The Best Things in Life ARE Free!

The party’s over. It’s time to call it a day. The First Annual Hall of Mountaineering Excellence is run, cleaned up, and put to bed. (And this blogger now remembers why she doesn’t wear heels.)

It was an amazing success. All the months of planning, researching, negotiating, promoting, structuring, and evaluating paid off. Bates, Chouinard, Craig and Houston now have their names etched permanently in our mountaineering history. They will always be our heroes.

My personal heroes, though, are the folks who volunteered their time to do the grunt work last night. You know, pouring drinks, serving food, providing information and (my favorite thing) cleaning up. As the production schedule and needs were mounted, we drew in more and more bodies to help in advance of the event. Not having met many of them, either, lent a bit of worry prior to the start of the night.

Employers should have such a diligent, responsible, hard-working crew as we had for the Gala. Each one assumed assigned tasks like a pro, assisting one another, communicating needs to the coordinator, keeping a close eye on guest needs, staying upbeat as the evening wore on, going above and beyond what someone earning wages for the same work would even do.

So, helmets off to you, Dan, Bob, Larke, Sparky, Steve, Camille, Ian, Micah, Aaron, Dave, George, and Lee. My apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone, but I’m still trying to figure out what possessed me to wear heels.

Oh, and I still owe you all pizza.