I’ve tried getting along without a newspaper... We stopped the San Diego Union-Tribune a couple of months ago when it became clear that the new owner, Douglas Manchester, is determined to make an already conservative newspaper into a Tea Party rag.  I couldn’t stomach the hymns of praise for the NRA, DOMA, and Grover Norquist by the paper’s editorial staff, so Margaret and I stopped our subscription.  For the first time since we were married we didn’t have daily newspaper delivery.  Even when we lived in Singapore we subscribed to the Straits Times local English language newspaper. The newspaper was delivered to our home daily. When we lived in Washington, of course, we subscribed to the Washington Post.  In New York it was the NY Times.  We’ve lived in San Diego for twenty-five years, and even though the Copley family was decidedly conservative, the newspaper occasionally strived for some balance until Manchester came along. 

I maintain on-line subscriptions to The New York times and The Washington Post.  First thing in the morning I take a quick look at the first pages of both newspapers. I get little alert messages through the day, and those are a good cyber-space innovation.  But there’s nothing quite like the feel and smell of newsprint... on paper.  I’ve missed the clutter of the morning paper on the dining room table.  I’ll admit to feeling a bit guilty not subscribing to a daily local paper.  You’ve probably participated in those surveys that include the question that asks if your family subscribes to a daily newspaper.  I’ve dreaded being asked and having to say no.  If someone asked me to participate I’d launch into an excuse, an apology, and I’d insist that I’ve always had a newspaper delivered daily... Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what I’ve done with this journal writing. 

So there it is.  I couldn’t take it.  I couldn’t hold out.  Reading the Times and the Post on the computer and the iPad isn’t enough.  So this morning, for the first time, we got the Los Angeles Times delivered to our door.  It will come every day.  I can begin again the little satisfying ritual of going to the front door first thing and finding the paper on the mat.  It’s wonderful to start again a ritual that was interrupted for awhile.  The paper strewn around on the table with a section on a chair and another somewhere else in the house.  I left the sports section in the bathroom this morning, and it was comforting to see it there later.  Even the rubber band was a comfort today.  I don’t remember having to buy rubber bands.  They’ve always been left in a drawer in the kitchen every day.  I missed the little ritual of going to the drawer and leaving the rubber band there and then going to the drawer and reaching into the tangle and getting one when I needed it.  And you know how when you’ve husked the corn before you put it in the microwave (or maybe you’re one of those who take the husk off after the microwave stint)... whatever... There’s nothing else that works as well as the double spread pages of newspaper for wrapping corn husks for disposal.  It’s been years since I’ve taken the scales off fish and filleted them; but if I should ever do it again, I’ll have day-old newspapers to wrap the throw-away stuff in... Whoa.  It’s a good feeling to have a newspaper again.

Oh, one more thing.  The L.A. Times today began an opinion piece, “Curtain up on Inequity, Creativity” right there on the front page... lower left corner... The beginning of the “Critic’s Notebook” by Charles McNulty... started on the front page and continued on past A11.  I don’t think writers at the Union-Tribune are allowed to use the word inequity.  

Wow!  I feel whole again in my own house.