Continuing an occasional series about what reporters talk about when we’re on scene somewhere but not not talking about the scene: Today, I was at Fair Park. The North Texas Food Bank and National Guard had teamed up, not unlike the Bushwackers. Though their mission was to provide boxes of food to prevent you from having to lick each other for nourishment.

They ran out of food the last time they handed out boxes, so today, they showed up today with 6,500.

The National Guard keeps the line moving quick at the mobile food pantry at Fair Park. They tell you to open your trunk farther back. It’s about 15 seconds from the time they take a picture of your form to when they load the box of food into your car. pic.twitter.com/G0eMQMCcPm

— Alan Scaia (@scaia) April 16, 2020

I was discussing with one of the other reporters the dichotomy [It’s possible I did not use the term “dichotomy” at the time] between the people who started parking outside at 5 a.m. and the precision and efficiency they encountered when the military waved them in. 

Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my rich history with the National Guard. Not as an actual member of the military, mind you, but as some guy who wandered into a helicopter a few years ago.

This is a picture from my trip on a rescue mission during Hurricane Harvey.

An associate in the Texas National Guard, against his better judgment, invited me to tag along on a mission to Beaumont. They would place manpower and equipment strategically to respond to high water calls wherever necessary. The fella on the far right of that picture had his doggone legs danglin’ over the side of the side of the thing while he was watching for people who might be stuck!

My first trip with the National Guard was back in 2014. The same officer who took me to Beaumont had asked if I wanted to observe training at Fort Hood when they were activated to work at the border.

I have no idea why, but they let me bring an associate.

So we pulled into the Texas Air National Guard at Hensley Field in Grand Prairie bright and early one morning.

We observed the helicopters running surveillance training missions [One of them had a woefully out of date inspection sticker, given this was May of 2014].

And on the way home, the National Guard major who’d set up the trip got my attention. I was just staring out the window, but the sound of the Blackhawk would have easily drowned out his voice.

I bring up the helicopter noise because he was sitting across from me. He pointed at my friend. As a good friend, I was sure to take a picture of him, all tuckered out on a military helicopter.

And Fair Park became a military operation. They had the ol’ Entrance Number 5 set up with military precision:

— Once you pulled in, you were directed into one of the lines.

— You were then told to open your trunk

— You then were passed a form through your window where you put your name and income. That was an honor system situation, where people had to be below a certain level to be eligible for help.

— They had you hold the form up to your window and take a picture of the form instead of you handing it back to them.

— They gave you a paper to put on the dashboard to tell them how many boxes you were taking.

— While you pulled forward, they’d get your boxes and someone in front would tell you when to stop.

— They put the boxes in your trunk so no one was within six feet of anyone in the car.

— The whole process took about 15 seconds, and they’d knock on the back or side of your car a couple times to let you know it was safe to leave.

— People without a trunk had the boxes put on top of their car. Then they could pull up, a social distance away from everyone else, and put the box in next to other passengers.

I talked to a couple people who were leaving who reported they had no idea what was happening, but some food had just appeared in their car after. They spent four hours waiting for the thing to open. Then they spent 15 seconds from start to finish to get their food, so they weren’t complainin’.

In conclusion, if the fam gets back to Montreal for another ballgame, I may give up the Expos Starter jacket in favor of the Mouth of the South’s fleur-de-lis blazer and a bullhorn.