I almost don’t know what to do with myself anymore.
“Why?” you might ask. I am a Fish Head. Along with my partner in crime, Parth Patel (‘14), I have spent the last two and a half months planning the Fish Fry. Now that it’s over, I can finally take a deep breath and relax a little bit.
Parth and I were elected as Fish Heads during our sophomore year. After shadowing Jesse Bontreger (‘13) and Lucas Morgan (‘13) for two Fish Frys, we were finally ready (in theory) to take the reins.
In mid-February, I began leafing through the Fish Fry binder, cleaning out any unnecessary papers and absorbing the advice of former Fish Heads. That binder was a life saver. Soon after that, Parth and I met to begin pulling things together to make our Fish Fry a great one. We talked with Joy Yoder (food service manager) about taking inventory and ordering anything we needed, figured out how many pies each person in our class needed to supply, how many tickets everyone needed to sell, and reserved facilities for April 19th. Fish Fry seemed years away.
Sometime in early March, Parth picked me up for a little Fish Head “date,” which included supper at Taco Bell, a hunt for thick rubber gloves, and sorting through disposable aluminum pans to find the perfect type for the Fish Tent to use. In anticipation of the Junior class meeting, I printed posters, parent letters/work forms and counted tickets into bundles of 51. At this point Fish Fry seemed more real, and began to occupy a large percentage of my thoughts.
About a month before the Fry, it was time to involve the rest of the Juniors. At a class meeting, we handed out bundles of tickets, the parent letter and work form, posters to put up around town, and told them how many pies and sheet cakes they would be expected to provide for the Fry. We chatted with the Section Heads about putting together table assignments and a breading schedule. I spent many of my study halls calling or emailing various people about donating items to the Fry, and then mailing them free tickets to thank them for their donations. By the time Spring Break rolled around, everything that we needed to get done by that point had been taken care of.
Once we returned to school, things picked up very quickly. We met with our class to see if anyone had any questions about their jobs and to reiterate when the ticket money was due. We confirmed that the signs needed for the Fry were where they were supposed to be, and scheduled the big Fish Fry meeting. Even though I knew the Fry was in two weeks, I was surprisingly enough still feeling pretty calm.
That all changed once I came back to school from Choir Festival. I spent the week of Fish Fry in a constant state of high stress. I had to get things together for set up, figure out what exactly we were supposed to do for set-up, and make sure everyone knew which set-up shift they were working. Set-up was a big cause of my stress, but another large part of it was just thinking, “Holy cow, Fish Fry is this week. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.” I had so much to do that going to classes just felt like a waste of time. Who had time for titration or poetry when there was work to do?
It’s a good thing that Fish Heads are allowed to take Friday off from class to attend to Fish Fry business. Parth and I took care of things that we couldn’t do earlier. We set up the restock table in the gym lobby, helped in the pie room for a little bit, tracked down coloring pages and crayons for the coloring stations, and set up the parent check in table. All of that took us right up to the dismissal bell.
Contrary to popular belief, Fish Heads actually work during the Fry. I know most people only see us walking around with walkie-talkies, but if you pay enough attention, you’ll see that usually we are using our “mission walks.” We have to deal with any crisis, big or small, that pops up during the Fry. Some of the crises we had to deal with on Friday included disappearing workers, almost bare pie room shelves, and whole bean coffee. And that’s only a few of the things we had to fix. When there weren’t any crises to deal with, we still kept plenty busy making sure everyone was doing ok and checking how long the line was.
In spite of how crazy everything felt during the Fry, upon further reflection, I think it went very well. It was a really awesome feeling to look around the gym when it was full of people and think, “We did this.” I’ve learned a lot during this experience, and I know I will continue to learn and grow as we plan our second Fry next fall.
I would just like to thank all of the students who worked during the Fry for doing such an amazing job, the parents who generously donated their time, and of course our lovely customers who make the Fish Fry possible. You are all awesome.
~Sammy~