This is not my blog.

As I blogged about earlier this week I went to the Blenko Glass Visitor's Center early on the morning of June 20th to buy the commemorative glass piece celebrating West Virginia's 144th birthday. I arrived at about 5:45am and was approximately the 25th person in line for the grand opening that was to occur at 8am. I took some pictures and then went around to talk to some of the other linegoers to get their stories (always looking for a good blog story).

My glass blogger friend Hillary (who just had this story printed about her in the Daily Mail) had told me that people often camp overnight for this series so I went directly to the front of the line where I found out that they were all relatives of the glass lady herself and that they had arrived at 3pm the previous day. I asked what would possess them to wait in line for 17 hours and the answer was simply bragging rights. Each glass piece of this series is individually numbered so there is something to be said for having #1 of any particular series. This was the first time that these guys had decided they would get there first and they said that they only beat the woman who had been #1 for the last three years by about an hour. They laughed as they said that she was so disgusted at having missed her notable position that she stormed off in a huff and they assumed that she would show up closer to the actual opening of the Visitor's Center to get a higher numbered piece.


I talked with several other of the linegoers and the thought occurred to me that this crowd is a group of enthusiasts at best while being fanatics at worst (don't forget that "fan" comes from the word "fanatic"). Thus, it occurred to me that this crowd was not significantly different from the lines that I had stood with to see the midnight premiers of the last six "Star Wars" films and all of the "Lord of the Rings" films. If there was a glass costume that could be worn I am sure that there would have been about the same number of people in this line dressed in glass as there typically are at a "Star Wars" type premier or at a sci-fi convention (usually less than 10%). In fact, this crowd reminded me even more of the crowds that you stand in line with at a sci-fi convention to meet and get the autographs of favorite stars from sci-fi tv shows and films. I really saw no significant difference between the crowds except that this glass group was just a little bit older than the median age at a sci-fi convention or movie premier (but not a lot older). There is actually a documentary film that captures part of this enthusiasm called Star Wait that I would highly recommend for your Netflix queue (check out the website for some free content).

When the doors were about to open I got back into my spot in line and ended up getting the card for piece #27 on my way into the Visitor's Center. I had been talking off and on with the people who were #28 and #29 who were a grandfather and his granddaughter who were there both for their first times like I was. He told me that he was filling in for his sister who couldn't make it this year for some reason and that he brought his granddaughter along so that he could get a second piece for his wife (because it is only one per customer). The grandfather was celebrating his actual birthday as well and his granddaughter, who was a high school student at Riverside H.S., was interested in asking me about law school when she woke up enough to notice that I was wearing an Akron Law shirt. We talked back and forth as we waited for our chance to pick up our numbered glass pieces and pay. Afterward I went upstairs for WV birthday cake and more mingling.


Another couple who I ended up talking with at length were Hillary's parents. I had met her dad before and we had talked WVU stuff but now it was time to talk about everything else with her mom. We talked about psychology and my job, about the triathlon training she would like to try to get into, about glass, and many other things. She told me that this was the first year in the 28 years that Blenko has done the WV Day commemoration that they had sold the pieces at the Blenko factory. She said that they usually sell these pieces in downtown Charleston at places like the old Diamond Dept. Store, the old Stone and Thomas, and at the Clay Center last year. This year Blenko is celebrating a new designer for this commemorative collection so they changed things up a bit knowing that the enthusiasts are going to show up no matter where they sell the piece or what it looks like. In fact, one of the jokes running through the line is that some of the older WV pieces were not that attractive so there was genuine enthusiasm at the more artistic design this year. I talked to another couple (#8 and #9) who had driven over 4 hours from North Carolina and had been waiting since last night for their chance to buy this piece.

I should mention that this practice of referring to each other by their line number reminds me of some of the stuff that I've read about competitive SCRABBLE players. Specifically, I'm thinking of how Stefan Fatsis described these best-of-the-best players in his amazing book Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players. Some of this same behavior can be seen in the two documentaries of SCRABBLE tournaments that came out around the same time. These players tend to refer to themselves by their national SCRABBLE rank number in much the same way that these glass geeks were talking about their placement in the line in this and previous years. Some of the people who I talked with could even boast having more than one number in a year when they got there early, got a number when the Visitor's Center opened up, and then rushed to the back of the line where they made the cut-off and got another number.


I had cake, helped Hillary's parents pass out her blog link, looked over some of the pieces on display upstairs in the glass gallery, and then hit the road. On the way out of the Visitor's Center I stopped to speak with the woman who was passing out the tickets that allowed you to claim your numbered WV Day glass piece. She was only to about #120 and expected that within the next 30 minutes enough people would show up and claim the last 24 pieces of this series (of which there were only 144 representing each year of West Virginia's statehood). I declined her offer of another piece and headed for my car so that I could get to enjoying my day off of work and start to think of how I would write about this weird and fun experience. I think that I shall have to come back again next year and do this again and I imagine that ... much like when I kept going to the sci-fi conventions and movie premiers ... that I'll see many of the same people and will start to get to know this quirky little community better.

Labels: arts, myphotos, wv