The Light of Camp Verde, Ep. 10

Episode 10: Celebrating Arizona

Julie shares the downside of a photo op south of Flagstaff at Newman Park, then Lisa talks about magical events at non-magical places in Camp Verde.

Mug: Thanks A Latte

From a television news memoir still under construction

by Lisa Schnebly Heidinger

I don’t know when I started putting my feet up on the dash and singing to music, but we both sang after that. I don’t know when I first confided something in him I didn’t tell many people, invoking “Bureau Code” for confidentiality. I do know before long I realized that even while he might mock me or find me tiresome, he would do anything for the good of the Bureau, and that included me.

And the phrases: Schmidt knew what he liked and kept using it. So “okie dokie, pokey,” was frequent. Whenever we saw cattle, he’d say, “Look, a herd of slow-moving elk.” My favorite was that pretty much each time I handed him a script to edit, he’d scan it, shake his head, and say, “Every day, you amaze me.”

We traversed our realm in mutual delight: look where we get to be for work. We laughed at “runaway truck” pull-offs, where I pictured furtive semis giggling in groups, missed by someone as runaways but unrepentant. We puzzled over why fallen pines at the North Rim looked like centipedes; he figured out it was probably from erosion and animals rubbing off the small branches pointing up. We loved the day a train began passing behind me during a live shot, continued through the entire package while I was off camera, and the caboose pulled past right as we I was wrapping up my closing remark. I filed quarterly reports charting the number of times we appeared in newscasts and now many we led. We wrapped ourselves in the mantle of achievement. We built this. We did this. We are the Bureau.

Midas, Hands Off

by Julie Morrison

Serve me butterscotch with mustard,

or sunnyside with broken yolks—

insist I find the goldfinch

in canopies of turning oaks—

stick me with acacia,

cage me with canaries,

plant me with dandelions,

choke me with goldenberries—

demand I weed the melons,

or teach the dragonfruit to roar,

set me peeling mangoes,

if I have tulips, demand more—

ask me to make queso

when Velveeta’s out of stock—

but spare me greedy, weedy blooms

starving hungry stock.

The Light of Camp Verde, Ep. 10

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