It’s time to talk turkey

Posted Nov 25, 2008 by Mike Winter

Updated Nov 25, 2008 at 08:34 PM

So as I stood there at the back of the auditorium, a video camera flashing “low battery” in one hand, a Thanksgiving pageant program in the other, I found myself contemplating some of the more fundamental truths about community, camaraderie and the universal urge to drag children up on stage every time a national holiday rolls around.

First, community is more than the interaction between parents, children, teachers and relatives gathered to witness what could charitably be call “historic reinterpretations.” (I was astonished to learn the Pilgrims crossed the ocean on the Cauliflower to avoid prestigious execution.) It’s also the interplay of family paparazzi jockeying for prime viewing spots amid a sea of folding chairs, discarded coats and empty strollers. My wife, for instance, was way up there near the stage with her Canon. I couldn’t actually see her. She’d gone in low and fast with a parting look that made it clear her safe return was by no means a sure thing. But I had faith. She was a fighter. Someday we would be reunited and her pictures of our daughter would turn all her bumps and bruises into badges of honor.

The second truth, one that I should have seen coming from last year’s even, was that when someone suggests you check the camera to make sure the battery is charged, you had better check the damn battery instead of nodding distractedly as you watch “SpiderMan 2” for the gazillionth time on FX. By the time I realized the error of my ways, it was too late. I was stuck with a camera precariously close to useless, hoping it wouldn’t give up the ghost until I recorded my daughter reciting her one line (“the stuffing really goes well with the turkey!” ) Of course I was merely the backup chronographer. My video would suffice in the unlikely event my wife failed to get the money shots, but it would be a bitter disappointment if all we had to remember the Thanksgiving Pageant of 2008 was a shaky, seven-second snippet of the back of another parent’s head and a brief glimpse of a five-year-old with an enormous microphone blocking two-thirds of her face.

The third truth is all about stage presence. Some kids have it. Some kids don’t. I’m not going to be a typical parent and insist my daughter is a theatrical genius. She is, of course, but that’s not the point. No, the point is that anyone under the age of five is completely unintelligible, no matter how loudly they shout into the mic. I’m still unclear what the song “Grey Squirrel” was all about. The lyrics went something like “Grey Squirrel, grey squirrel, mumosumo nat! Grey Squirrel, grey squirrel, pantimeo sat!” There was also some tail shaking and vague gesturers reminiscent of hissing rodents fighting in a barrel, but I have no idea why they were in such a violent state or who won the fight.

In the end, all the children took a bow and everyone in the audience clapped and my wife came back with shots worthy of National Geographic (see our ten-page spread on celebratory rites of passage among the non-indigenous peoples of West Central Florida!). And I succeeded in capturing either a little girl assuring the world that “the stuffing really goes well will with the turkey!” or a badger doing yoga on a rowboat.

The next time I buy a video camera, I’m popping for the Steadycam feature.