Work Day - Breakfast

Usually, when students are interacting with Landscaping supervisor Tom LaMuraglia, he’s wearing a green flannel shirt, a Leatherman on his hip, and a cap on his head. He holds a walkie-talkie in one hand and a forever-ringing cell phone in the other. He has motor oil on his finger tips, grass clippings on his shins. If Tom had a motto, it would be, "eat, drink, landscape, and be merry."

Today, Tom is relatively clean, sporting a white t-shirt and a fresh pair of Carharts. But that doesn’t mean he’s not working hard. He moves around his kitchen with his chin to his chest, beating vats of raw eggs, sculpting mounds of sausage patties, looking up only momentarily to give a hearty welcome and a slap on the back to every student that enters his front door.

In the living room, past and present members of the Landscaping, Tree and Blacksmith Crews mingle about, happily drunk on the smell of what’s about to come out of the kitchen. It’s 8:30 in the morning, and Tom’s house is packed. He’s just the kind of guy that can pull 50 college students out of bed that early in the morning for a meal that most of them aren’t even accustomed to eating anymore. No one’s complaining about the early call time today though.

After breakfast we play bocce ball in the pasture behind Tom’s house, Scrabble around his sofa and Jenga on the dining room table. The Tree Crew pops in a CD of 80’s pop songs with techno remixes. A dance party ensues around the Scrabble players, who must shout to be heard: "Europe is a proper noun, but I’ll let it slide!"

This is the most fun I’ve had before noon in a long time. God bless Work Day.

Christopher Biddle '11