Skeletons in the closet

In looking up interesting summer day camp possibilities for our soon-to-be 7-year-old, I came across this (minus the identifying information):

"Introductory to Ghost Hunting
Price: $50

You will receive a package that will include ghost hunting forms...and items needed for a ghost hunt check off list. The package also includes instruction on how to use the EMF meters, how to record EVPs to your computer, dowsing affirmation, prayers for investigation, a clearing prayer and a Free Oracle 20/20 Magazine."

So high-tech and low-tech ways to find ghosts. I have an even easier way to make ghosts appear: run for public office.

Drive-by (and drive-thru) journalism

A friend of mine at a local tv station says he is nearly ready to put down his microphone and IFB (that little earpiece that lets the reporter hear the people in the control room and the anchor). The reason: What I've come to call "drive-by journalism," though I'm sure I'm not the first to use that term. I also like to call it "drive-thru journalism," since the effect on the brain is similar to what a diet of french fries and burgers does to your mid-section--ads a lot of fat but not much muscle you can use.

It's a chicken-and-the-egg dilemma. Focus groups, polls and ratings say that what you and I want to see is news about "personal safety." To me, that means knowing whether the nation is under attack or if a flood, tornado or blizzard is headed my way. As interpreted by all too many local news stations, that means reporting live in front of a smoldering house that burned the night before (even if the house was abandoned and the only victims are rodents), or in front of a gas station robbed several hours earlier, or the umpteenth "home invasion" which, if investigated further, would likely turn out to be not some random act but an ongoing domestic dispute or drug deal.

This, of course, is no new observation. I admit that it's easy to play "armchair news director" since I'm no longer in that line of work. The daily demands of putting together a lineup of newscasts are tough, to say the least. News departments, once considered a public service investment, are now required to be money-makers. Budgets are tight. Many reporters are very young and inexperienced. Between the morning planning meetings and news deadlines, there's really only a couple of hours to get the story. Ratings seem to indicate that in-depth stories bore viewers. "Flash and trash," as we called it, is easier to get and gets viewers, or so we've been told. In some markets, stations are struggling when they dare to do news that educates and informs rather than news that excites. There's a very small news hole, after you take out time for commercials, teases, weather and sports, and it has to be filled with quick hits. You only get a few seconds to capture the viewer's attention before you become a victim of the remote control. Channel surfing scares away sponsors. Sponsors pay the bills.

A news director once told me, "We should never be someone's only source for news. If we do our jobs right, they'll be inspired to read the newspaper or magazines and delve deeper into issues that impact them." Unfortunately, that doesn't make for good station promos, and it doesn't impress the people who are banking on reaching the most potential customers in the viewing audience.

My friend said to me, "I wish someone would have the guts to stand up and say, 'We're going to do real news. We're going to do what's right, what informs, not just what we think people want to see.'" It would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. These days, we're inundated with information, whether we want it or not. I know that my attention span is shrinking by the commercial. We know a little about everything. Unfortunately, we know a lot about very little. And as long as the feedback supports driving up, shooting some video, slapping it down and moving on to the next story, that's what we're going to get. Do you want ketchup with that?

The waiting room

There we sat, about a dozen of us in the second-floor waiting room, sharing approximately 144 square feet during simultaneous points of crisis, anticipation, weariness and relief.

I was there with some members of my family as my father underwent an unexpected triple-bypass, "open heart" surgery.

Across the room was a young woman named Kelly, just about my age. It turns out that her daughter was born the same day as mine, within the hour, and their names were similar--hers is Mallory Grace; my baby is Madeline Grace. It turns out that her mother also had bypass surgery a couple of days earlier. She was able to tell me what to expect throughout the day and in the upcoming days of recovery, information that proved to be invaluable. To our left, another small group of three sat watching us with their own pained eyes. The next morning, we'd learn that the person they'd come to see had not survived.

For the most part, though, on that first day, my family and I tried to make light conversation against the sober undertones of the day. My mom was like a tightly wound spring. She seemed afraid to move, lest the tension of it all would break free and she'd go bouncing out of control. Others in the room, including the newly-acquainted Kelly, offered words of encouragement, and soon the details of our various circumstances of waiting began to unfold.

As the days passed, the lot of incidental roommates shared our stories. The waiting room, it turned out, was shared by the surgery, maternity, and cardiology at the small regional hospital where we happened to find ourselves. Few small matters passed through those halls. We met a family awaiting a first baby, as well as one waiting to welcome the latest grandchild of many (and at one point, the many were in attendance, making our own waiting a bit interesting). A woman waited to hear whether her elderly father's leg would have to be amputated. Another waited for a toddler to awaken from ear surgery (he did, and immediately asked for his mother, to the disappointment of his anxious father). A teenager mother waited to see her own father, while her mother's bitterness spilled out into the hallway, marked by words I was happy that Madeline could not understand. A young woman waited anxiously to take her much older husband home. A little girl and her mother passed around Girl Scout Cookies, $3.50 a box.

Over the span of four days, we saw those in grief and those who rejoiced (I'm happy to say we were among the latter). Those moments of great intensity and significance were shared with strangers who were, for a moment, those who understood us best.

Travel photos blog

I'll be posting travel photos this week as we venture to Disney and St. Augustine. Check it out, starting Monday:
http://filltheframe.blogspot.com/

Grass roots

There's something that happens in this region that was notably missing from my recent business trip to D.C. I shook hands with a lot of people, but not one ever said, "Hey, are you kin to ..." or "Do you know so-and-so from Barbourville?" It didn't strike me until I was at a wedding last weekend on a rolling horse farm in Cynthiana, mingling with new acquaintances underneath the pristine white tent, and more than once, after introducing myself, the next question I heard was about not just where I came from, but who. It's interesting to consider the contrast of how roots are valued here while autonomy is not only appreciated, but presumed in other places. Something to ponder...

Familiar sounds

More about our Scottish heritage here in the mountains: I happened upon an interesting series on Kentucky Educational Television a few nights ago. You can see the tv schedule here. It traces the familiar music of the mountains from the hills of Scotland to the mountains of Kentucky, where it spilled over into mainstream American music.

It reminded me of family get-togethers when I was a little girl, when most of the older generation was still around. Inevitably, someone would pull out a guitar, and the singing commenced. At the time, I didn't have a lot of appreciation for it--it wasn't "cool" to my 80's child ears--but now I miss the opportunity to encounter my history so closely. Those were the same sounds, or perhaps only slightly modified, that my ancestors most likely heard when they settled into the rolling valleys along the Cumberland River.

Finding our roots

My inbox contained a curious link to a Scottish ancestry site. Many of us in this region can trace our roots across the Atlantic to Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and my family is no exception. Walking through the family cemetery, which was always more of a history lesson than anything else, my mother would point out various names and talk about how much the land had meant to them. Not too long ago, I made the acquaintance of a Scotsman-turned-American who supplied some insight into my family's history and some long-held points of view that didn't quite make sense (such as, when noting that many of our ancestors actually lived in Ireland for a couple of generations, why they refused to call themselves Irish, and instead invoked the term "Scots-Irish," or, as we sometimes hear it incorrectly these days, "Scotch-Irish.") I think it's time to dig out my dad's genealogy albums and see where it leads. My mother's family were the Adams, and Prichards and Partins, mostly, with names like "Fate," and "Mary Ota," and "Molly," "Lether," and so on. I need to refer to Dad's book, but I recall some very interesting names from earlier generations, particularly the Welsh ancestors on Dad's side. Here's to finding some green roots among the Bluegrass.