The time came for me to choose a Gilroy Garlic Festival
experience, live it and then write about it.
I assessed my talents and pitched a few ideas to my editor,
including beer-pouring or belly-dancing.
The time came for me to choose a Gilroy Garlic Festival experience, live it and then write about it.
I assessed my talents and pitched a few ideas to my editor, including beer-pouring or belly-dancing.
No dice.
Instead, my editor thought I’d be more suited to pick up trash and stand in the heat and dust a quarter-mile from Gourmet Alley.
Just call me The Dispatch’s Super Volunteer.
I was eager to try it but felt a bit of pressure, being a Gilroy native and all. We keep hearing that it takes 4,000 volunteers to run the festival each year and I was going to get a sampling of their jobs – the good, the bad and the ugly.
Thankfully, Vice President Jennifer Speno started me with the good, probably so I wouldn’t run away to write a story about the “rain room” mist tents. I was going to do a flame-up in Gourmet Alley, which came as a surprise that I wasn’t entirely prepared for. I’ve watched the famed pyro chefs at close to 20 Garlic Festivals and never once envisioned myself on the other side of the frying pan, or within inches of the 5-foot flame that shoots up from the pan once the calamari is tossed into the hot oil.
Pyro Chef Ken Fry briefed me on “the technique” as I stepped up to the pan. Sweat was already gathering on my forehead from the heat emanating off the custom-made stoves. I grabbed the pan; Fry poured in the oil. I shook the pan forward and back as he had told me to do. When the oil was hot, I grabbed a cup of calamari and, just as I tipped it into the pan, Fry shouted, “Fire in the hole!”
The crowd’s cheer was almost lost on me as a flame whooshed up over my head, dazzling my eyes and making me wish I’d put my hair in a ponytail.
Fry added a dash of spice here, a splash of wine there.
All the while, I was shaking and stirring, in absolute awe of the heat from my flame and the flames of the pyro chefs around me. Just how do these guys do this for hours every year? One flame-up – as memorable as it was – and I was ready to move on.
Next came a visit to Dave’s Hill, where California Highway Patrol Sgt. Dave Hill (that’s right) monitors the traffic flowing into Gilroy. Though not a volunteer, I wanted to see exactly what it is that he does. Armed with at least five different radios, Hill knows things like, how long a car in the “green” parking lot will wait to exit, or what the capacity is for the first parking lot filled that morning. It’s Hill who keeps U.S.101 running smoothly, shifting cars between the Masten Avenue and Monterey Street exits, depending on traffic.
As Hill responded to a call over the radio, sounds of Shaboom playing “Barbara Ann” drifted up from the amphitheater stage and I couldn’t help but think about what he was missing up on that hill, as invaluable as his service is.
Speno drove me down Dave’s Hill to a nearby parking lot, where I’d get a chance to direct cars, which I would consider to be a “bad” volunteer job compared with, say pouring beer.
Thankfully, a water truck had driven by recently, so there was little dust to speak of. I stepped up to the busiest intersection we could find and volunteer Cameron Ferrick showed me how to manage traffic. I waited about a minute, although it felt like more standing in the direct sun, and cars started to move. The cars waiting to cross the intersection waited patiently for my wave and when I again had to stop traffic, the drivers were quick to comply.
After those few minutes, however, I was once again ready to try something new. The ugly job of picking up trash. Speno took me to the refuse headquarters and wished me luck. I hopped on a tractor along with several members of the Gilroy High School basketball team and set off to make the festival grounds a cleaner place.
I think I should have worn one of their bright green shirts, because as I picked up the first bin, a man sitting nearby stood up and offered me some help. I turned him down, dumped the trash and returned the bin. It was a few more minutes before I found another bin that needed emptying (those trash guys were on top of things!). I recruited one of my co-volunteers, who had the arm muscles I lack, for some help. As we lifted the bin to the tractor, someone standing nearby laughed and said I deserved a free sandwich for helping out.
Thanks, but I don’t deserve the credit. After five minutes and a good hand-washing, I was glad to be done. How those thousands of volunteers stick it out hour after hour and year after year is beyond me. Or maybe it’s not. I got a taste of the camaraderie that makes the fest what it is. The cheers of the pyro chefs, the jokes from Hill, the patient instructions from the kids directing traffic and the physical strength lent by GHS athletes prove that the volunteers do their jobs not only to make the festival an event to remember, but to support the Gilroy community.
Thanks for putting up with a rookie for an afternoon.
