Repack 2002: The Inside Story

by Brian Vant-Hull

I detest paperwork. I hate doing it, I hate waiting for people to approve it, I hate the people you have to wait for to approve it. The original plan was to get the school cafeteria we had in Scaggsville last year, which meant going through the school bureaucracy as well as the USHGA bureaucracy to get insurance. Now don't get me wrong: each required about the top half of a single sheet of paper, but that's all it takes to make it sit on a shelf gathering dust. I somehow made the phone calls and got the paperwork, and there they sat while I waited to make decisions (I'm one of the people I hate waiting for the most).

You see, USHGA charges $75 to add an additional to club insurance. Jayne Defanipoulopiloopulis (or whatever: she's our current USHGA Executive Director) didn't charge us last year because she likes to encourage repacks. (What a sweetheart!) But with a tightening ship she couldn't let it go this time, and coupled with the charge for the room we'd be right on the edge of breaking even.

It gets worse. The last two repacks were done under the auspices of MHGA, and we could use those articles of incorporation to convince the school district that we were bonafide. But there was some funny business going on with site insurance last year, and not wanting to raise any red flags I planned to run things through CHGPA. (It turns out this was unnecessary as USHGA has recently come around to our way of seeing things.) But Tom couldn't find the articles of incorporation, and when I asked Mike if he had them, he considered they would be a nice thing to have, and could I perhaps go to the state and pick up a copy. Yeah, right.  Never gonna happen.

So I started thinking about the old Mayberry Mill. A relic dating back to the age of water power, it had been restored to a usable space by Bob and Mary Anne Galandak, upon whose property it presently resides.  Bob is your typical grumpy old man: a stogey-chewing curmudgeon with hands like ham hocks. But his big frame must have been built to house an oversize heart. I could tell many irrelevant stories about him, but the main characteristic pertaining to us is his retirement plans: woodworking is his passion, and he hopes to spend his golden years "turning big pieces of wood into little 'uns".  He did all of the work on the mill himself; before he turned his attention to it about 10 years ago it was a big, hollow, dusty hulk. The results of his labor were evident to everyone who came to the repack, but we're not the only ones who've enjoyed it; our school christmas party was held there every year (we'd even make wreathes in the basement) and more than one wedding as well. Craft shows and the like are an annual tradition.

Bob and I were fellow science teachers at my old school. The first year I met him I came over and spent a couple hours helping to paint the place. He's never forgotten it, and over the years has paid me back a hundredfold. When I called him up to ask about the mill, he refused to charge us for anything except heating costs. I got off the phone feeling pretty happy, and then was hit by a gleeful realization: NO PAPERWORK! That was the clincher.

I drove up to look the place over again. Decent amount of space, about 10 tables already there, big thick beams to suspend pilots from. The last point was important to convince people it was worth driving clear through terra incognita and back just to attend a parachute repack. Bob was willing to put in an eye-hook....hell, it was just more woodwork to him; but the wife needed convincing. It was an anxious week before we got our answer. With Mary Anne's nod I could breathe easier about my choice.

Then things began to unravel. They always do. What follows here is a chronology of panic attacks:

1 week before: I call up Betty Pfeiffer to ask her what the damn-hell happened to those bungee loops I ordered.  Turns out that she was moving not just her shop, but her house as well. Bad timing, nothing had been done.  It's impossible to be mad at Betty for even an instant, but even if I could I was saved from a suicidal frenzy when, like a white knight, Cragin came riding to the rescue: without even knowing how bad the bungee situation was he had started fiddling around with materials and found he could make them himself very easily. Obvious in retrospect, but it still takes someone to actually think of it and do something. Blast out the hero music and cheer.

4 days before: Bob calls me up and says he can get the 5 tables I requested from the church. FIVE TABLES? Turns out he mistook the number of EXTRA tables I wanted for the TOTAL number, subtracted one from the other and brought the remainder. He didn't know if the church had all the extras I wanted, but he would check. The sweat began to roll.

Day of: I show up early. Nobody's there, not even Bob and Mary Anne.  This is not looking good. Lewis was supposed to bring the VCR, and George was supposed to help with the tables, but there was no sign of anyone.  I didn't even see an eye-hook in the beams. Nothing and nobody. Worse still, I suddenly noticed ceiling fans with breakable glass bulbs right where we might be throwing the chutes. This couldn't be happening. I stood forlornly in the dark, listening to the world falling to pieces around me.

Then Bob drove up. Turns out he and George kept missing each other by phone (Damn, why didn't I give out email addresses?), but Bob had picked up the tables by himself and had them waiting for me in the truck the whole time. He apologized for not having gotten around to making the signs yet (HE HADN'T MADE THE SIGNS?!) but if I would help him dig around in the scrap pile to find some worthy materials he'd appreciate my help. So we moved into the wood shop and he starts leisurely painting signs while I hooked my feet under heavy equipment to keep from climbing the walls. I kept trying to dash out to tear down the ceiling fans but he'd stop me and have me hold the edge of a piece of board or something so he could keep an eye on me.

The signs were done (Bob carefully spreading the paint so it wouldn't run, while I tried not to scream) and still no Lewis. We went out to plant the signs, and when we came back a familiar car was in the drive. Lewis. Relief washed over me like a cool drink in the desert. I had notified the list-server a couple of times of my intentions to be at the  place by 3:00, but didn't really expect anyone there except Lewis. Lewis isn't on the list-server. I knew that. So all the time he spent leisurely wending his way northward, stopping in on friends and relations, watching random cows give birth and such, he could have been up at the mill if I had just put one and one together and called him.

Things finally began to happen: Bob drilled the eye-hook while Lewis and I arranged tables; we took down the ceiling fans most at risk. A paraglider pilot showed up. (I'm sorry to admit I forget his name) Dang, looked like this thing was actually gonna happen.

I tested out the chute deployment setup, then went outside to inflate it for the first time. I've had it stretched out and flaked a couple times, but had never seen it in it's full glory: spread out like a many-tentacled diatom, gently rotating in the breeze. I finally feel like we're bosom buddies.

We took the chute inside to stretch it out, and at the stroke of 5 my chin hit the floor as Bruce and Sunny walked in and informed me that Sunny had come all the way from the Eastern Shore just to help out. Another couple of white knights! I scurried around slapping materials and instructions into place. More people showed up, and the repack started rolling.

Things are a bit of a blur from there on out. I remember chutes going every which way, piles of harnesses with folks scurrying over them like ants, people clustered around the construction table eating (Why didn't we set up the other tables and chairs?) and many helping hands. There was a lot of expertise floating around, a few attempts at organization, but a general amorphous flow towards finality. Yet there was more than that: maybe it was the warm cozy feeling of being surrounded by so much worked wood on a chilly day, but the whole evening had a rosy, Capraesque glow about it, warm and close.  If someone tries to do good, if he keeps plugging away, eventually everyone will jump in at the last minute and make for a happy ending.  At some point I remember that Bob came in, took a look at all the flurry and the fabric stretched about his place, stuck a cigar stump in his mouth and smiled.

So that's about it. After covering my own expenses I left Bob about $150.  I knew the guy too well to give it to him directly (he'd never accept an over-payment) so I hid it under some utensils on his dining room table. A week later when I went back to retrieve the windsock I had forgotten (left tied to a stop sign) he groused at me for giving him too much money. He'd taken what he needed to cover heating and gave the rest to the church.  

I wasn't surprised at all.