to work with when I heard her saying out loud "Look at all these people, no way they were scheduled to work the morning shift... I know they weren't all on the schedule." With that I just stared the other direction and whistled at the sky. Uh oh....
Sure enough when 11:00am rolled around we opened the second booth to hand out armbands and take cash from the happy go luck public, along with the happy couple previously mentioned. I enjoyed this more than this year than last as in the prior year we were working inside the actual event (in an extremely stylish red volunteer t-shirt with cheesy graphics) and people are much happier when they are arriving then when they have been in the hot sun for a couple of hours.
The entryway where we had the ticket booth was on the front of the airport's eastern most ramp, with two airplanes from the "Warbirds" group sitting nearby. In fact, the aged noisy airport fueling truck came by to fill them up while we were there, a scary scenario as we were within 25 yards of the closest plane and the fuel truck (vintage my first birthday in 1963) sounded like Dick Van Dyke was manning it in a famous sixties family film.
There was a large cross section of the public coming to see the airplanes. Tons of excited young children dragging their parents along with glee, lots of excited young parents pushing or carrying their infant children with merriment, biker dudes with black Harley shirts, beer bellies, and balding heads trying to look as bored as humanly possible, and scrawny teenage "gangsta" wannabees with J-Lo's in tow with their pants hung low enough that the front pockets can officially be referred to as "knee pockets". And old men, lots of old men coming to see the aircraft of their youth, conversely wearing their pants around their nipples.
We opened the second ticket booth around 11:00am with four of us and proceeded to work out a pretty efficient system for taking cash and attaching wristbands to patrons. We had several "Sea Cadets" assigned to our booth, which their only assignment was to ensure no one got in without a wristband. It wasn't until around noon that we noticed a sign set up 10 yards ahead of our booth that stated that all bags were subject to search. We didn't really think much about it, until an Indian couple came through with a large bag, and then the "not on the schedule" lady asked to inspect it. I thought about mentioning to her that the little red dot usually meant that they were Hindu and the only terror usually associated with them is when an elderly Hindu woman is driving a car within a hundred yards of you, which was not the case here. But I thought the better of it and just mentioned we probably ought to be checking a few more bags so we don't come across as profiling... which in a sense we were doing.
The only angry customer was a large young man with a bald head, bad teeth, and a Steve Austin wrestling t-shirt on his person. He approached with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and I informed him that there was no smoking on the tarmac. Good thing we weren't in a ring, because I would still be in a sleeper hold with a half Nelson, and full Napoleon for good measure, judging from the look I got from this guy.
Around 1:00pm we mentioned to the couple that we would have to leave soon due to a prior engagement and we hoped that a relief crew would be along soon. The woman again went into "where on the schedule was a 10-1 shift?" and I proceeded to act dumb and search the sky for pretty clouds. (it was a beautiful day by the way) I found mubling to be the best answer in this situation but I was getting close to the point that if she kept up her line of questioning I would remind her of what a "volunteer" actually was, and that there was a perfectly suitable punching bag in the form of her husband with us in the booth if she felt the need to continue this tirade. He must of sensed this however, as he said that with the slowdown of people coming that we could probably go ahead and leave and they could handle it from there.
So 1/2 later than expected, Dad and I left for our prior engagement... the Bengals-Browns football game....
posted by Rich in Cincy | 7:26 AM
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