Poetry and Sheep

This week while going through some old photos, my mom found this old snapshot of my sister and I and shared it to the family group chat:

Photo from the 1990s of two young women wearing colonial costumes standing on a deck.

First of all, I need to clarify that we are not actually vampires. Our washed out complexions are the result of whatever film/developing that Mom was using at this time because we look equally pasty in all the photos from this time in our lives. The pre-digital age was not without its quirks. Second the reason we were dressed in these colonial costumes is because at the time we worked at the historical village down the road from us. Our official job title was “tavern wench.” Technically the village was a 19th century canal town and not a colonial village so our costumes didn’t even make any sense, but this was just one of Waterloo’s many quirks.

It was a tourist attraction with assorted real restored historic homes and buildings that visitors could tour, but also it was a concert venue. Oh, and you could get married there. What can I say? It was an interesting place.

After college I ended up going on to work there full time. Working in the administrative office meant I didn’t have to wear a costume every day, but it still managed to be a pretty interesting work environment. One night at dinner the subject of runaway emus came up, as it does, and I ended up recalling a story about a different runaway critter, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The last summer that I worked at Waterloo we had a big change in management where a completely new executive team started running the show. They had tourism experience, but Waterloo was definitely a whole new challenge four them. At that time every other year Waterloo used to play host to the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. It was a pretty big deal. The reason the festival was only held every other year was because it was a huge undertaking.

Those of us who were junior employees and had experience with the festival tried to prepare our new superiors for what to expect, but it was clear they underestimated the scope of things. They said things like, “How big of a deal can it be? It’s poetry.” So we would say, “Yes, but it’s the largest poetry festival in North America,” and they would roll their eyes.

We tried explaining, repeatedly that they needed to make sure they had enough staff scheduled to run things. This shouldn’t have been a problem because during the festival a lot of the restored buildings weren’t open for tours so those costumed employees generally donned different metaphorical hats for those four days. I remember explaining that we needed to have enough staff on hand to have all four windows of the ticket booth open, which meant we needed to train staff on how to use the Ticketmaster computers. I even recommended the staff who I knew could use a computer, which at that time and with our staff wasn’t a given.

I know my advice fell on deaf ears, because on the first day of the festival I arrived to find my phone ringing off the hook. It was one of my eye-rolling supervisors who said it was pure bedlam at the ticket booth and could I come down there at once. So at a brisk pace I set out for the ticket booth which was roughly a quarter mile away. As I headed past our weaving barn, one of the employees came out to let me know that Autumn had made a run for it and asked if I saw her during my travels could I return her to the pen.

Autumn was a sheep, and as it happened she was a smart sheep. For those of you who have experience with sheep that might sound like an oxymoron. The Sheep Detectives aside, these are not animals that are known for being especially bright. Well, a smart sheep is pretty much living proof that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Autumn with her little sheep brain had figured out how to free herself from her pen and from that point on her lack of smarts usually led her to get into various predicaments. That first morning of the poetry festival was no exception.

As I hurried down the path and the ticket booth came within view I found myself looking at a chaotic scene. Hundreds of high school students and their frazzled teachers were trying to get into the festival as our understaffed ticket booth staff attempted to help them. Then I got a little closer and heard over the crowd’s roar an unmistakable “Baa baa!” In that swarm of people was one wayward sheep.

I waded into the fray and grabbed hold of Autumn’s rope halter bringing her into the ticket booth with me. My supervisor was as relieved to see me as he was surprised to see that I had a sheep in tow. As we set about coming up with a plan to get the ticket booth bottleneck cleared, Autumn decided to do a taste test of the ticket stock. Thankfully she didn’t eat all the tickets before we could issue them and that fire of the work day was put out. I was able to safely return Autumn to her pen.

And then a little later that day, just about the entire office staff ended up down in the picnic area manning the grill and taking lunch orders because the new food service manager had also not taken seriously any of our warnings that this was the largest poetry festival in North America. I don’t think that day anyone else in the country was being paid nearly as much to flip burgers. Waterloo was definitely, by far, the most interesting place I ever worked.

—Alissa