New York Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle foster an addiction

I have been a junkie for nearly 40 years.  There is no need for an intervention.  I am not going to be anything less than totally addicted for as long as I live.  Or at least until technology finally makes my obsession obsolete.

 

I am a newspaper junkie.  I became one while attending computer school in Kansas City during the summer of 1968.  And yes, there were computers way back when.

 

I spent a month in Kansas City, the on site finale to a correspondence school that was somewhat shady.  I learned a little about computers, but mainly a learned a lot about being away from home for the first time.  Some of what I learned can’t be mentioned, ever.  I had a lot of fun, but I was homesick too.  Especially on Sundays, when there were no classes.

 

Fortunately I discovered a newsstand just two blocks away from my hotel-the Alcazar, and I swear that really was the name, near 39^th and Baltimore.  Anyway, on Sundays this newsstand carried papers from all around the country.  I didn’t have a lot of spending money, but newspapers were cheap in those days. 

 

So, I would buy 3 or 4 Sunday papers, and spend the day devouring them, while I listened to rock on my transistor radio.  No, the Alcazar did not have in-room TV.  I always bought the Omaha World-Herald.  It made home seem much closer than 200 miles away.

And I experimented with other papers.

 

I found I really did not like the Kansas City Star, but I loved the Chicago Tribune. The Denver Post was great, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch not so great.  I liked the Los Angeles Times, but maybe that was just because it came from California.

 

And of course, my favorite paper of all was the New York Times.  I was young and not nearly as political as I was to become over the next few years, so liberal or conservative didn’t mean much to me.  All I knew was it was a thick paper, and reading it helped me get through a lot of Sundays.

 

When I began college I found out that a local drugstore carried some regional newspapers that arrived in my hometown of Fremont, NE by bus.  I found that out because I worked there for part of my freshman year, and one of my responsibilities was to go to the bus depot and pick up the papers.  Having access to the Chicago Tribune, the Des Moines Register, and the Denver Post only fed my addiction.

 

But the owners retired and sold the store, and the new owner didn’t want to sell anything but the Omaha and Lincoln papers.  I love the Omaha World-Herald.  It is really a great paper, but for years something was missing.

 

Then a Borders bookstore was built in northwest Omaha, and they carried Sunday papers.  Several times a month my wife would go shopping in Omaha, and I would head to Borders.  I always came home with the New York Times, but I also discovered the San Francisco Chronicle.  I tried the New Orleans Times-Picayune, but I liked the name better than the paper. With books and CD’s, Borders became a cross between a candy store and crack house for me. 

 

And then, much to my dismay and disgust, the manager of Borders decided to do away with all Sunday papers, except the New York Times.  He experienced the wrath of a newspaper junkie needing a hit, but my complaints didn’t make any difference.

 

Yes, I do know I can read the papers on my computer.  It just isn’t the same.  I mean the computer does not feel like a paper, it does not smell like a paper, and I certainly don’t need to wash my hands of printer’s ink after reading an online newspaper.  I suppose computers and the internet save lots of trees, but some things deserve to remain as they always were.

~ by Ron Meyer on July 8, 2008.