Joanne Sherman: Editors, turkeys & kids — Oh, my!

A perk of being a columnist is that I can write what I want. That hasn’t always been the case, though.

During that period known as Y2K and for about five years after, I was a reporter for the Reporter. All of a sudden I had a boss, aka, the editor, who would tell me what to write. I didn’t take gracefully to that, coming off years as a freelancer, answering to no one, ever.

The, “You’re not the boss of me,” comment doesn’t work when the comeback is ,“Oh, but I am.”

Reporters and columnists are two different animals. Reporters report who, what, when, where and why. Columnists just yack on paper. Please note that the current editor is not the editor I will reference here. And if he was, I’d lie about it. Reporters can’t do that; columnists can. We call it poetic license.

Each week that “other” editor would come up with articles and assignments, but he never ordered me to do them. No, he’d simply lob an idea at me, and make a suggestion: “How about something on affordable housing?” In boss-speak that translates to, “Hey, you! Write an article about affordable housing.”

One of the most memorable assignments came early in my reportorial career, when the editor lobbed over one of his suggestions. “How about a photo of a turkey for the Thanksgiving issue?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, “have at it.”

I could feel him staring, hard, at the back of my head. He meant me.

Though I didn’t want to, I agreed, since I was teetering on the brink of unemployment, after refusing to take a picture of the Heights sewer plant because sewer plants are yucky.

I grabbed the camera and asked his preference — Butterball or generic? He said, “Haha, you’re funny, you should write a column, get outta here.”

He  wanted a photo of a live turkey, one with a beak and feet and that ugly red thing that hangs from the turkey’s chin or where a turkey’s chin would be if it had one.

Today, finding a turkey’s no big deal. Just look in your yard, or on your deck, or in the backseat of your car if you forgot and left the door open. Again. But it wasn’t always like this. Nope. Turkeys are new to the Island, and 20 years ago there was ne’er a turkey in sight.

I stopped people on the street to see if they knew where to find one. “Butterball or generic?” everyone asked, and I’d explain that I needed a live, fully-feathered kind of turkey with the ugly red chin thing.

Following up on a hot tip (reporter-speak for somebody told me) a short while later I stood in the yard of a family that had a flock of turkeys and a sweet, angelic 3-year-old who, sensing my excitement, raced to release them from their pen.

“Don’t do that!” I shrieked, but the disobedient little boy opened the gate, letting a dozen birds lunge for freedom. I backed away as the feral toddler jumped into the middle of the birds, trying to hug them. 

Except for a purple, green and yellow Mardi Gras boa worn on stage at the Cat’s Meow on Bourbon Street, while singing “I’m too sexy for my clothes” — a story for another column — the closest I’d ever been to feathers was a family parakeet that did fly-bys and pulled my hair out by the roots.

I’d scream then and I wanted to scream at that demon child who was running circles around the turkeys getting them all annoyed and extremely fluffed up.

I yelled,”Hey birdy, birdy, birdy, heads up!” but to get that front-page photo, I’d have to be closer to the ground so I squatted and started clicking away. The camera’s flash got those birds in a flapping frenzy and immediately the entire gang, along with bozo brat boy, was on top of me like I was grandma’s turkey platter.

When the biggest bird shook his chin thing in my face, I got the shot and devised an escape plan that involved grabbing the snot-nosed devil’s spawn and drop-kicking him at the turkeys, then making a run for it. Granted, not a noble plan, but worse, as it took shape, my keen reporter’s mind came up with the perfect headline, “Thanksgiving twist — Turkey gobbles kid.”

Fortunately, I got away without harm to me or Rosemary’s baby. Back at the office, the editor looked through my eight photos. Seven were a blur, but that eighth one — camera lens to turkey eyeball, that one was a winner. The editor said, “I’m impressed you could work so well with turkeys.”

I didn’t reply. That opening made it way too easy. I just stared, hard, at the back of his head.