Newspaper

I got a haircut yesterday.  It was just as relaxing as the one I wrote about a while back!  I had to wait a few minutes for my barber to finish the guy ahead of me. While I waited, I saw they had a copy of the daily newspaper. I say daily, but it’s now down to three days a week, but I enjoyed looking through it.  I haven’t read an actual newspaper in almost 2 years.  It was pretty sad.  What used to be a paper with 3-4 sections, is now 3-4 pages and most of those are advertisements  

Growing up, we always got two newspapers every day, and on Thursdays, we got a third.The paper from Jackson came in the morning, at first it came in the mail, then later on, by carrier. The Vicksburg paper came in the afternoon. The local Hinds County Gazette came on Thursdays. Daddy always said that the Jackson paper wasn’t news, it was history! The things they reported on happened the day before and had already been on the television news.  The afternoon Vicksburg Evening Post was more current news.  Plus, they covered things in our community better than the Jackson Clarion-Ledger did. 

Daddy was a voracious newspaper reader. He read both of those from cover to cover, all the while complaining that there was nothing in the paper! “They wasted their paper and ink today!”  On Sundays, he would sometimes go to a newsstand in Vicksburg that got the Sunday papers from New Orleans and Memphis.  He said he was checking the want ads for trucks for sale, but really he just enjoyed reading the different papers. I remember getting the sports and my sister got the comics. Daddy got the news and classified ads. Mama got the society section to read about all the society parties, weddings, and engagements. Her favorite was the New Orleans Times Picayune during Mardi Gras!  She loved reading about the Krewes and the fancy balls. 

My grandfather, “PopDaddy”, wrote a column in the Hinds County Gazette, for years.  They had scribes from all the small towns in the county reporting on the goings-on in the communities.  He wrote the Cayuga News and his primary subjects were us, his family!  If I or my cousins came home from college, it was news!  If someone went on a trip, it was news!  There was also news of new babies, weddings, family gatherings, visitors to the store, anyone in Cayuga who was sick or in the hospital, and sadly, deaths in the community.  He put a more personal touch than the standard wedding write-up or obituary.  One of my most prized possessions is a 4 volume set of all his columns. 

It’s old news that paper and ink newspapers are going the way of dinosaurs.  Everyone gets their news from cable tv or online these days, but these media don’t have the personal feeling of holding an actual paper, reading about people, places, and things you are familiar with. It’s sad that today’s children will grow up never knowing the fun of the Sunday comics, or the headlines about their favorite teams.  Progress isn’t always good.   

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