Whatever happened to the “society column”? I miss that Monday morning wrap up in my paper. When I first moved here, Monday was the day to find out about the past weekend’s big events. Usually a front page picture in the B or C section would show the décor, some of the attendees in their gowns, list who was in the crowd, what was served for dinner, any special things that happened such as raising a boat load of money for a worthy cause and so forth. Adjacent articles would cover some of the “lesser” but no less interesting doings as well. Maybe the PC police got to the newspapers and now we get to read about sports in full color every day…..every single day….with full page pictures of some kid flying over a hurdle.
I was reminded of this long lost staple of the print media when I realized that a really fun event had occurred last week, a costume party benefiting mental illness, and no follow up has ever appeared. Now before anyone gets their shorts in a snit, I know that a local magazine was introduced a few years ago to cover this “social” aspect of our community, which it does to an extent, but the reporting is not the same. The section that covers events, benefits, fundraisers, openings and so forth, only has pictures of faces, closely cropped faces, that don’t show décor, costumes or gowns, and lists nothing about the event itself other than the time or place. Faces are good but they don’t tell the story. The pictures are submitted by people who are at the event most times and not from some reporter with a camera that blinded you with his flash, asked your name and moved on. Now that was fun, no posing for the camera, few staged groupings, people in the background who did not know they were in the photo, things like that made the pictures interesting and the story relevant.
I miss knowing how many events served rubber chicken. I bet the event I wonder about did not as it was headed up by a local chef. So what was on the menu? Who came dressed as whom? Who won the contest? If I find that info in the next issue of the local magazine, I will apologize and stand corrected. If I don’t, I will have to rely on feedback from people at the next big event who may have attended the previous one. Oh wait, maybe that was one of the problems which prompted the switch from newspapers to a monthly magazine, that it was the same people every time. But no, I find that in the faces at the back of the magazine as well, which is okay, because I keep them and can see how we all age (gracefully or not) year after year.
It has been many years since I did my tour of duty as a volunteer decorator for big events in town, now I just attend one or two and call it a calendar. But I know how hard those people work, how many hours go into designing, making, gathering and setting up of props and centerpieces while navigating a cat fight or two. I know how much discussion goes into just what meal to serve to provide both value and taste, but still make a profit. I know that tuxedos and gowns are prepared with care (face it, benefits are just proms for grownups) and that an evening on heels will be paid for with Motrin in the morning. Wallets will be opened and generous attendees will support the cause at hand, even if they had done so already at another time just because it is the right thing to do. I miss reading about this stuff. Call me shallow, but it was better than another picture of a dog wearing a funny hat or a whole column of snookypoo’s having their 2nd birthday.
So I will wrap it up by saying thank you to all those people who have attended and supported the following organizations’ events these past few months….Domestic Violence, HIV/AIDs, Mental Illness, Catholic Charities, College Scholarship groups, and the list goes on.
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