Green Eggs and Ham

I volunteered to accompany my youngest daughter's class to a presentation of by The Grand Rapids Symphony of "Green Eggs and Ham" in Zeeland. It was a great show -- a musical of the Dr. Seuss book.

I love the book and have read it a million times to the girls. They always liked when the characters plunge underwater and I read the lines like they're scuba diving by wiggling my finger between my lips.

The trip entailed riding on a school bus, something I haven't done for probably 20 years or so. You know, those buses aren't made for 6-foot-2 adults in winter coats. At least the buses today are nicer than those I road to school. The seats are completely covered with padding now -- none of those bare metal edges. Also, this bus was clean -- no dirty words scrawled all over the seats and no cuts and tears in the seats themselves. And no one was smoking in the back of the bus! How times have changed.

During the performance, one of my daughter's classmates sat next to me and was so thrilled for the captive audience that he never stopped talking the entire show. He was fascinated with the idea that, if he was a lizard, he would have sticky feet that would allow him to climb on walls all over the auditorium.

The show was in Zeeland, a town that I have written about here before. The bumpy bus ride through the city again confirmed my belief that Zeeland is kind of plain, even ugly in many respects, and has a long way to go to draw people to its downtown.

Communication

The paper's photographer was at the performance and got some nice shots. Here's what's funny (pathetic, not ha-ha funny). At our news meeting to discuss stories for the next day's paper, the managing editor says we have these feature shots of the symphony and "Green Eggs and Ham." I make a comment about going with my daughter's class, looking at the features editor who is right across from me at the meeting table.

About seven hours later, I'm looking through the feature pages on computer and see they have a preview story on a performance by the GR Symphony of "Green Eggs and Ham." Their story is on page C6 for Thursday. Our story is on page A2 for Thursday. Never the twain shall meet! By the time I find this out, it's too late because the pages have already been plated and are in the pressroom.

So, we sat there at a staff meeting, discussed the symphony, and the two people from the features department never spoke up about their story. I could have purt an extra line or two in the A2 story telling people about the C6 story that previews the symphony's Saturday performance of he event!

And we're in the communication business?

Thought: I do like green eggs and ham.