11/16/2018
Good morning, “gentle readers”—used to be one of Barb’s favorite newspaper columns started that way. You remember newspapers, don’t you? One of my earliest memories of being in the living room with grownups (at least older than me) was reading sections of the newspaper. First, it was “the funnies,” officially called Comics and they even had their own line in the prologue box!
Soon it became the serial type of comic strip: Ozark Ike, Blondie & Dagwood, Dick Tracy, then it was on to more serious stuff, like Mary Worth and Mandrake, and on Sundays: Prince Valiant! Wow, that was something! But then came baseball and the box scores, bragging notes for my favorite team(s). I was an Indians fan in those days because of the Indianapolis AAA team by the same name.
High School meant I had to add the County newspaper to keep up with all the teams in Johnson County (9 altogether.) There was the county seat, Franklin, we called a city school. Then there was the other 8 of us—a County League.
After I moved my family to Danville, IL and didn’t have as much local sports involvement, however, is when true newspaper education came to be my “continuing education,” informally. I began to read daily or weekly columns from Danville, Indianapolis, and big-city paper, the Chicago Daily News. I read Mike Royko, Dr. Crane (from Indiana, two of his sons became Congressmen), and just about every other oped page regular. Oped was called The Editorials in those days. (I wonder how long it would have taken me to begin calling these columns “opinions” if they had not renamed the page? I thought they were always right. If I disagreed with one, I never read any more of his columns.)
Royko was sometimes funny, but Art Buchwald was always funny. We never got Andy Rooney where we lived. These columns were syndicated, which meant, among other things, the newspaper bought a “package” or group of writers’ columns, usually the liberal or conservative bend of the publisher. I’d have to say my first understanding of current injustices in daily living probably came from the reading of these newspapers. It was the space race, moon trips, etc., that caused TV to take me away from newspapers. It is an era I’m sorry to say my generation has stolen from today’s.
Until the late ‘60s, newspapers had a daily devotional, or short bible lesson sort of feature. I guess “free love” in the late 60s won out over “free grace of God,” huh? But, then, as a fore-runner to things like CNN, and Headline News, Gannett came out with USA Today—a national daily! Innovative ideas in formatting, full color, huge weather covering with maps! And the smaller newspapers began to suffer then, about 1968 or 9. By the time “pay TV” came to all parts of the country, many papers could see their end. The digital age and buying differing channel packages has almost sealed the doom of even the national newspaper. Seems strange to my generation. Oh, they’re still there, newspapers, but how long has it been since someone said, in your earshot, “did you see what (big-name-writer) said in his column today?” Can’t remember the last time you heard that? Me, neither. (sigh)
Hey, today’s SIMH is “These Rose Colored Glasses” —John Conlee. “…show only the beauty, cause they hide all the truth.” Ain’t it the truth! Conlee and George Baber wrote the song. Have not heard the song in years, but there it was, in my head. By the way, Conlee is a licensed mortician—don’t know if that influences you about his music or not. He did an album called “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” his last album, so far(2004.) That might influence your listening more.
Thanks for reading, the Elder
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