Spring Break Madness
This is ungodly long, but worth the read (I hope). Be my friend, and follow the cuts…but only if you have plenty of time to read about my spring break escapades.
Stuck in the Chicago Midway airport for a two-hour layover, I have my first (laptop-accessible) free time in a week. (this was finished back in CoMo… I didn’t get a full two hours because my plane boarded….) Finally, I can sit down and get to explaining the antics of this odd spring break trip.
I’m going to keep the titles for each little segment, and write about each, as promised. I’ll try to also break it down by day. This definitely wasn’t the most fun break I’ve had (or hope to have) but it is certainly memorable.
MONDAY
Laryngitis
Sunday isn’t remarkable. I had no voice and slept most of the day. By no voice, you might think I had a whisper – on a scale of 1 to 10, my voice was a painful 0.5. Speaking was a challenge. I tried to hum, to see if I could, and I got no vibrations from my throat. I’ve never experienced anything so frustrating, exasperated by my grandparent’s hearing problems and their many questions they would forget I couldn’t respond to. I solved this by sleeping through much of the day.
Monday was a little better. My voice was a strained 1-1.5 all day. This made me either a poor or excellent reporter, depending on your perspective. I couldn’t say much, so the source had to do most of the talking. The worst part was meeting Max; it was an awkward meeting…me not talking and all.
Starry Night editor
I get the whole tour of the newsroom and the building and all that and am dropped off in the newsroom to hang out for the morning. It is here I met Mitch, the hard news editor. He is easily the most aesthetically boring individual I have ever met. He reminds me of the fat guy in ‘Office Space’ after he’s survived Weight Watchers. His boring exterior is matched by a boring personality and a quiet monotone voice.
He apparently tries to make up for the monotony of his life by appreciating art. This, to him, seems to mean plastering Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” on every item he can. He has a print hanging in his ‘office’; he wore a Starry Night tie; his mouse rested on a Starry Night mousepad; he drank his coffee from a Starry Night mug.
I have never been so ashamed of liking a piece of art before meeting Mitch. Now I am horrified to know I have the same print hanging in my dorm room.
The worst part of this, I think, is that to plaster the masterpiece on so many normal items, the original image had to be mutilated. His Starry Night tie moved major elements of the painting to make the tie more appealing, but made it factually wrong.
He wore the Starry Night tie twice in the week I was there.
Debbie, day one
Debbie is the veteran crime reporter and they ostensibly put me with her to see the grittiest part of New Castle with the woman who covers it best. Debbie has a dull voice that almost competes with Mitch’s. She is a woman in her 50s, neither fat nor thin, with dirty blonde hair quickly going gray. She moves nowhere in a hurry, and doesn’t seem to ever have anywhere to go.
As a part of my crime run-down, Debbie takes me to the police station to copy down police reports. I do two; a stolen stereo and an ‘armed robbery.’ A high school student riding his bike claimed a 6 foot tall black man came up to him, “pistol whipped” him in the face (quoted right from the police report), and stole his PlayStation2 that he was carrying around. Interestingly enough, this kid couldn’t describe the attacker at all and had no mark on his face.
This robbery was big news for New Castle. I found it highly improbable that anything of the sort happened and didn’t want to write the article, but Debbie had me write a four-inch brief on it anyway. “Teen claims to have been pistol whipped” indeed.
Then it was on to do two of Debbie’s errands, and I sat in her car and made very small small talk before we headed back to the newsroom. We ended day one of thrilling work with a lesson on iMovie by Andrew, an MU grad about four years older than me. I shocked Debbie by already knowing the program and offering tips during the ‘lesson.’
"Crit-R-Done"
During the day with Debbie, we were sent out to cover a story about the Adopt-a-Highway program because of a ‘Cleanup PA’ month. We headed out into the boonies to interview Wes, a man who was ridiculously fired up about litter. Wes lived in a relatively new log-cabin lodge. He drives a pickup truck with a covered bed and a license plate that read “Redneck” over the confederate flag. He owns many businesses in the area; he builds hunting blinds, manages a lawn-care service, does some wood work, and has a company called “Crit-R-Done.” It’s a ‘nuisance animal control’ company specializing in raccoons, groundhogs, foxes, and other pests. We learned this as soon as we met him; he had on the company t-shirt and hat. His belt buckle, almost the size of my palm, had snakeskin and a brass rattler tail.
We were invited into his house/lodge to conduct the interview, saw his Jack Russell terrier, and then entered his dining room.
He had more preserved animals/animal heads than I have ever seen in my life, and these were just in the two rooms I saw…the kitchen/dining room and the living room. He had a bear, an albino deer, several deer racks, a hawk, a bobcat, a turkey (or two or 17, I lost count), and other various critters that I have forgotten. It was like a natural history museum.
On top of his outer zaniness/redneckery, he is a man obsessed with litter. He has a section of Adopt-a-Highway and he is apparently really concerned with keeping it litter-free. He bought his own dumpster just for the trash he collects. We interviewed him, shot some short video footage and drove out to ‘his’ road for some shots. And so ends the saga of the man who hated trash because it was bad for the environment, who went to work each day to kill animals.
TUESDAY
Debbie, day two
I was back in the newsroom at the oh-so-delightful time of 8 a.m., again partnered with Debbie. Today we also had an addition; Laura, the 16-year-old senior from the area high school who is actually a student from Venezuela, was on a work-study program in the newsroom for the day. She can’t decide between studying architecture or journalism. After the snooze of a day we spent with captivating Debbie, she’ll probably choose architecture. We went to the police station, again and there was only one pathetic police report. “We”(read: Debbie) schmoozed with the guy behind the desk for a good 20 minutes. Then we went to the court, because what is more exciting than a courthouse in the morning? Here we rode the elevator several times and did, essentially nothing. We did meet Judge Motto, just because we could. We did nothing fruitful in the least. We ‘rushed’ off to lunch at the library, where Debbie had to attend her charitable organization’s meeting and encouraged us to mooch off of the poor blokes. I ate pizza on the Lions (an organization for the blind, it turns out) and faked interest in their meeting. It was exceptionally awkward.
Then Laura had to go back to school and since I had no good excuse for escape, it was back to the courthouse with Debbie. We did more random walking about and riding of the elevator before I got to go home.
Max the Publisher
I have no idea what I intended to write about Max. He’s an MU grad who happened to know my professor, thus I got to go on the trip. He’s a nice fellow with two daughters older than me, and he also happens to attend the same church as my grandparents. He has a face that reminds me of a bulldog and a very quiet voice that makes him hard to talk to. He was nice. He gave me rides home a few times, which disappointed Debbie because she seemed sure we were best buddies and impressed my grandparents to no end.
Inside Dirt
It is amazing. Maybe it was the fact that I had no voice to speak of *ba bum bum!*, but everyone I met seemed to think “intern” didn’t mean “grunt work” as I’d expected, but “reveal all your office gossip/secrets to me.” Debbie and the hard news crew (all three of them), apparently hate the “troublemakers,” (all three of them) the ‘special projects’ group. They’d only been organized into these groups for two weeks; everyone hated it, Max was oblivious to the tension. Debbie made the ethically shady decision to promote her husband, running for judge, to every citizen she met – so much for staying out of politics.
Debbie also told me all about her divorce from her first husband and marriage to her second. All about it. Max told me about a woman who was going to lose her job and didn’t know it. He also told me about Josiah (I’ll get to him) and the way his girlfriend broke up with him on New Years Eve in Times Square, after he’d flown out to meet her. EVERYONE I met told me a juicy secret or two about the business. I still can’t believe all the dirt that was filling up that newsroom.
WEDNESDAY
Shannon and Ohio
Wednesday I was moved to advertising, with Shannon, a single mom who apparently works almost entirely out of her car. This means her car is more or less her office. Which, in turn, meant she worked as if she was in the office, with the only difference being that she was hurtling down the highway at upwards of 60 mph while she was writing notes, getting stuff from the backseat, checking her voicemail, fixing her hair, smoking a cigarette.
I thought I was going to die. Multiple times.
Turns out I didn’t, lucky me. It was a boring day; I just rode around with her, listened to Shannon complain about her deadbeat lazy ex-husband (or was he just the father of her young son? Not sure), and watched her not make a sale. And at the end of the day she was terrified that I was going to say bad things about her to the boss (I didn’t.)
Samurai Sword
So my grandfather served as an Army airplane mechanic in WWII somewhere in the Pacific area. At some point, a Kamikaze pilot crashed near the airfield (apparently he wasn’t the best Kamikaze) and my grandfather took his Japanese flag and his Samurai sword. He had decided that he will give these things to the boys in my family; after all, he said, you wouldn’t want that. I so would! What an amazing piece of history! Too bad my cousin Peter is sure to get it, just ‘cuz he’s the eldest boy…
Life in New Castle
…is incredibly boring. My grandparents’ microwave oven looks more like an actual oven than any microwave I’ve ever seen. It had a dial. It was ridiculous…
I can’t remember what I was going to say in this post. It is a dying former steel town, no new economic developments. And apparently everyone I met was a wacko and only 10% of the people are under 50 years old.
PEO and exotic birds
Speaking of 50-year-olds, no one at my grandmother’s charity organization’s meeting (PEO) was under…65? Except for me, that is. I stuck out like an exotic bird in a room full of chickens – they all came over to cluck over me and ask about why I was there, what I was doing, and then to tell me every dull detail about *their* grandkids/great-grandkids.
The speaker at the meeting talked about his job as a custom’s agent. Whoopee!
This experience made me realize I need to take a lot of photos of myself now – no telling what I‘ll look like when I’m 97!
THURSDAY
Picking up chicks
My oh-so-important assignment was with the ‘special projects’ group, Pat and Lisa. I was going over to a nearby preschool to watch them play with baby chickens for a cute pre-Easter story (see post below). Except the preschool closed at 11 (we learned this at 10:10ish) and I had to get over there. So off we scampered and Pat met me there (Lisa had to go to a meeting at the office).
Pat did the camera work, and seems to think he’d make a pretty great TV reporter. He sucked, mostly because he talked over EVERYTHING, ruining most of the shots. Anyway, we got the cutesy footage and went back to the office to have me write it and edit the footage.
They were soo impressed that I knew how to use iMovie. I had to do all sorts of crazy stuff (because Pat talked over most of it!), but I’m really proud of the video. Check it out.
Young people!
My first interaction with people younger than 30! When I got back to the office and was waiting for the video footage to download, I was invited to lunch by Justin and Josiah. Justin is a freelance photographer and Josiah is the head of/whole design department. They are maybe two years older than me, and it was so nice to talk about pop culture-type things!
We went to the local greasy spoon, and I got to eat a Philly cheese steak (yea, I was closer to Pittsburg, but it was the same state). It was easily my most pleasant lunch.
And Josiah hit on me. Yup. But I think his flirting was more due to the fact that I’m under 30, something rare in that town, than to my cute little self. He was a nice guy, but kinda bland. He was working at the paper because it was his hometown paper. He really wanted to be a reporter, but he knew how to do design, so he was *the* designer. Poor dear, he started work at 5 a.m. Anyway, like I was saying, I would date him, but only because he was also the only young person around, because he was nice and all, but if a more interesting person came around…yea, I’d switch to the other guy. Not that it really matters. It’s all theoretical, but it was nice to be flirted with. Before he left for the day, he wished me a safe travel back and encouraged me to leave an email address, so “people” could keep in touch. *smirk*
'Dedicated'
At about 5 p.m. Max came down and offered me a ride home. I accepted, knowing I should get home for Pop’s pinochle night, but emailed my story-in-progress to myself. This apparently greatly impressed everyone there. My ‘dedication’ was the impressive part.
Finishing off the story would take less that half an hour, and I wanted to get it done before I left for the week (even though others volunteered to finish it for me…no!).
I just find it hilarious that this one not-that-hard bit of work really really impressed these people, and it’s a great example of their general work ethics. I’d never leave a story partially-finished for someone else to tie up…
Pinochle (pronounced "pea-knuckle")
My grandfather plays pinochle every Thursday with a group of friends. I had never played the game (or even heard of it), so he taught me how to play on Wednesday. It is like no other game I’ve ever heard of.
It is played with a deck of 48 cards. The deck is made up of 9s, 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces, two of each suit. (so there are two Aces of spades, two 10’s of diamonds, etc). Aces are highest, followed by 10s, then Kings, then Queens, then Jacks, and then 9s, which are almost worthless. A ‘pinochle’ is a Queen of spades and a jack of diamonds. You can also get four of a kind (different suits), a run (numerical order), and a marriage (a suited king and queen). These give you points. There is also betting involved, but not with money, with points. You work “with” the partner across from you to rack up points. The rest of the game is played more or less like hearts, except you WANT points.
Anyway, we played. It was interesting. I beat Pop the first time we played with our two imaginary partners, and he beat me the second time. When we played with real people, I didn’t do as well; they moved to fast.
Wolfie and the wooden hats
Wolfie was one of the pinochle players. He is the grandson-in-law of Winnie and Henry, Pop’s buddies, and he was there to fill out the group. Wolfie, so called because his last name is Wolf, is some sort of high school math teacher, and is built like a linebacker. He’s a generally jolly fellow; nice-ish.
Henry, like I said, is more or less related to him. Henry is a retired construction worker. Apparently he has decided to use his free time to create hats. Okay, all well and good. …to create hats out of wood…weird. He showed me his newspaper-boy-esque hat and his cowboy-type hat. Very well made, really amazing craftsmanship. They fit on my head, on his. Weird hobby. He also showed me two of the canes he had carved. On the top of one, a fish with a feline head…a catfish. The other had a grapevine motif. Really stunning to see. Odd as hell.
FRIDAY
Beth, the home-schoolin’, paper-deliverin’ tragic Christian
Friday I was to deliver papers and work the circulation routes. This had me partnered with Beth. Beth is a very nice woman who works both in the office and as a downroute paper deliverer, which means she’s a substitute paper carrier. I walked with her on a “short” route (my feet were killing me in my pleather boots). Her car had one bumper sticker: “Family+Values+Learning = HOME SCHOOLING!” She took our walking time as an opportunity to tell me all about her home schooled children (two, a 17-year-old daughter who wants to be a youth minister and a 13-year-old boy), how she doesn’t approve at all of divorce but how her husband up and left her and the kids when he lost his factory job and they couldn’t find him for some time. They’d been separated for two years, but he called up this week to say he’d been fired back at the factory because the union had worked things out…so he was coming back. We also talked about her Christian values and how she is working on a description of every single house on every single paper route to make the job easier on new carriers. She got the job after her son got the same job as a kid mailcarrier.
Stellar job
After I finished my walking with Beth, I went back in and checked with Max to see if there was anything else I needed to do. There wasn’t…I’ve worked in that paper in every job from top to bottom, so he sent me home (at 3:30! So early!). Before I left, Max told me he’d email my professor to ask him to help me get a summer internship. This was nice, and I went my way.
That night I got an email from my professor. It said, “Max T. said you did a stellar job. See you Tuesday.”
I guess I did okay by them, huh? (Nothing I didn’t know; several people in the office semi-jokingly asked if they could just hire me right then and there. But it was nice to know they liked me. Good thing they don’t know how loony I think the place is.)
Step-cousin Julie
For ‘my birthday’ my grandparents took me out to eat at the nicest place in town, the Mill Street Grille, which is in the same building as the first Warner Brothers movie theater. *historical tidbit of the day!* Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you want to look at it), Max had taken me there earlier that same day. I got the Parmesan Chicken for lunch and it was literally half a chicken.
But we went back for dinner because…it’s the only goodish restaurant in town. The odd thing was that we “invited” (read: dragged) Julie and her father to go with us. Julie is a 22-year-old granddaughter of my step-grandmother, making her more or less my stepcousin, which means nothing at all. I don’t really know the girl from ..anyone. We went on a trip, once, when I was about 10, to Niagara Falls. I remember very very little. And yet my grandparents seemed to expect us to be bestest friends and for me to be thrilled that she was there.
Well, it was awkward, but we made it through. I had this food called Gnocchi (knock-ee?). It’s potato stuffed inside tubes of pasta. It was…interesting. Much like this trip.
Well, if you have read this far, you are a real trooper. Thanks, pal. Everything was true, even the parts that seem unreal.
Can I get a new break? I don’t feel like I got one…I demand a do-over!
Labels: chicks, flirting, internship, newspaper, people, pinochle, sick, spring break
