The rhubarb-rhubarb that newspapers may become 86-ed, is increasing with thundering intensity—and, I tell you, I am shivering in my timbers about this possibility. I am terrified! !!…The New York Times (along with local papers, too) has been an integral part of my vital-flame, even before I began to read it! There are certain mainstays that were seeded, germinated and ritualized at the entry of our “wonder” years…ever so gently morphing into the solid bricks and mortar that comprise our “life’s building” (us)–with absolute certainty, newspapers are one. Reading the newspaper is a daily ceremony..a go-to com-padre for brain-nurturing and horizon-expansion. The NY Times and I have had a 40 year love affair, that, as I look back upon those 4 decades, has never ever ever been a disappointment.
Ahhh..sigh…so begins a mental-flossing–a cleaning out of my minds tarter, filled with fond memories and thoughtful musings of the newspaper–it is not called a news computer, it is a newspaper…get it?..PAPER!!!!  One final note…I do hope that this particular blog, does not become a eulogy for a dead media source–the beloved NEWSPAPER!!!  And so it goes………….
** 3rd grade, searching for the name of Hershfields daughter–NINA–that he hid within his fabulous pen and inks..depicting all manner of “artists” within their field…Hershfield left a number after his name to inform the reader as to how many NINA’s were to be found…the joy of circling the names that were deep within a hairdo, or a tie, or at the bottom of a mink stole…..
**breakfasts …school mornings…almost in cartoon fashion my dad peers over the top of the newspaper–”good morning”…the paper was never placed down when conversing, or opining–he just gently saw everything from the vantage point of the papers top rim…..
**newsprint fingers all over the counters, walls and tabletop–leaving the temporary graffiti of a hand that belonged to the reader who had been deeply immersed in the newspapers content..oblivious to all else…….
**my decorative hatboxes filled with all shades of sepia-hued articles collected over the decades –notations and underlinings of those clippings..a virtual time-line of what was crucial to a voracious news junky…my passion(s) suspended in time…”snapshots” without the pictures..diaries without lifting a pen….(many articles on focused ultrasound, that led me to the procedure that “freed” me) …….
**stuffing our clothes with crumpled newspapers for the Halloween scarecrow that all the kids loved…..
**not quite fully awake, stepping outside, feeling my way to the bottom of the drive–the paper so neatly packaged in a blue wrap…that very first peek of the “Front Page”, of a brand-new day..aahh, sigh….
**making hats and airplanes by folding a large single sheet–if those ripped, why there were always an endless supply of these newspaper sheets…..
**leftover newspaper, placed strategically on a floor before painting the walls of a room–the splatters and painted footprints scattered on words once read…
**tearing newspaper into strips–the sound, the smell, the fun of  placing those gluey dipped strips over a blown balloon… voila!! in a  transcendental stretch of artistic time–it’s a paper mache head or mask or……
**collecting words, phrases, pictures–carefully cutting and pasting them on to an oak-tag.. a themed collage as your final masterpiece that clearly displays the hours spent..Yikes!!…..
**ransom notes torn letters of  no apparent pattern–those found only in old movies..
**shredding and bedding for gerbils…making  a soft edible compost  for the 5,000 earthworms my husband ordered for me…
**my ritual of reading the “tofu and potatoes” of the newspaper first–leaving the NY Times puzzle as the finest  finale–dessert..and it was portable!!!
**turning a page with your hands–the surprise of emotion with each by-line or picture that just waits to be poured over, as your emotion pours out–again and again….
**covering the tables with layers and layers of old newspapers previously stacked in the corner–anticipation of cracking into the bushell-filled containers of Baltimore crabs–a veritable feast, with glimpses of old news….
**silly putty!!–who doesn’t remember the sundae funnies, and the giggles we spent stretching those comic faces that we “picked” up with our silly putty….
**crumpling up a wad of newspaper to “buff”  the glass on a sliding door–the final clarity that Windex can’t touch…
**kitty litter liner–birdcage liner too!!…
**cars, and subways and trains, oh my!! …so easy to take that newspaper with you….
**kind of exciting to open your hotel door and find that “free” paper thoughtfully placed in front of you–and if it’s a local paper, why, even better!!…
**recycling feels sooooo good–I know that I am kidding myself with this one, because if I didn’t have it delivered in the first place, I wouldn’t need to recycle it..but..I LOVE recycling!!!….
We have wended down newspaper memory-lane long enough–you grab the gist–I am sure that I was born with an over-load of nostalgia DNA, hard-wired right into my cells….but I truly LOVE the printed newspaper and everything that it offers–with real journalists, not bloggers!!  I shall continue to hold out, that the “paper of record”-The New York Times, will arrive daily on my property…and as I reach down in the faint distance I can hear..EXTRA..EXTRA..READ ALL ABOUT IT…..