I’m taking a break from conventionizing this week as the Mississippi Press Association’s 158 Annual Meeting gets underway in Biloxi. It’s just bad timing this year coming at the end of the month with a holiday also knocking out about half of next week. Certain things around the office just have to be done and there is only a certain amount of time to get said things done. So, I’m skipping the party.
That is okay, though. I’ve been to my fair share of these gatherings in my 40 years of being counted as a member of the press.
Years ago the annual convention was a grand affair. Everyone took their children along for the trip and it was like a giant family reunion. Our kids, and their kids, and everybody’s kids all grew up together once a year and many became very close friends, and remain so today.
I think probably the take over of the coast by the casino industry might have been the beginning of the end for the “family” feeling of convention. Slowly but surely the casinos lured in the convention business and as they bought out the older, grander, convention hotels, casinos became the only place on the Mississippi coast to serve as hosts.
Convention, which served as summer vacation for many small newspaper operations’ small staffs, became more expensive in the casino era and less user friendly.
Youngsters could no longer stroll around the pool or the hotel grounds as many casinos forced attendees to cross the gaming floor to access their rooms, or the pool, or the restaurants, and the kids of all ages then had to be accompanied by an adult.
Year after year fewer entire families made an appearance as more and more newspaper moms and dads cut the budgets and cut out the kiddos along the way too. At some point, I can’t really remember when, Kids Camp, which was sort of an all day daycare sponsored by the Press Association disappeared. The camp was designed so that younger children could be taken care of while their parents played in the golf or tennis tournaments, and for several years many of us participated in a sailboat race. I personally have two first place trophies and a third place trophy from those races in my office from way back then.
My daughter loved Kids Camp and about the time it went away we started letting her hang out at a friend’s house or with the grandparents, I think, while mom and dad headed to the coast for two or three days.
It seems that after Hurricane Katrina, and some difficult years for the economy, the only playing left to do was on slot machines or in card games and that really isn’t my cup of tea. My wife and I would end up joining some friends out by the pool for the afternoon and tell stories about what we had done at past gatherings, complain about the casino itself, and probably, if truth be known, make up a few lies about this, or that, or the other as well.
Then, at some point, even my wife decided she had had enough conventions to last her for a lifetime and she quit tagging along as well. Time can change things as we all know and change isn’t always for the good.
I do miss the grand old hotels, the swanky swimming pools with the swim-up bars, huge mounds of fresh seafood filling the plates at the buffet table, and late night catching up with old friends and new in the hospitality suite.
The fact of the matter is that after 40 years in the business quite a few of those old friends and new are no longer around to do any catching up with. Some have retired, some have moved on to bigger and better — or perhaps smaller and more complicated — ventures. Sadly some have even moved on to the great beyond as well.
So, yes, just like that holiday movie about skipping Christmas, I’m skipping convention this year. I’ve got end-of-the-month invoices to process, another edition of the paper has to go to press, and there is that Fourth of July holiday falling slap dab in the middle of it all.
There is always next year. Well, I hope there is always next year I suppose would be the proper thing to say!
