On The Job

We took Sophie to Mister Ed's Elephant Museum & Candy Emporium for the shop's annual pumpkin painting event, and there I came face-to-face with my past.

Sophie had picked out a pumpkin and we walked her to the folding table set up outside the shop on the Lincoln Highway.

It was about then that I spotted him.

He was young, maybe in his early to mid-20s. He was wearing a gray hoodie, had blonde hair and was generally pleasant.

In one hand was a note pad. In the other, a pen.

He spoke to Mr. Ed — shop owner Ed Gotwalt — and nodded as the bearded candy purveyor described the scene and why he hosted this get-together for the children.

I know a guy on The Job when I see one.

A few moments later, I saw him, smiling, looking at Sophie as she globbed blue paint onto her pumpkin. He and I made eye contact.

I knew that look.

It was the same look that I had given hundreds of people hundreds of times at hundreds of community gatherings.

Town fairs. Demolition derbies. Halloween parades.

All the same.

"Excuse me, folks, can I talk to you for the newspaper?" he asked.

"Which newspaper?" I asked, knowing what was coming. 

"The Public Opinion," he replied.

"Actually, no," I said. 

He looked taken aback.

"I work for The Herald-Mail," I said, motioning to the south.

"Oh," he said, then walked away. 

I couldn't help but feel bad. I've been there.

It takes more courage than you realize to walk up to complete strangers and ask them to open up to you about the family fun they were trying to have until you interrupted them.

The only thing I ever had to lean on, to keep me from cowering back into my natural, shy state, was my smiling mug on the press pass I usually had hanging from my neck.

I'm not a creeper, I would think. See my badge? I'm just a guy trying to write a story.

Regardless, I also faced rejection. The worst was in Algonac, Mich., when I approached a man to get his take on a dying shopping center in the town situated where the St. Clair River emptied into Lake St. Clair.

"BACK OFF!" he growled at me.

That scene flickered through my head as I told the Public Opinion reporter that I could not speak to him because I work for the competition.

I wanted to find him later and explain to him I knew what he was dealing with. I saw him talking with a family near the pile of pumpkins, but when I looked up again, he was gone.

He'd gotten his story and left.

I know that feeling, too.