Dad on Duty #70 – Texas Day….Inside!
Texas Day!
Normally an outdoor event. But today it’s raining, so most activities must be moved indoors. It’s elbow-to-elbow in here. From a crowd and traffic flow standpoint, it’s pretty rough. But in terms of security, it is a lot easier than normal. Outside stuff is the scariest for us.
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The first event is a concert by 2nd and 4th grade choir, singing songs O’ Texas. All 600 kids are in the cafeteria, over 100 of them on the stage, packed in. The A/C is not working well; it is very warm, humid and stagnant. Within a few minutes, four of the choir kids go down, passing out from the heat. One kid drops hard; she’s completely out. Mary (the school nurse) waves me in to help, rather frantically. She asks me to get the girl to her office. I pick the little girl up; she’s completely limp, gazing blankly at me. I carry her to the nurse’s office and lay her on the cot.
I now realize that one of the other Dads has followed me into the nurse’s office. He’s an ER physician; significantly more qualified than I to take care of her. He’s politely standing behind me, listening and watching. I look over my shoulder, see him standing there, and have a reality check; “um….you should really be doing this…..” I step back and let him take over. I move to the other victims who have come in. For a few minutes, it looks like a civil war field hospital, with pale, sweaty kids laid out, shoulder to shoulder.
Marc, David H and Jory are frantically trying to get more air into the cafeteria. They prop open the main doors, and Jory takes a guard position to monitor the now unsecured access. Marc goes to open the partition between the back of the stage and the gym, to get air moving through the choir kids. The partition requires a special key……unless you’re in a hurry and shove really hard. With the help of some ROTC kids, Marc and David H gets a few panels opened up. Without the key.
We can’t control the a/c from within the building. The Boss is on the phone with Central maintenance telling them to turn the air down NOW. It’s a classic case of HQ vs field troops; the guys at HQ insist they can see the temp and it’s a refreshing 72 degrees. Practically brisk. Y’all should probably be wearing jackets, from what we can see from here at Environmental Control.
Um, it most certainly is NOT. I don’t care what your gauge says. I got kids dropping like flies. Fix it. NOW.
The Boss gets it done. Ten minutes later, GISD maintenance trucks are skidding up to the curb and a/c guys come spilling out.
In the meantime, Ruth has pulled the plug on the show. Everybody heads back to their rooms. The teacher who is in overall charge of the event comes to collect her kids and asks “what happened?” I tell her we had an MCI; a bunch of choir kids got the vapors. Go check out the nurse’s station. Although concerned, she’s also a little relieved; “that’s on Ruth’s watch. Not me. So far, I haven’t had any mishaps in MY part of this deal. I want that noted…” Haha, true….
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A couple of the activity stations are outside. There’s a petting zoo with bunnies, goats and a miniature horse on the front walkway, partially protected from the rain by the awning. In the bus lane, there’s another miniature horse and a calf-roping station (not to worry; it’s a fake calf). The two Dads who are covering those stations (Jory and Massimo) are not so lucky; they are pretty much in the rain the whole time.
Another set of miniature horses show up. These two are going to be inside. Yes, you read right; these are indoor horses.
I ask the handlers how we are going to do this. They tell me the horses have special sneakers, and are potty trained, so not to worry.
Potty trained? Really? Yes, they insist; they tell us when they need to go out. OK, I gotta see this.
As they are readying themselves at the front door, Carmen, one of our custodians, asks “where are they going?” I tell her. She looks at the horses, and then looks at me, like I just told her we were going to make sausage in the PTA room. I shrug “they swear they are potty trained”. She stares at me, then the horses, then me again…and sighs as she walks away. I get the feeling that she’s not convinced, and she sees large piles of horse poo in her near future.
We decide to park the horses in the back hallway, near doors that lead to some grass. As the horses enter the school, the handlers stop and put their shoes on. Sure enough, horse sneakers. Wow. The horses then parade right down the main hallway through the school to their assigned area in the back.
These little guys are fantastic; sweet, patient and completely unflappable. Sure enough, when they need to go outside, they prance around and “dig” at the floor, and the handlers take them outside for potty. Never seen anything like this.
*****
We’ve got a real “A” team of Dads today.
Jory has the worst job. He’s out front, by himself, in the rain, for about four hours. But it’s a critical spot, and he treats it with deadly seriousness. The kids have to flow across each other on the narrow sidewalk, and there is still some traffic in the car lane. He’s also responsible for watching the cafeteria doors for leakage. At one point, I just motion to him; eyes, sidewalk, road. You got it? Yep he motions back; I’m keeping them this way, no one past me that way. No words spoken.
David H, a cop and EMT, takes charge of parking goats and trailers, and keeping watch in the cafeteria. He also jumps on the thankless task of taking down decorations from the ceiling tiles (along with Marc). But he’s constantly, instantly ready to respond…and does, when we have a couple of small incidents. He always moves to the situation with great purpose and clarity, exuding confidence. It’s exactly what we need.
Massimo is an ER physician. But he spends most of the day today helping Jory outside in the rain, guiding kids between petting pens. It is a humble task, that he does willingly and well. He will do anything, really; no task is beneath him, and it is obvious to us all.
And finally there is Marc, the Chosen One. He is most likely the guy that will take my job in two years, when I leave. He has totally internalized the mission and is completely committed. Again, no task is unimportant to him. He takes initiative and solves the problem, then tells us about it later. He will staple up art, take down decorations, sweep the cafeteria…..and intercept an un-stickered adult, without a moment’s hesitation.
Your kids are in good hands out here.
*****
The sheer volume of overlapping traffic is staggering to see, and manage.
One of the stations (story telling) is in the library. Normally, we flow a class at a time in and out of the library. Today, we must move an entire grade in while another entire grade moves out. That’s about 225 kids trying to go through a regular sized door. In two minutes or less.
At lunch time, we have both the country dance station and regular lunch occurring in the cafeteria, simultaneously. The staff has used the tables to create a pathway for the lunch kids, but it’s still a complex, confusing and crowded operation. The kids are carrying their lunches all the way back to their class hallways to eat. So, imagine a kindergartner trying to balance a paper tray with a hot dog and apple, for several hundred feet. The big kids have it the hardest; they gotta get UPSTAIRS with their lunch perilously perched on a device designed (and largely limited to) traveling about 25 feet.
The mini horses are parked at the junction of the 1st and 2nd grade halls. At any given time, an entire grade (about 110 kids) are parked in the intersection for that presentation, while at the same time the 1st graders…all 110 of them….have to get through that to get back to their classrooms. You literally cannot see the floor at all; it’s just a solid mass of kid.
*****
Toward the end of the day, the Reptile Guy shows up. He is wheeling a cart, like something you’d see being towed by a bicycle in Shanghai. I meet him in the front office. We can’t run any of these folks through the security system; they don’t exist in that database. We just give them generic stickers that indicate “we at least have seen this guy”, and our Ops Spec is that any grownup without a sticker gets challenged.
I use a Sharpie to make a sticker for this guy that says “Snake”. I slap it on his chest. He looks down at it. “Really?” he asks. Well, we will all know who you are….
He wheels his Box of Sliminess down the hallway and into the elevator, with me accompanying. We’re headed to the 3rd grade hallway for his show. When he gets to the designated area, he starts unpacking the cart. He pulls out probably 10 different plastic boxes, like Tupperware, each containing some sorta reptile. A few snakes, couple of turtles (including a very impressive Snapping Turtle, who apparently didn’t get the memo about being all cute and cuddly…and hisses and snaps…), some lizards and a toad.
It is a damn cool show. And it was even cooler that is showed up in a self-contained BOX.
*****
We’re done. The kids, and the staff, are exhausted. Horses get their sneakers off, snakes are returned to boxes, bunnies are gathered up.
It’s just another regular ol’ Texas Day here at McCoy!
I’m so glad to have found your blog! What a great read! Am ESPECIALLY grateful to you for all you do and taking such excellent care of my girl that day. Just can’t thank you enough.