Freudian Trip

I worked as a reporter at the Gillette News-Record from March 10, 2008 to Dec. 31, 2009. Not that I had a prison cell-style tally going on in my apartment, or anything.

Once I have a few years of hindsight under my belt, I believe my time in Gillette, Wyo. will go down as a very strange, frustrating and ultimately enlightening period of my life. But for now, I can't really talk about the one year, nine months and three weeks I spent there without foaming at the mouth. Sorry.

But I did have an odd dream last night that brought some of my feelings about Gillette and its newspaper to the fore.

In the dream, I've returned from St. Louis to the familiar News-Record office. A few things have changed since I left. Several new people sit at desks in the editorial department — interns, I later discover. One of my ex-colleagues has shaved off his trademark facial hair, and looks remarkably younger. Oh yeah, and there's a sprawling, well-stocked bar now occupying one side of the building.

If you know journalists, you'll realize that last detail isn't as bizarre as it seems.

Anyway, I sit at the bar. And the education reporter is apparently working as the bartender. I give him a familiar nod and a smile, but he looks the other way. That's odd.

Then I'm floating between desks, seeking out my fellow reporters and trying to say hello. But everyone's busy on deadline, and no one pays me any notice. Finally, I introduce myself to one of the newbies, and she acknowledges my presence. Excellent... this means I'm not dead or invisible.

But still... no one from my time before recognizes me. I'm upset and unsettled. Finally, I end up outside the office, tracking down one of the paper's photographers. He's out shooting on the side of the interstate, but I interrupt his work.

"Hey! Do you remember me? Jeremy?"

"No." He doesn't hesitate in responding, but he looks doubtful, as if he's considering whether or not he's done a story on me before.

I try to explain that I worked at the paper, but he's not buying it.

"This is so 'Twilight Zone,'" I say... before I snap my fingers with a sudden realization. "And that's because this is all a dream! Ha!" I glance to the photographer with a smile. "Now you can do whatever you've always wanted to do."

Shortly thereafter, just as I'm preparing to fly away into the sky, lucid dream-style, the photographer stabs me in the side with an X-Acto knife.

So I'm not sure what that last part is all about, but this dream seems like your typical exercise in narcissistic self-doubt. Did I make a difference during my time in Gillette? Will anyone remember my contributions? Tough to say, but I don't think it's quite as grim as the dream portrays.

But that also brings up a big point of why I opted to join AmeriCorps. For me, working as a reporter was both empowering and paralyzing. It came with a sense of being out in the community, of making a difference for the lives of locals, but the journalist's professional creed still held me back. Look, don't touch. You can observe the people, even empathize with them, but you're not quite one of their number. You are the narrator, looking down on everyone from a cloud.

There were times... particularly during meetings of the incompetent, corrupt and viciously unpleasant Campbell County Cemetery District... when I wanted to stand up, express my opinion and take some decisive action. Perhaps it's a good thing that I had my journalist's hat to restrain me in those situations. Without it, I would have slapped a cemetery trustee, in all likelihood.

But joining AmeriCorps is a pretty obvious attempt at wish fulfillment: to toss myself into life headlong without regard for "objectivity" or professional distance. To leave the realm of words for the realm of action. To build things that will last, not articles that will be discarded and forgotten tomorrow.

Will it meet those high-flown standards? Well, I'm trying not to be too idealistic about it. AmeriCorps will be hard work. There probably are going to be days when I wake up cursing about something... the service projects, the training, the regulations. But even that thought excites me.

Even if the AmeriCorps experience proves as bipolar as my hitch at the News-Record, I'd argue that it would still be worth the time and effort. It's something new, challenging, and very, very unknown. I can't wait for the ride to start.