01.27.2008
Oh no mom, please say you didn’t
As a small town newspaper editor, it’s never pleasant when you’re scooped on your own mama.
It’s more unpleasant when the story may earn her a complimentary waterboarding session and an all-expense-paid trip to Gitmo.
It started with a phone call from Mom.
"I was just interviewed by the TV news today,” she said.
I immediately regretted failing to institute a family-wide policy of never talking to the TV news.
First, those of us with a Blue Ridge drawl usually sound, to the more cultured ear, as if we’ve fallen off a turnip truck on the way down the mountain whether we’re discussing nuclear fission or how long it’s going to take the Rescue Squad to pull Eugene out of the well.
Secondly, as a print journalist in a rural area, I don’t like it when big city TV news rolls in and cherry picks stories while we’ve been here all along toiling among the bake sales, County Commission meetings and tent revivals. The TV news people are treated like stars, and, while they make more money, are usually better looking and generally smell fresher than their print counterparts, they still put their pants on one leg at a time, though their pants come from higher-end stores.
“Why were you interviewed by the TV news, Mom?”
“Because of George on the porch.”
“Oh, Lordy.”
Shortly before last October, a family that put on the biggest Halloween spectacle in the county had divested itself of all its decorations. The matriarch, who had spearheaded the effort that drew hundreds of people each year, had died, and the family decided not to carry on the tradition. They sold a garage full of plastic ghosts and goblins, costumes, fake tombstones and more.
Among the items my family loaded on the truck was a full-sized dummy in a replica electric chair. Underneath was a power drill with an off-center plate attached to the bit. Plug it in, flip a switch and the dummy jumped around as if it had been hit by 2,000 volts.
My brothers and I were eager to sit on Mom’s porch a block from the paper and watch trick or treaters wet their Spiderman costumes when Ol’ Sparky fired up. It worked approximately twice before we stripped something on the drill and had to tell the rest of the costumed young ‘uns who showed up, “It jumped around real scary-like before you got here.”
After Halloween, Mom put the dummy and the chair to further use. She ordered a George W. Bush mask, strapped it on the dummy and left the chair on the porch, something she said was a “political and artistic statement” she hoped would be “taken in jest.”
I said it was a good way to get your windows shot out, your phone tapped and your name added to a watch list.
I just hoped no one in the community would notice. Some did, though, asking the newspaper to do a story on whatever was sitting on that woman’s porch.
As the product of a staunchly conservative father and doggedly liberal mother - and, not surprisingly, a broken home—I am a conflicted man, a beer-drinking, soy-eating, gun-owning, peace-loving, violence-prone individual who digs Merle Haggard and hippie chicks.
And, though I would never hesitate to put her in the District Court News for a traffic offense, I was conflicted about doing a story about the effigy of a world leader in a replica electric chair on my mama’s porch. Would people think we DID a story because she’s the mother of the newspaper editor or DIDN’T DO a story because she’s the mother of the newspaper editor?
And while I pondered that, TV news came in from the big city, looking good, smelling fresh, and scooped me. On my own mama’s porch.
Oh well, enjoy that upcoming tax audit mom and good luck down at Gitmo. I love you and I’ll write when I can.