On testy Pilgrims and the tardy Press

Lately I’ve been thinking about entitlement.

While the beat’s been busy with the elections, the ongoing teacher salary impasse, District 6 coming off academic watch, immigration and identity theft forums, etc., there is the usual stream of events on which tireless organizers want and expect ink.

Recently, I’ve struggled to find much time for We the People, the annual high school competition on Constitutional government, and Read to Feed, a program where students raise money to buy livestock for indigent villagers. The Tribune has gone whole-hog (pun intended) one these programs in previous years.

Then comes Thanksgiving and the cascade of things done to help people in need. I will be doing my best to get word out about some of these food- and clothing-collection efforts.

We won’t get the word out about all of them — too many to count. Besides, the point of all this community service is to simply serve the community, not gaze upon a press clipping.

This brings me to Monday morning’s assignment that, given the pressing nature of other news, left me befuddled.

A church in town was having a Thanksgiving function with its preschoolers. The organizers made the function sound impressive enough that our city desk agreed. Reporter and photographer dispatched. The wheels of publicity in motion.

Most gigs such as this allow for some flexibility. We walked in 15 minutes after the time listed on the photo assignment and were curtly told that we were too late and that the preschoolers had moved on to their next activity. So, no story, unless we came back later in the afternoon, we were told.

I doubt there was much concept as entitlements — much less press clippings — to those Pilgrims who landed on the Left Coast ‘lo those centuries ago. Yet here I was being upbraided by a woman dressed as a Pilgrim for having the nerve to show up late for a preschooler function, which to her qualified as major news. The tykes can only wait so long, the Pilgrim Woman said tartly.

Surely, the kids don’t much care if their picture runs in the paper or not. I was left to ponder just why this was such a big deal. Someone felt jipped on their perceived entitlement — the sweet succor of publicity, perhaps of validation.

I say take a page from the original Pilgrims. At this time of giving and doing — just give and do for the selfless sake of it. Whether us heartless (and tardy) newspaper wretches are there or not, your acts will not go unheralded.