A week had drawn to a close with a football game victory. The weather was perfect for thousands of fans at the tailgating scene to let their hair down after the long week.
But Sunday morning was not ready to welcome a new week's beginning. Its sky was overpowered with clouds and could barely muster enough light to reveal what lay beneath; the morning appeared hung over.
A field covered with glass shards survived as a remnant of the Homecoming football game. Translucent, pebble-sized bottle pieces intermingled with the soil under the dewed grass and beer boxes, settling into the ground.
"Daily News" newspapers rolled through the acres-wide student tailgating area full of refuse that covered the ground like lazy, modern tumbleweeds.
Piles of Jell-O shot cups remained in groups as smashed scraps of Saturday's party while the scent of alcohol wafted through the air. Charcoals sat next to unused meats, which had begun to fester, covered with dust and mauled by footsteps.
Even cars basked in the garbage's presence like abandoned dogs waiting for their masters' return. They were ignored for some time, but eventually the police arrived to tow the cars away. Motionless trailer homes that towered above the mess as monuments to the party were present one minute, and gone the next.
As students slept, the Ball State University Landscape Service members walked among the wreckage.
They sacrificed their time to maintain school pride by cleaning the immense mess left after a home football game.
Starting at 7 a.m., Dewayne Hammons, a member of Landscape Services for 23 years, and a crew came to return order to the disregarded field.
Hammons wore plain jeans and a working jacket, attire appropriate for the job. In casual conversation, he spoke about his involvement in a gospel-bluegrass band with his wife at his church.
Normally Hammons would be at church, he said, but on that Sunday he said he felt he needed to help his friends from Landscape Services with the Homecoming mess.
"We go fishing together off the clock and do things together, some of us do," he said. "That's a good thing because you're out there to get the job done and do the job with them. You spend actually more waking hours with the people out here than you do a lot of times with your own family."
Landscape Service members only used tools called "pickers" and elbow grease, nothing fancy. The "pickers" were large tweezers built for heavy work. The members used the tools to pick up everything one piece at a time, from bulky boxes of wine to the smallest pieces of charcoal.
Bags filled quickly and a second bag could always be found in the service members' back pockets when needed.
Hammons said he wasn't bitter about the trash and nonchalantly described the experience as another day in Landscape Services. He said he loved to see a plot of land develop into something landscaped or beautiful.
But he said he couldn't help but feel overwhelmed when the headlights illuminated the field for the first time and he saw the trash. The first thought that came to mind, he said, was that they would be cleaning for a few hours.
"Sometimes on Saturday afternoon, one of us or two of us will drive by to take a look at [the field] to know what to expect the next day," he said.
Jeff Jones, a group leader with 17 years of experience, added that Landscape Services worked hard on the job and it could be frustrating to see all the waste and the destruction. At times he said he felt disrespected by students and faculty.
"If some of these kids go to their parents' house and do what they do, I think their parents would probably throw them on their head," he said.
Jones also described the aggravation of seeing broken bottle pieces on the ground. The glass was so small; it eluded the workers and their "pickers," presenting safety issues for students who played intramural sports on the field.
"As much as you pick up [the glass] there are still fragments that you can't," he said.
Sometimes the glass fragments were connected to the stickers labeling the once whole bottles, which made cleanup easier. Other times the service members hoped all the particles had been picked up and moved on to the rest of the field. No one could waste time on a single area when a field about the size of three football fields wide and deep needed to be cleared.
After clearings began to materialize in the field and as the trash receded, the sun peeked through.
The landscaping crew began to relax when they saw the fruits of their labor.
Barb Staton, a member of the Landscape Services crew, chimed in her rendition of "My Girl" as she heard it from her Walkman. Hammons insisted having fun was necessary for the job.
Meanwhile, Staton continued to joke around with the others.
"Hey Roy, there's plenty of [food] here," she said as she picked up discarded meat.
Roy smiled and responded, "This hamburger sure looks good."
After half their weekend had been spent cleaning after a party, Monday would come bearing the Landscape Service members' usual workload.
But at the time, the workers were too preoccupied with the black bags in the cleared field to think about Monday.
The Service members grabbed the bags and threw them into their truck beds. From the field, Hammons and others traveled to Heath Farm, which was a piece of university property with heaps of compost piles used by Landscape Services.
In the back of the farm, there was a 30-cubic-yard dumpster, which was the recipient of the day's garbage.
"It's a mess," Hammons said about the dumpster, which overflowed with the black bags. He casually pointed to a backhoe and said it would be used to compact the overflowing trash back into the dumpster.
As morning faded into afternoon, Hammons returned and drove amidst the remaining bags. He stopped every few yards to toss the last of them into his truck bed for the farm. Finally, Hammons looked upon the field and grinned.
"It looks a lot different than 7 o'clock this morning," he said.
Reporters NoteEarlier in the semester I wanted to profile the dirty, lesser-known jobs on campus to show students what it takes to keep the university operating smoothly. I have participated in all the cleanup activities. I would like to thank all those who helped me while on the job. Without them, not only would the campus not be operational, but these articles couldn't be written.
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