The newspaper.
I have fond mems of the newspaper. It’s a lifeline. It came yesterday, today - and it will be here tomorrow. And it’ll be here many years after you/I are gone.
Many, many a morn I’ve been awakened by the ker-plunk of it on the driveway - and the slide it makes as it traverses into the grass. It’s hell on days when I get both the Big City paper, and the Local paper. Figured out, if you kick one toward the nuther, u only gotta bend down once.
My mama was the first employee of onea our local newspapers. She started in the family’s home, in their basement. (4 yr old son of owner’s bonked her on the head one day with a 2 by 4.).. That paper grew, and grew, and grew.. Tens of thousands in circulation.. Then sold, to the older Local newspaper. They kept their printing plant though, and they print grocery fliers from a nifty 120,000 square foot building.
I have the same pattern each day. Sport’s section (smoke two cigs)… Front Page.. Scan the headlines, attack the articles I wanna attack (one cig).. Avoid the ghostly US/World news.. And the opinion columnists.. .then hop on over to the Local section.. Again, read the ones I wanta (one cig).. Check the obits.. I know, I know.. I just don’t wanna be horrified one day and ask “how’s ole so-and-so?”.. DIDN’T YOU HEAR? Oh shit, no I didn’t.
Ok, that crap’s done. By now I’m pissed because we’ve got Military deaths listed daily (God Bless our troops, not a diss on them a’tall.. Me just no comprende “why“…)…
I’ve chuckled a time or two at what had this person and that person all fired up enough to write a letter to the editor… and I’m ready for fun…
So… I goes to the FYI section. Entertainment, oddities, advice colums, cartoons, horoscopes, celeb birthdays (sometimes that one ain’t fun.. Oh shit, Englebert Humperdink is 72?)
Newspaper this n that…..
I threw the paper my mother worked for… in a town fitteen miles away.. I was fitteen.. Dude that drove drank three beers en route, three beers on the way home. He got the left sidea the street, I got the right. Between all the ink on ma arms and the smell of alcohol, I was a mess by the time each day was over.
Newspapers, after being read, have many uses. Campfire starter. Hot water heater pilot light lighter thingy (why do they call it a hot water heater?)…Wonderful to do windows with..(better than paper towels).. A bib for when u eat on the run.. Keepsakes (still gots when the Chiefs won Super Bowl, Royals won World Series..).. Paper mache.. As an umbrella.. (News)Paper airplane… And……..
Rapidfire like: for mulch, as drop cloths, to wrap Christmas ornaments, shelf paper, wrap birthday presents with the comics, clean greasy oven, tape over windows for painting, traction when stuck in car… many… many uses… and u can even use ‘em when you run outta toile.. Ahm, never mind.
Newspapers was “country, when country wasn’t cool.” It’s said, only old people read newspapers. Mebbe. But they was hella ahead of the dot-coms, CNN’s, NBC’s, ABC’s, Broadband and the entire digital community we know today. And circulation is growing.
Newspapers nowadays are kinda like professional bloggin’. Say damn near what ya want, whenya want.
Ya gotta love the REALLY small town newspapers.. “Glady and Earl Clondike visited with
Minne and Orly Squire on Friday night”…
We have a choice with newspapers, just as we do each and every page that comes our way in
life. Oh, we have some have to’s, but the vast majority of our decisions of what we do and
don’t do, what we read and don’t read - are leftin’ up to us. I cherish that about a newspaper.
Gimme it all, then I’ll pick and choose. Kinda like women, I rectum.
I’m damn skippy I’ve been able to read ‘em over the years. Yes, I do the Star, CNN, MSN,
NBC, Chuck Shepherd’s online… but I just wouldn’t be edjumacated quite like I are if it
tweren’t for the newspaper. (Gotta give a shout out here to ma cataract lens replacin’ surgeon..
YOU ROCK! THANKS! NO MORE ‘READERS‘!)
Do me a flavor. Next time u pick up one. Take a moment and smile for all the newspaper has
meant to you. Think back to that time u read about you bowling a 231 in the Hopeful
Housewife League… Close ur eyes and ‘peek’ at the birth announcement of your child..
Remember headlines from reaching the moon… JFK.. The Beatles.. The Challenger.. OJ..
Watergate.. Mount St. Helens.. Princess Di.. Newspapers connected us. We passed them
around. We’ve read about yesterday so we could be “up” on today.
Reading is wonderment. We’re never too old to learn. We might yearn for longer arms, but it’s
all good.
Gotta go to bed now. It’s only six hours, twelve minutes until that bastard wakes me up with his
lefthanded toss. I can’t wait. (Incidentally, 7 cigs were smoked during this writing…. Brb,
going to clean my monitor.. Uh huh.. Sure… with newspaper.) Love, Victurd
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