THE TEAM
Bert and Joanie Dain are the owners of Aerial Sewer Service in Athens, Alabama (population 27,000). Their son-in-law, Hunter Terry, has worked for them for 11 years, as has Jason McDaniel. About one-third of their work is portable restroom rentals, the rest septic pumping, repair and installation. They currently have about 130 units in inventory, half reserved for events.
COMPANY HISTORY
The Dains started their business in 1990 shortly after getting married when they were living in Wisconsin. In 1997 they added portable restrooms to supplement their septic work. In 2003 they moved to Athens in North Central Alabama and started right up again, quickly adjusting to small-town life, a slower pace and a warmer climate.
THE MAIN EVENT
The 55th annual Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention was held Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 6-8, 2022 at Athens State University. About 15,000 people came from 30 states, many of whom stayed in three camping areas on the college campus. Competition categories for the 200 contestants included fiddle, guitar, harmonica, mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, old-time singing and buck dancing. Professional entertainers were on hand including the headliner act, Grammy Award winner Rhonda Vincent. But everyone got in on the action, participating in numerous jam sessions across the campus and enjoying the 150 booths featuring traditional crafts.
And each year about 35 members of the Alabama Unit of the Wally Byam Airstream Club hold a weeklong rally at the university to enjoy the event. A campus ballfield is the designated parking area for their travel trailers.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
The Dains started serving the Fiddlers Convention in 2012. It was a rocky start. They weren’t eligible to bid on the event until they had a minimum number of wheelchair-accessible units. When they finally got the chance, they were thrilled to win the job. They were concerned organizers had not ordered enough portable restrooms, so they put out 30 units even though they were only being paid for 24. They also walked around the venue, making sure supplies were adequate and units were kept clean.
Despite their efforts, the second year they lost out to a new company that underbid them by $100. It proved to be a bad decision for the organizers. “We talked to them afterwards,” Bert Dain reports. “They said, ‘You don’t have to worry about it. It’s yours.’” It took a few more years to convince the organizers to order enough units.
BY THE NUMBERS
The company provided 58 standard units, four wheelchair-accessible units and one baby-changing station (Satellite Industries), all with hand sanitizer. Dain jokes that, although they’d like to be known as the purple port-a-potty pumping people (named for Joanie’s favorite color), their units are actually in a wide range of colors, including simulated wood grain because it allows them to match a bride’s wedding colors or meet other special requests. They also brought in two four-station hand sanitizer stands (T.S.F. Company). The university has a triple-basin stainless steel sink so no hand-wash stations were needed.
The company worked closely with the maintenance department and the dean of the university to coordinate their activities. The university is in a dry county so no alcohol was sold at the event.
LET’S ROLL
Units were washed, bleached and stocked with three rolls of tissue before being taken to the venue. Although the convention lasted only three days, campers began arriving two weeks before, so the company brought in eight units on Sept. 23 and serviced them once before the opening date.
The rest of the equipment was delivered the week of the event using a 2019 Toyota Tundra and a 2019 Chevrolet with 10-place and 16-place trailers. Eight standard units and one wheelchair-accessible unit were brought in on Monday; 10 standards, one wheelchair-accessible and one baby-changing unit on Tuesday; and 16 standards and one wheelchair-accessible on Thursday. All were placed in parking lots. Another batch of 16 standard units and one wheelchair-accessible unit were taken to campus on Monday but not set in place until Thursday. Those units were placed at the main stage and vendor area — a location that presented a unique challenge for the company.
“There’s a tree there that we call the stink apple tree,” Dain says. “It has little apples that fall off, right at the time of the Fiddlers Convention, and they stink to high heaven. People think it’s our toilets but it’s the tree. We do everything we can to eliminate it. We scatter deodorant disks all over the place — in, under and around the units, in the grass — and we go super heavy with the wall spray.”
The company wasted no time removing units after the event. “It takes us all week to get them out there,” Dain says, “but the whole works is gone on Monday when the three of us pick them up.”
KEEPIN’ IT CLEAN
The Dains checked on things midday Friday and Saturday. Full service took place Friday and Saturday mornings using two trucks. “We left the yard at 4:30,” Dain says. “It was completely dark. We had lights on our heads. We had to be out by 8 when the gates opened.” All the Airstream folks were pumped out on Thursday, paid for as part of their admission fee. It took about three hours. Waste was taken to the treatment plant.
The company builds out its own waste and water tanks for their vacuum trucks with the help of a local welder. The 1993 Chevrolet has a 200-gallon slide-in steel tank and a 50-gallon water tank. The 2000 GMC has a 2,000-gallon steel tank and two 100-gallon water tanks. Both have Conde pumps. The company uses Walex deodorant products.
ONE VICTORY, ONE DISAPPOINTMENT
Dain says everything went smoothly and according to plan — except for one thing. They had ordered a new truck — a 2022 International outfitted with a 1,200-gallon Keith Huber tank, a Conde pump (Westmoor Ltd.) and a 175-gallon water tank — and expected it to be delivered in time for the event, but it was a few days late. It was disappointing, he says. For one thing, they could have had three people servicing units instead of two, and started at 5:30 a.m., not 4:30.
But event organizers were happy, campers were grateful and everyone is looking forward to next year.
