Holidays used to be happy, now they're cause for recovery

Being Frank, by Frank Ameduri

That grumbling noise you heard as you drove past the Frontiersman at 9 p.m. Monday was not my stomach anticipating today's holiday feast. It was probably more like me saying, "Sars-a-frippin-mopin-holidays!" It's the most common phrase uttered by newsroom moles around the world.

I don't want to be a humbug, really I don't. When I was a kid I liked the holidays as much as anybody. I was the little chubby guy in the family photos -- the grinning guy with a turkey leg clutched in one hand and a slice of pumpkin pie in the other.

I was a champion cut-out-cookie decorator -- I never overfrosted or put on too many of those silver balls that knock your fillings out. I never nagged about opening presents on Christmas. I was content just sitting at the table and playing cards with the grownups.

That was then.

When I was just a cub reporter, making up my mind to do this for a living, I wondered why the old editors were always so grumpy. They were old guys with hunchy necks and skin that looked as if it hadn't seen the sun in decades, if ever. They had duffle bags under their eyes and yellowed teeth, made worse by the fact that they were snarling all the time. I figured it was just a personality type, and I guessed I'd never be an editor, anyway. I just didn't have the meanness for it.

It turns out a lot of those editors were probably nice people at one time. They might have even walked erect and had normal spectacles instead of those two-inch-thick lenses that made them look like mutant goldfish. Maybe they'd even been somebody's Secret Santa, and maybe they'd once worn bathing suits and frolicked on the beach, though I'd hate to think of it now. It was a case of nurture winning out over nature, I'm sure.

You see, news people don't get holidays. Not the way normal people get them, anyway. When a holiday happens around a publishing day, we experience something called early deadlines. This probably wouldn't be too bad if we were in the habit of making regular deadlines, but who does that?

In a moment of misguided kindness we decided to publish this Friday's edition on Thursday, as a sort of Thanksgiving gift to our loyal readers -- whom we love dearly. We made that decision in June, when Thanksgiving still seemed like a hit-and-miss proposition in an uncertain world.

It was sunny then. It was green. The box stores had just begun to display Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah and Halloween decorations, and we wouldn't even see the first Thanksgiving products until at least July 10th. Who was thinking early deadlines?

It's a different story as I tap out this little lament on my keyboard. We put the Sunday paper out last Friday, the Tuesday paper on Monday and now, on Tuesday night, we're burning the midnight oil, virtually willing the Thanksgiving edition from our very veins.

I haven't been out of the building since sometime last week. I've been taking sponge baths in the little bathroom downstairs, and I don't think Ressler and Bartz have even gone that far. If they would, I'd truly have something to be thankful for.

As you read this, your home is probably already filling with the smell of a roasting bird and all the trimmings. I'm happy for you.

I'm doing what all old editors do on Thanksgiving. I'm recovering from the pre-holiday news blitz. I'll sleep in on Thanksgiving and then get up and watch a football game.

By the time the game is over, it will be time to start looking at copy for the Sunday edition, but I'll resist. "Not today," I'll say. I'll make a list of all the things I'm thankful for and later that night I'll drink a bottle of one of those things.

At some point other newsroom people will begin to emerge from the shadows and wonder why they have a day off. They'll call me. "It's Thursday and I'm at home. Did I get fired?" they'll say.

"No," I'll answer. "It's Thanksgiving."

"Oh. No wonder I'm so tired."

Some of them will cook something they vaguely remember from their former lives and pick up bottles of wine and drop by later in the day. Somehow I'll get a bird in the oven. We'll say the newsperson's prayer, which is mostly a plea for fewer holidays, and eat and drink. That's the holiday tradition for an old newsman. It's why we're all so damned grumpy, but it's nothing personal. We wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

God bless you; Happy Thanksgiving.

Frank Ameduri is actually more thankful than words might describe.