Drowning our Sorrows in Goat Milk

So, what exactly do co-workers do to commiserate on the day they find out the company they have worked long and hard for is being sold? Why, cheer on a colleague in a goat-milking contest, of course!


Performing arts, it is not. Glamorous, it is not. But by golly, it's different and unusual, and for a time, it helped take our minds off that scary "What's going to happen?" question. Well, for eight of us, at least.

So, there we were, the mini-Messenger gang, at the Wayne County Fairgrounds in Palmyra, deep in the heart of what one reporter calls "315er" territory. (She says it with an affectionate condescension.) We had brought along our "Go for the Goat!" signs, our cameras, and stadium-style face-posters (Photoshop meets popsicle stick) of our grinning community editor, Steve.

When he was finally called to the center of the tent to compete, we cheered him on, waved our "Steve-heads" (picture the J-Mac sign President Bush took home when he came to town last March) and in general, stirred up as much attention as we could. Luckily, Steve is a good sport about it all. He even posed for some pictures for a Wayne County paper, surrounded by a few of his screwy co-workers, and several of the signs and "Steve-heads." (And no, we had not been drinking.) Though Steve didn't milk enough to garner a gift basket, he was briefly in the running for the second round. (Would the proper term be "milk-off?")

After the competition, most of us debated ramifications of the company's sale further over chicken barbecue, funnel cakes, and Pepsi. (And no, no one drank the goat milk.) We didn't solve the problems of the world, and we certainly didn't solve our company's quandary, but we enjoyed hanging out as fellow staffers, in it together.

My co-workers rock, and I can only hope there's plenty more odd-ball activities in the coming days, weeks?, months? where we'll have more chances to support each other like family. Goodness knows we'll need it.

But it was fun. Really. Right up there with frying an egg on the hood of another editor's pickup truck on the 100-degree day we recently had. If we had to drown our sorrows in anything, a goat-milking contest was definitely the way to go.
Bottoms up!