The End Table
a riff from the past
It's cold in Oklahoma City today, so cold I've been stuck inside my in-laws' for hours. I'm holed up in this little computer room reading and cleaning out email. I came across the following (thanks to Michael for saving it from my files in Middletown). In light of what seems like an overload of recent chatter about layoffs and trimmings at papers near and far, maybe you'll find this useful. May your holidays be cherry-berry and bright, or whatever.
The dog is crashed on the couch. The wife, who is sick as a dog, is crashed on the bed. And I’m up with my thoughts, in pajama pants that fit and a paint-splattered sweat shirt that doesn’t come close.
I need something. Not sure what. Not sure why.
I lift the lid on the end table Jennifer’s grandfather gave us when we got married. It’s the place I put crap that has no place but needs to be kept.
I never open this thing and I’m not sure why I’m doing it tonight, but it’s right, and I’m digging.
On top, there’s a letter from our friends in San Angelo, Ross and Erin, good people. I think they’re in Lubbock now.
Under that, a playbill from Chicago. Saw that when Mike and Mandy came up from Abilene to visit. You should’ve seen Mike’s face when they told him the drink he ordered at intermission – a cosmopolitan, I think it was – cost $18. “Goddammit, Ben,” he said like I had something to do with it. “How’r y’all gonna make it up here?”
Below that playbill, the news-papers start.
To tell you the truth, I can’t really remember putting half of these in here.
There on top is the sports section of The Russellville Ar-kansas Courier, circ. 7 grand, from Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999.
By Sean Ingram
Courier Sports Editor
All a football team needs to win is one more opportunity. It also helps if the ball bounces in your favor.
Opportunity knocked Saturday at Buerkle Field, and the Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys answered. Next, a Southern Ar-kansas Mulerider fumble bounced into Tech’s hands. Then the Wonder Boys proudly held their first NCAA Division II Gulf South Conference football championship above their heads.
That’s about as clunky as newspaper writing should ever be, but I swear to you, it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever read.
Beneath that paper, the New York Times. Monday, May 27.
Above the fold is a picture of that bridge that collapsed on I-40 in eastern Oklahoma. You probably don’t remember, but I used to drive back and forth to college across that bridge. There was a great truck stop on the Eufala side that had home-made beef jerkey. Sounds really stupid to me now, but I was kind of proud that bridge made it into the New York Times.
Next is the community section of the Daily Oklahoman, from August 11, 1997. The boxed feature is Remembering Elvis.
By Bobby Ross Jr.
Staff Writer
Elvis’ biggest fans cover their walls, their ceilings – even their bathrooms – in his image.
Inside, on page 3, is a picture of my curly-haired mama in a black Elvis T-shirt, and my step-dad in a white, tailor-made Elvis jump suit with red sequins. They’re standing in our bath-room, which is covered with Elvis memorabilia, including one portrait positioned so it always felt like The King was watching you on the throne.
Then comes the New York Times, from Sept. 12, 2001.
By N.R. Kleinfield
It kept getting worse, he started his story. And then later, For those trying to flee the very epicenter of the collapsing World Trade Center towers, the most horrid thought of all finally dawned on them: nowhere was safe.
I remember feeling pretty safe up here. And what a trip it was seeing all of you who were here back then kicking into some sort of sub-human-yet-so-human newspaper action. And you caught it. We all did.
The September 13 New York Post is next in the stack. On the back cover is the mug shot of Mohamed Atta. The world hated that guy; couldn’t help it.
And then there’s us, the sumpin-sumpin-Record, at the bottom. And everything in that stinking September 12 paper sounds like you guys bled it.
I’m flipping through.
My dog stands up, turns about half a circle, and plops back down. He looks funny.
And I get it.
What we do is awesome.
Every single day we have the chance to create something that could last forever. We have the opportunity to make people smile, to make people cry, to protect, to feel, to make them healthy, to make them live longer, to make them appreciate their children and their parents, to make them laugh, and learn, to make them start a conversation with a stranger or a neighbor, to bring them comfort or torment, to let them show off their collection of Elvis crap, to mark the day they won some lousy football game, to mark the day their mayor, or their best friend, died.
People hate us. People love us. And people are indifferent.
But every day, we can bring them life.
And every day we get a chance to make somebody want to put the Times Herald-Record in the end table their grandfather gave them when they got married.
That’s cool.