DelBloggolo: TALE OF TWO NEWSPAPERS…

Saturday, October 18, 2014

TALE OF TWO NEWSPAPERS…

Or: at least the delivery guys.

I get two newspapers every morning. I like newspapers and hope they stay around for awhile. I get Long Island Newsday, and the scorned since I can remember: New York Daily News.

Now Newsday is considered an OK tabloid, better than the News and less than the Times, the paper of newsprint and snobbery, snobbery since everyone likes to quote the Times. “Did you read in the Times Sunday about…” No, I did not, why? Because when I read that damned newspaper it puts enough ink on my fingers to print another edition of the thing, plus, it is written so that it takes a lifetime to read an article. But you are well informed when you read it you say? Well just the first three paragraphs should be sufficient to get the gist of the story across. Their motto: “All the News That’s Fit to Print” should be changed to ‘All the News that Fits!’

The Times however is a London Times Wanna-be, a newspaper that is authoritative and historical. Its role in World War II was monumental, used as a weapon and means of communication to bring down the tyranny of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi thugs. But OK, so what?

My beef is with the News, THE tabloid and paper of great scorn but a tradition handed down by my Dad. Every morning he would give me a nickel and send down to the corner candy store and get the New York Daily News. I’d return and he would read it with a cigarette and cup of coffee. Dad would read the newspaper backwards, starting with the sports section and paging until he got to the front pages. That is something I do with tabloids myself now. Dad died of lung cancer and I suspect he died that way from either: the coffee, newspaper or cigarette every morning.

But the beef already!!

Ok, my Newsday carrier delivers my paper every morning at the door, I open the front door and reach down, and can with my eyes closed get the paper! Nice! Not so the Daily News. His delivery system is like a drive-by shooting, his car speeding by, the paper thrown the air and flying at my house, where it usually lands –UNDER MY CAR! The damned fool!

To his credit, when it rains, he wraps the newspaper in a plastic bag, before driving by, flinging it and landing it under the old horseless carriage, however, when Chippy does that, he scrapes the plastic bag open, causing my newspaper to get soaking wet!

Now in my day, when I delivered the newspaper on my bike, it went into the mailbox or box provided by the newspaper, and so I never needed to wrap the newspaper first when it rained.

Oh, one more thing, one morning Chippy shot me the Wall Street Journal! Yes, can you imagine someone delivering both the New York Daily News AND the Wall Street Journal!