Although Irene and I are all for saving energy and protecting the environment -- we
recycle, drive small cars, bring our own cloth bags to the supermarket, do much of our
banking and bill paying online -- we are not about to go paperless when it comes to
newspapers. We begin everyday with newspapers in our hands rather than going to a Web
site. We both spend much of the day writing and know what awaits us after we go through
the newspapers - our computers. Several hours a day in front of those screens, staring,
writing, piddling, checking e-mails and news updates are plenty enough.
We read snippets of stories or catchy quotes to each other at the breakfast table and
trade sections of the papers so we both can look at a compelling picture or a review of
an interesting movie. It's a stimulating hour or so of sharing. With the pages in front of us,
the words and stories are immediately available. We don't have to scroll, click and wait
every time we want to read a different story.
Publishers, in their desperate fight to stay afloat have completely overlooked a major
selling point: once you've read the latest news from Iran to Indiana your newspaper has
many practical uses besides wrapping coffee grounds and potato peelings. These possibilities
are particularly appealing to those of us who don't intend to spend the rest of our lives with
heads bowed in fervent worship of a Blackberry or an iPhone.
For one thing, a real newspaper -- one you can touch and feel -- is a marvelous scratchpad.
Irene does Jumble, the scrambled word puzzle, and when she gets stumped I scribble the
letters she couldn't figure out on my paper and try my luck at them.
Before I retired, part of my routine as a journalist was reading newspapers on the way to
work and scratching notes on them (it helps if you have small hand writing) about stories,
quotes or angles I thought we ought to be chasing.
White spaces in a newspaper are great places to write notes for a speech or the first draft
of one. My daily paper has also proved invaluable when I needed to make Christmas lists,
transcribe precise instructions from Irene on what brand of olive oil NOT to buy and a
reminder of things to pack for an upcoming trip.
When I go to the doctor or dentist, a newspaper comes in handy to scrawl the date and
time for my next visit, saving the assistant from wasting one of those little appointment
cards. I'm sure I can accomplish this simple task on my newspaper faster than anyone can
on a PDA.
An old-fashioned paper newspaper can be an important tool for personal security. After
being mugged several years ago, I now never walk to or from my car in a dark parking lot
without a newspaper rolled into a tight spiral and firmly gripped in my right hand. A broad-
sheet may not be as broad as it once was, but if you roll it properly you have a fairly
respectable weapon. The night I was attacked my newspapers were in my briefcase. Some
good they did me there.
A thick newspaper, when correctly utilized, can show grandkids the rewards of
improvisation. On an outing one summer with my two oldest grandchildren, they asked if
we could play baseball. After rummaging through my car trunk, we found a dirty tennis
ball but nothing to use as a bat. Not a problem. Grandpa took his paper, rolled it length-wise
as tight as he could, and voila - we had a Louisville Slugger. The three of us took turns
batting with it. We couldn't have done that with the Gateway M305CRV laptop I owned then.
Newspapers have a long, proud tradition, at least in my family, of being used to line
cabinet drawers and the flooring under sinks. In the summer, we use them to kill moths
and flies. Try doing that with a Kindle and see which dies first, the Kindle or the fly.
Other families have undoubtedly devised their own creative uses for newspapers. If
publishers are smart, they will get together and put out a book called "1,001 Ways To
Re-Use Your Newspaper." They need to do something fast before all of us diehards who want
a newspaper we can touch, feel and scribble on are no longer around.
(Posted December 28, 2009)