Extra, Extra, Read All About It

When our forty-seven-year old son was here, he watched me go outside to get the morning paper and shook his head, wondering who the heck has a newspaper delivered any more. “Lots of people,” I told him, fully aware I might be lying just the teensiest little bit. “Any of them under sixty?” he asked with a grin. I will admit to being over sixty myself, but every morning when I pick up the newspaper, I’m grateful. I’m first of all thankful for our carrier who, in the wee hours of the morning and no matter the weather, never fails to deposit a paper in our tube at the roadside. If there’s a coating of ice or a foot of new snow, no problem. Like magic, my newspaper unfailingly appears. One day there was an issue with the printing presses downtown, and the paper was a few hours late. My level of my disappointment was directly proportional to the amount I look forward to the paper every day. Reading online is fine, but there’s something incredibly satisfying for me about holding an actual hard copy of the paper, about the smell of the ink, the simple act of relaxing in a chair and folding the pages back, or working on a crossword puzzle not on a screen. Print journalism may be an endangered species, but a day doesn’t pass that I don’t feel thankful for my newspaper.