Pickles by Brian Crane for May 05, 2021

I know newspapers are declining. But as much that Nelson hangs around Earl and Opal. I can’t believe he doesn’t know what a newspaper is.

Could be the wind. Before I canceled my subscription our newspaper got so thin that the wind would blow it across the street or sometimes a couple of houses down the block.

Covid-19 was rough on newspapers across the country losing 20% of papers in the previous 15 years. Numbers vary as to how many, but the estimate is that 2,000 papers shut their doors permanently. Our local paper added digital before COVID-19. It was forced to no longer publish the print paper on Monday, and now combines Saturday and Sunday – for online subscribers only.

“It’s a bunch of comic strips delivered daily or weekly, wrapped in pieces of paper for safety.”

good question, Nelson

I still prefer holding a newspaper or book to read rather than online. It is so much eaiser to find the article that you were not able to finish, or double check the information in an article, the movie schedule or send a copy of an article or Junior’s picture to family members. You can’t copy online information. Very frustrating.

We used to subscribe to the local paper and the “nearby city” paper. Together, they cost about $15 or so per month, less if you paid up in advance for several months. Now, the “big city paper” has actually shrunk the size of the pages, as well as dropping from 30 or 40 pages to 5 to 10. And the local paper now has NO reporters (nothing but stringers) and NO editor (well, someone who writes an editorial and chooses which political cartoon to print, and … maybe … decides which “letter to the editor” to publish. The stringers write their stories. They spell check them. They verify the facts as much as anybody does. They even put them into the paper themselves, what with layout software.

We no longer pay for the “big” paper at all. It’s become completely worthless: Doesn’t cover regional news issues. Spouse still buys the online version of the local one, but I don’t bother to read it. Heck even the ads aren’t worth much: We get online specials. And you can’t even line the bird-cage.

Or you might find it on your roof or through a window.

Time for SHOW and Tell.

I was a paper boy in the 1960s, I don’t think they have them any more. Mine is delivered by a person in a car.

We have 2 newspapers here, one comes daily, the other only 4 times a week!

I suck at the game “Paperboy.” I rarely got it in the box or on the porch. It usually ended up in all sorts of other places instead.

It’s where Earl looks every day to make sure he didn’t make the Obituaries.

A newspaper is what you read…’nuff said!

I read a story in Reader’s Digest about someone who had that problem until they found out that the paperboy wanted to be a basketball player. So they rigged up a way for the kid to practice his shooting and they would get the paper exactly where they wanted it.

Decades ago I was a display ad rep for a mid-major newspaper that ran two issues a day. Read it every day for years after. In the 1960’s, they actually undertook to publish and home deliver the full college catalogue for a now major university. The first ever done east of the Mississippi. Eventually the two papers eventually became one and the company was sold a to larger investment firm, whose business was money and not news. Within a year or two certain functions, including the call-in billing department, were moved to another state, so local delivery and printing problems worsened. We dropped the paper years ago and tried the digital version but it just did not have the quality and depth or the feel of the original. Yeah, change in our lives is continuous, but we don’t have to like it.

It’s what we used to use on Sunday with our Silly Putty to have fun with the printed comics before they changed the ink….

Still get a newspaper. After reading it gets used for so many different things ! Hard to do Lasagna (Layers) gardening without it ;-)

This reminds me of that aggravating “What’s a computer?” kid from a commercial a few years ago. Some kid was on working on her laptop-looking thing outside and a neighbor said, “Nice computer” and she pretended she had no idea what a computer was. I think half the internet wanted to slap her at the time.

Unfortunately all too true…

I do the online version, cheaper and I don’t have to worry about recycling.

I get my news from five different online sources. That way I get all the slants and biases so I can make up my own mind. Some of the sources are really aggravating. Too bad that some people believe and agree with them.

Unknowingly, Nelson has been picking up the paper and playing with it before abandoning it somewhere.

But he knows everything about dinosaurs.

It’s what we used to put in the bottom of the bird cage…Bird cage?

I’m not surprised….kids and some people don’t even know who the President is….they’re too busy with video games and cell phones. Blame the parents……oh wait…they’re doing the same thing….=~{

It’s that thing covering Grampa’s face when he’s napping.

(sigh) I’m so old that I remember when all newspapers were delivered by kids on bicycles. These days, it’s a middle-aged guy/gal driving a car to serve the large area they need to cover in order to eke out a living.

I gave up on printed newspapers. It didn’t seem right that so many trees had to die to bring me … all those ads.

Re: Earl’s grandson question. The current generation has missed so much!

Monday morning I saw the newspaper guy turn around at the first house on the street. I guess that means they are the last house in 10 that still pay for a paper.

All of the above.Like Earl, I not only could no longer find my paper, AND I no longer could go out and play, hide and go seek in the rain and snow after a major medical issue. I knew a couple of people who delivered papers for the extra cash, then cuts at the newspapers went right to them(paying LESS per paper, so they quit. A rough count had 3/4ths of the paper as ADS. In the end, I was only getting it on Sunday, for the comics and crossword puzzles. (I found some comics online)

The larger point is that there are no more newspapers or news as intended in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Instead we have political, psychosomatic, and we are victims platforms most suitable for cat litter boxes.

We. alas, no longer have paperboys (or girls); now they use otherwise-unemployable adults with beater cars. You get much better service from a teenager on a bike.

my kid didnt know how to use a rotary phone when I handed him one to call his buddy.

Well, it used to be a source some legitimate facts, except for the advertisements and editorials, of course. For example there was nothing biased about William T. Evjue of the Madison Wisconsin Capitol Times.

If he’s old enough to drive a car, you probably shouldn’t call him a boy.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños, *Manchester Guardian! Congratulations on 200 years of chasing the truth!

" Comment is free… but facts are sacred"

CP Scott, 1921 Guardian editor

What’s a paper boy? They went extinct decades ago. Long before the decline in printed papers. Adults with cars able handle larger routes took over and was.preferred by the distributors.

Every single person on this whole site uses better grammar and spelling than our paper does. Our paper would almost exclusively just run local crime stories on the front page- trying to use fear to get us to support more money for the cops.They also are incapable of not delivering a paper when you are on vacation- a blatant invitation for burglars. Even after I cancelled my printed version, they STILL deliver printed papers sometimes . I had to call them and tell them to stop doing that.

Without the newspaper as one of its enticing tricks, hardly anyone would have ever bought Silly Putty…

For us we stopped the newspaper over 10 years ago.

Apparently that last paper hit the kid in the head so that he forgot that he’s seen his grandfather reading the newspaper hundreds of times.

I want my two dollars!

Paperboy in the early 80’s. As long as the roads were clear, I rode my 10 speed bike. In the winter, I had a ski mask on with my walkman over it.

come on Nelson, you aren’t that young.

I do miss the Grand Rapids Press and the Detroit Free Press. They are both still around, but the paperboy part isn’t. I get them when I go out, but not so much anymore.

Nelson just made his grandparents feel older then they already are.

Newspapers are getting to be a dinosaur. It’s too bad junk mail is going that way too.