Norco - A Volunteer's Tale (long) part 1

[Victoria A Thompson <toriandsteve@juno.com>]

All these tales of doom and gloom at Norco this year are too depressing. 
So, I am taking it upon myself to liven up the festivities!

The Players:  Lynne Glazer, Ride Manager, hereafter known as Wonder
Woman.  Julie Herrera, Right Hand of Ride Manager, known FONDLY to Yours
Truly as Little Miss Picky Pants.  Yours Truly, referred to as Yours
Truly.  Ken Herrera, husband of Little Miss Picky Pants, aka.
Soundmeister.  The Vets, known as The Vet(s).  All remaining volunteers
to be called Slave Labor.  Norco Riverdance Endurance Ride shortened to
The Race.

Wonder Woman and Slave Labor spent the entire week prior to The Race
preparing the trails.  We're talking cutting, sawing, trimming, whacking,
not to mention marking.  Yours Truly spent the week prior to The Race
getting ready for school to start (which, as it turns out, isn't until
Sept. 20th).  So I never really spoke with Wonder Woman until about 1 PM
on Friday.  Wonder Woman's reply to my "I'm on my way is there anything I
can pick up?" was, "Staples."  Staples.  That's it.  How many of you do
you think can put on a race where the only thing missing is staples? 

When I arrived at ridecamp a few minutes later I was really surprised by
the number of people that had already set up camp.  If I hadn't had an
appointment that morning I would have arrived sooner, but Little Miss
Picky Pants seemed to have things under control.  There was a steady
stream of people coming in all afternoon picking up ride packets.  I
helped little Miss Picky Pants through the heaviest time, but she's too
organized for me.  Makes me nervous.  When something is so organized that
I can't clean things up to make it better I feel cheated.  Yes, Little
Miss Picky Pants is so organized when things get even slightly disheveled
she blows a gasket.  

Let's talk about money for a minute, shall we.  The envelope for the cash
for people buying extra dinner tickets to be more precise.  I had people
standing all around me asking for extra dinner tickets, it was like the
stock exchange.  People waving money at me saying, "I need one, two, six
tickets."  Money was being thrust at me from all directions!  I had wads
of money bulging in my fists!  It got to the point where I could hold no
more and had to put the money into the envelope.  So, I shoved the money
in the envelope and went back to taking more money.  Finally, Little Miss
Picky Pants was free to assist someone else and that someone wanted an
extra dinner ticket.  Little Miss Picky Pants goes to get change out of
the envelope, sees this wad of money, and instead of sifting through to
look for change starts ragging at me for not putting the money in the
envelope neatly.  She wants the bills in order!  "I don't have time to
put the bills in order," retorts Yours Truly, "Look at all these people."
 Little Miss Picky Pants replies with a, "Let them wait."  Kind of like
Marie Antoinette and her "Let them eat cake" reply to her breadless,
starving countrymen.  Well, to make a long story short, Little Miss Picky
Pants put paper clips around all the different bills and forbid me access
to the envelope!  After that whenever anyone wanted a dinner ticket I
made them go hunt down L'il Ms P P (even when she was inside the ride
office doing paper work and couldn't be bothered).  Side note to Wonder
Woman, now you know the private joke.

Note to all of you lacking a sense of humor:  the paragraph you just read
is funny!!

In all seriousness, L'il Ms P P has the paperwork in perfect order. 
Unfortunately, she's the only one that knows that order.  Because we're
working with three different organizations whenever there is any change
to one piece of paper, all three have to be changed and Yours Truly was
not up on the procedures.  So, when two people decided to switch horses
after they had been vetted in (just one example) I couldn't help them,
and I felt totally useless because I had to keep going to Julie for help.
 That prevented Julie from getting her work done, so things backed up a
little at the check in counter.  

Things slowed down a bit and I was released from the front desk to help
Wonder Woman carry completion awards and prizes from her truck and
trailer to the meeting area.  I filled water troughs up by the shoer and
then, much to my dread, I helped Soundmeister put up the screen tent for
breakfast the next morning.  I was really dreading this because last year
it took us hours, yes, hours, to put this thing up.  There are no
directions and we just sort of winged it last year.  Soundmeister
remembered how the poles went, but couldn't remember which poles went
where.  The only thing I remembered was we couldn't stake the corners
down first (big mistake last year).  The shoer came over to help us hold
the outside poles together while Soundmeister crawled inside to put the
inside poles together.  We had real spikes for pounding into the ground
this year, not those worthless aluminium tent pegs.  Soundmeister did a
real good job figuring out how things went, and I did a real good job
standing there with my finger up my nose (where I come from that means I
stood there doing nothing).  Soundmeister  finished setting up the PA
system and cranked up some tunes.  Scared a couple of horses when the
music first came on, but everyone agreed the tunes selected by
Soundmeister were top notch.

The pre-ride meeting was held about 7.  There was somewhere in the
neighborhood of 150 riders this year.  Almost split in half between the
50's and the 25's.  Quite a few first time endurance racers were there
this year.  Several juniors.  The youngest I believe just turned 11, I
know there was one that was 11 1/2 , but I could swear I heard a kid say
she was only 10 1/2.  A few teenagers too (14, 15).  There were more
juniors than that, but those are the ones I remember.  The ride meeting
went well,  Wonder Woman's standup comedy had them rolling in the aisles.
 And she wasn't even in top form that night.  
When The Vet got up to talk he told everyone the weather forecast called
for mid to upper 80's with 30% humidity.  That brought the heat index to
somewhere around 130 to 140 degrees.  He explained that the biggest
obstacle would be cooling the horses and just riding through the river
and getting them wet wasn't going to do the trick.  We aren't used to
that much humidity this time of year, so it really was nasty,
weatherwise.  It's usually about 100 degrees here this time of year, but
it's dry, so splashing in the river cools the horses, not so this year.  

The LD ride meeting was held after the main meeting and Wonder Woman went
to great lengths to describe everything the newbies would encounter.  She
not only went into great detail about the trail, but also told them what
to do when they got to the vet check.  She answered every single question
and didn't leave until everyone was satisfied.  Little Miss Picky Pants
even tried to drag her away to start in on paperwork, but Wonder Woman
held her ground much to the awe and delight of her teeming throng of
fans.  I'm surprised autographs weren't signed!

Since there were no more chores for Yours Truly (although I think Wonder
Woman and Little Miss Picky Pants would have liked to have had a guard on
the front door of the office to stave off all but the most important
interlopers) I had a few chores of my own at home to do, so I bade all
goodnight until the 'morrow.  As I was leaving the nature preserve I
believe the final entrant was pulling in.  All ride packets, save one,
had been picked up when I left.  That says a lot for how much people like
this race.

Well, part 1 has gone on long enough.  Stay tuned for part 2.

Yours Truly.