Pickles by Brian Crane for May 06, 2021

My father takes the paper. Doesn’t matter what the weather is. It comes in a plastic baggie.

What do you expect him to do when the sprinklers are on? Do you expect him to run through the sprinklers and get wet?

On some of the days when I’m scheduled to open my employed grocery store, one of the first things I do is bring in the day’s newspapers — which are left outside at the sliding doors — before I go into the building’s employee entrance which utilizes an EUID card key scanner. Sometimes the newspapers are in a plastic bag, sometimes not.

I used to take pride in getting the paper right on the porch next to the door. Except the guy who worked until 4 AM and really did NOT need to be woken by the arrival of the paper. His paper went on the sidewalk to the door. And the guy who not only had to be dunned hard to get your payment, but also complained more or less non-stop to the paper about the delivery boy. And probably would have died if he accidentally gave a tip. His got put under the car, or in the rose bush. But only sometimes, so we could claim it was a mistake.

Ah yes, in my holding rhapsodic yesterday on the joys of actual physical newsprint I forgot about having to spread a rain-soaked one out and using a hairdryer to be able to read it at the table.

“What’s that section with all the tiny ads?” “I can’t tell you. It’s classified.”

I used to get the paper delivered, and for a while it was always wet when I got to it. Seems there was one spot just outside my gate that the neighborhood cats decided a paper didn’t belong, so if it happened to land there, they’d moisten it for me.

Don’t let a wet paper worry you Earl, you can always read the online edition…

Earl no Pop Up ads to deal with ;-)

On the other hand, reading news online saves a lot of paper. And I got mighty tired of frequently having to take newspapers out to the recycling bin.

Good tips for good delivery. Complain to the Circulation department for wet or otherwise unreadable papers. And don’t take an extra copy from the rack! The carrier has to pay for for that paper you just stole.

Just tell Nelson what’s black and white and read all over! No, not a sunburned zebra!

Ah, memories of Sunday mornings in bed with the Sunday paper and a pot of tea. My one “mom alone time” when the kids were old enough to make their own breakfast. Can’t even get delivery where I live now :(

Wife gets the paper. I read on line

We went from getting the paper delivered daily to getting it only on Sunday, to picking one up on the way to Church to not getting it at all. They used to print it here in town, but started printing it 100 miles away. When they did that, the pages were actually a little smaller, some sections were eliminated or combined and the type was a little smaller and the price a little higher. Readership is way down. Progress …

At least he didn’t throw a log on it.

I don’t get the newspaper anymore. When we did get it, there was a little box on a pole that stood next to the mailbox. The newspaper office would set this up when you subscribed. Some mailboxes even come with a little space down below for the paper. On rainy days, the paper would come in a plastic bag. If it got damp, we would lay the paper out flat on an oven rack and turn the oven on low until it dried out.

My newspaper gets put in a separate tube attached to my mailbox at the side of the road. Never thrown.

When a wet newspaper dries out you still read it. That’s not always true with a wet smartphone.

This new paper boy needs to aim better….

Home delivery for the Austin paper is now $300+, it is no longer printed in Austin leading to it having no news such as sports scores that happened after 5pm-it use to have all the Eastern Time zone box scores, now no scores.

I must say, I apologize to all in our widespread drought areas for this slap in the face and misuse of perfectly good trees on advertising.

We used to get the paper delivered, but no longer. They came around at 4 AM one day and nailed the paper tube to the mailbox post (that’ll get you out of a sound sleep, let me tell you!) and then continued to throw the paper instead of putting it in the tube. When it was raining, the carrier would double bag the paper- with both bags facing the same way! If it landed in the ditch, we had two bags full of water instead of one.

That being said, I still miss the paper for all the reasons we discussed yesterday, and those bags come in handy when I clean up after the puppy.

If it is raining or forecast to rain, our paper delivers papers in a plastic tube. Springlers, they have on control over.

The news is all wet!

Also mighty useful if your dog is “paper” trained.

Our new pup started out retrieving the newspaper for us. Unfortunately, he discovered the neighbors free-range chickens and started chasing them when we let him out to get the paper, sometimes chasing them with the paper in his mouth. We ended up getting the paper without the help of our retriever.

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So why would you run the sprinklers when the paper boy is due???

Are there still newspaper deliveries

Hmmm. Rosco is looking a little guilty… ?

“Look at the headlines, Nelson…uhh, no Nelson, I don’t mean stare at my forehead!”

Aren’t they supposed to aim for the porch?

Better to run the sprinklers at night; less evaporation.

Used to take the paper, once upon a time. Then they began shorting the Comics section, that was their death knell. No Comics, no customers, period. Every time a paper salesman comes to the door he gets the same answer, “you put all the comics back in, and I’ll subscribe”. And they trudge away, knowing they will never get another penny from me.

Modern newspapers are at least 60% ads. Very little content

And there is that with wet newspaper.

Before I cancelled the subscription the paperboy would throw it behind the pillar by the sidewalk. You couldn’t even see it from the house. I had to walk out in the rain to see if it was there. Than ended and it cost less too.

I expect you to die, Mr. Bond.

I moved back to my childhood home at the end of 2020 (Pgh) and started a subscription to the print paper for Sundays only (the Post Gazette now only prints Thursday, Saturday and Sunday papers). I figured that since I lived in an apartment building now and the delivery company brought the papers inside, I would finally get a paper that wasn’t soaked by snow or rain. Wrong. When the person on duty at the front desk left to make ‘rounds’ early in the morning, people would sneak up and steal papers. So I started to get to the front desk by 5 am. That worked, until the day that my name was left off the list of people who were supposed to get a paper. Funny thing; I ended the subscription and now get constant calls from the Post Gazette. They never called me when I subscribed…

Because print media is all washed up!