NEWSPAPER BOY

A hard-won comment in the “newspaper” post  (hard-won because it’s been like Blue Heck trying to comment here or anywhere else, lately.   Most days I cannot even answer the nice people who chime in with memories and other nice things to say) spoke of my friend Mike’s own experience as a Paper-Boy.   

I’ll let him tell it in his own words (in italics):

GRIT !!! I used to read about this tremendous money maker in the backs of comic books as a kid, along with the seed pack business and joke magic cards for sale. I used to ask my parents if I could start selling GRIT and they'd always dismiss me. ("why NOT??? It says earn money for college! Don't you want me to go to college?" answer: "It's not a real paper, Mike, it's just junk to take your money.") Today is the first day in my life I have heard of a soul that has actually laid eyes on a hard copy of that paper.

There was a hefty commission, and prizes for the enterprising:

Once I came of suitable age (12 or 13) I started delivering the "real" paper on my bike. The now-defunct Richmond News-Leader. The RNL was one fo two survivors of a newspaper Darwin-fest in the 40's, when there were two mornings, the Times and the Dispatch, and two afternoons, the News and the Daily Leader. The local news-baron Bryan family owned the News and the Dispatch, gobbled up the competition, merged the circulation and the names, and cornered the news market. For a time they owned almost all the TV and radio in the area as well until the feds stepped in on that. Anyway, unless I wanted to get up at 4 AM weekdays and 3 AM Sundays, the News Leader was the only game in town.

At over 160 customers, I had the largest afternoon route in

Virginia. After paying for the papers, I brought home a hefty (for a 13 year old) $40-50 a month. I'd love to say I saved all that money for college, or even my first car. But the reality is it all went for candy and pepsis and huge dill pickles out of a countertop pickle jar during the delivery, and for endless comic books, and all too soon for cigarettes. Ah, youth.

Yes, AHHHH, Youth.   The enterprising, get-up-early, hit the doorstep every time youth.   And so are titans born. 

READING THE PAPER

I read a daily paper until several years ago.  I'd always lived in a house where THE MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL hit the lawn while the dew was still on the grass, and the plop of the PRESS SCIMITAR landed on the doorstep about four.   Breakfast rustlings whilst the bacon fried, the scent of the fresh-opened newsprint as much a part of that warm kitchen as the stove.   Snippets broadcast by Daddy as he sat with his glasses on his nose, seeing if the world was still out there.

The COMMERCIAL APPEAL was, and is, the Memphis mainstay in the news area:

And the afternoon PRESS---a little different, somehow, like the backdoor neighbor, as opposed to a lady in a hat come-a'calling.  The PRESS had odd comics and lots of puzzles and a homey feel to it.   It was the one folks settled in with in that magical hour when chores were done, and it wasn't quite time to start supper yet.

We even “took the GRIT” from a succession of grimy little boys on bicycles on Saturday afternoons---now THAT was an interesting paper. 

If you could get past all the black-and-white drab of the front pages, the rest was a treasure-trove of puzzles and comics and countless pages of stuff-to-send-away-for and business opportunities in Rosebud Salve

and  all sorts of noisemakers, magic tricks, x-ray glasses, and fool-your-friends items for the younger set.

So, when we arrived here twenty years ago, I chose the afternoon edition, liking the nice man who threw the paper, and even came collecting, just like the hometown carriers.  It was called the NEWS---a quiet little informative, interesting paper, as opposed to THE STAR---the morning-bright edition.      To settle in for a hour while supper cooked was just the nicest thing, reminiscent of so many of my own relatives in their own quiet lives.   Sitting in the little low rocker while good scents of supper filled the house---it was a lazy form of taking up knitting or darning, somehow, in the succession of our family history---reading the paper.

The NEWS dwindled away, ceased to print, and as our life-pace quickened a bit, with family moving here, and grandchildren being added, the great piles of orange-wrapped, unread STARS in the store-room grew,  like a haystack in the Fall.   The interest was just not there, for me, in these days of forty news channels and internet.

So, no.   I don't read a daily paper, unless you count peering through the cloudy windows of dispenser-stands as we walk past to the Sunshine Kitchen or IHOP.

But the charm of the thing is imprinted, like one of those moments from a movie in which you’re in the picture, and assume that you will have that life, live in that light, experience those calm, cricket afternoons on the porch with a fresh-pressed Press in your hands, the all-around sun peeping through the wisteria, the creak of the old white glider and the soft swish of the lawn sprinkler keeping company with the gentle rustle of the page-turns.

I can see the relaxing of it---Uncle Jake settling into his flocked-maroon platform rocker, those long lanky legs knee-looped and easy, with each section of the paper read, dropped onto the carpet beside the chair, and the smoking stand slowly filling with Camel butts and the shreds off a TUMS roll.

 

Thomas Hart Benton---Indianapolis Museum of Art

Another older man, husband of the dear woman who came each day to see to my children while I went to work---John sat in the same posture at his own kitchen table, a mere twenty miles and a universe away from that prosperous white business owner. The shine of John’s thin dark face matched the gleam of his steel-rimmed glasses, as he totally lost himself in the news of the day---a soft snap of chewing gum and turn of a page the only signs of movement.   I can remember a gentle envy of this man who had so little---a coveting of the absolute immersion in something other than the scurry of getting home and getting supper on, and homework and laundry and family.    He was reading the paper, concentrating through those thick spectacles, lips sounding an occasional word, taking it all in, and that was enough for that moment.

I think they should ALL be Afternoon Papers.   Let us get up, accomplish some things in our days, and THEN Choose the News, if we’re inclined.  Most things are easier to face as the day winds down, I think, and the world needs lots of cushioning, right now.

BARYSHNIKOV

When anyone talks about sports, I know enough about the three Southern Big ‘uns---Football, Basketball, and Baseball---just from high school and college games, to sound less-dumb-than-I-am, and WAY more enthusiastic.

. . . and when the coin of exchange in our society is sports statistics, and “How ‘bout them Colts?” serves as introduction, welcome, complaint, ice-breaker and sometime pick-up line, well---I just got left out.    Neither Chris nor I enjoy watching sports on TV.   Turning on a game would be as foreign to us as our walking into sports bar and changing the channel to a performance of "Tosca" or "Giselle."     Everybody likes different things.

But the other day, a little blog poll (almost exclusively female readers---at least the commenters are, for everybody always addresses, “Ladies, or girls, or sisters and Gary.”) asked “Who is your favorite athlete?” and I responded as I always do:   Baryshnikov.    I wrote it in immediately, and on reading the comments, (mostly answered "don't have one,")  I was pleasantly surprised to find him mentioned several more times---the only name repeated.

His physical training and athleticism and absolute control of every single muscle is simply astounding, and I’ve not found an equal in any sport---professional, Olympic, or ANY.

If you’d like to see a bit of his artistry, one of my favorite movies is “White Nights,” with him and the Divine Hines.    And my favorite scene (along with the dance-off---“challenge” I think they called it) is a solo, with VERY deep, dark Russian music.    But the dancing---oh, the dancing.

Backstory of White Nights:   He took asylum in the USA years ago, a tragic accident caused his return, and he's facing the woman he loves, who has been persecuted by the government for all these years, because of his defection.

Talk about On Your Toes---this is the Nth degree.

And then there's also Grace beyond Gravity.

HELLO! HELLOOOOO! hello?

It's a lovely October day here, cozied up by the pleasant company, all in sweats and warm shirts, and the scent of coffee singing through the house.   There was even a little pot of water with a drop of vanilla simmering on the stove when I woke, "to warm the house."

The 39 degrees on my thermo says we'll have to move the utility room around a bit today, unloading the big shelf of holiday dishes and casseroles and trays, in order to reach the furnace workin's and light it.   'Tis time.

I do want to ask if anyone's having trouble commenting lately---I've had several e-mails that readers just lost their comments into the ether of the net, and I have lost quite a few myself.    I write a cheery little note, and when I click "send"---they get SENT all right, flittering off into that File 13 in the sky, and nobody can know how much I enjoyed their postings.   It's like throwin' a rock down a well, and no splash.

The comments have been very sparse, of late, and since my own have been Return To Sender, or worse, I wish that any of you having trouble would send a quick e-mail---address is in my profile---and let me know.  I SURE AM---can't even answer the nice folks who comment on HERE.   Isn't THAT a note---when your OWN SITE won't let you in!

And if that's my only GRUMP today, things must be going OK.    Hope all's right with your world!

rachel---as usual, wandering in the wilderness

COBWEB DAYS

Could there be a game called breeze boarding?  It would be played by spiders, I think, on those rare, special days of the year, when those gossamer parachutes take flight and they float to new grounds to make a new home.

I’ve always thought of those as ‘cobweb days,’ for it’s as if every spinner in the world has been working all night, to fly those impossibly-long strands from the sky, floating straight and true, to new territory.   It’s possibly a southern phenomenon, for I’ve never seen it here.

I’ll stroll outside, with just the first nip in the air and the sky that depthless blue, and something will kindle a “look up” instinct.   A scan of the sky will reveal only more sky, blue and true to the far reaches of the world.

But there HAVE been days . . . days when a little walk outside, a small chore in the yard, a drive through the countryside, will provide a show seldom seen, and a display unfathomable to the mere mind.    A teensy tickle on a shoulder, a brush across the cheek, and you’ll look up far as there is, and as far as light, stretch the strands.    There will be the thinnest silk threads, suspended vertically as high as you can see, floating silently from nowhere to wherever they’re headed.

I remember one such day---the Christmas Eve we had just moved into our new house, and I was outside, just peeking from beneath the patio where I was doing some little task.    Suddenly across the gap between my eyes and the trees across the drive moved a series of silvery lines, like thinner-than-hair platinum wire.   They weren’t THIN top to bottom, for every so often up the great length of them, I could spy a tiny fluff of cottony stuff, riding the winds as high as I could see.  

I walked out and looked up, and the sky was filled with the silver and white, slowly floating with whatever breezes blew them.   Countless flimsy lines brushed my shirt, my face, became stranded in my hair like thin-spun cotton candy.     And it went on for hours, this strange display,with the odd and beautiful threads just flying past, gently making their way onward, toward the West.

We watched that show until our necks ached and our eyes blurred from the blue brightness, and I’ve never forgotten.    I’ll be thinking of something else, as I stroll out to the car, or to the herb-bed, and suddenly, a brush of breeze or a floating leaf will touch or move past, and I’ll look up, hoping for another such performance.

They’re the stuff of THREADFALL, of Mithrail, of Rumplestiltskin’s spindles, and are one of the most magical mysteries.  I’m sure I’ve missed thousands, inside or unheeding as the days go by, and I’d like to see just one more of those---spiderwebs or cottonwood fluff or milkweed puffs, or whatever stuff-of-dreams magic that is