Pluggers by Rick McKee for February 27, 2022

Supply chain issues?

unless the paper boy put it in the postbox and the man never thought to look there

They stopped doing that in my neighborhood over a decade ago. All digital now.

That is why we have computers since the “dailies” gave up on printed subscriptions long ago.

It’s on the roof.

Love the paper but the daily walk is more important to me for it sets the day :-)

It’s digital now, no worries.

For the same price, ours gets dropped on the door mat, under the veranda, always dry.

Why do people read newspapers? The news is old.

In my little town there is no same day delivery. It comes through the mail.

What is this thing you call a paper?

Or stolen

Or when the coffee isn’t ready because I forgot the autostart button the night before. #%#%!

Newspaper? What’s that?

Growing up in a small town (population under 2500), the newspaper was an important part of life. It was a weekly paper, but it contained all the upcoming events in the county, school and individual sport and academic achievements, fire and police reports, agendas and reports of city, county, and school board meetings, write-ups of activities, etc. Proud parents and grandparents bought extra papers so they could cut out and send articles and pictures to distant relatives. Daily local news was handled at the post office announcement bulletin board (no home delivery so everyone had a PO Box) and funeral announcements were posted there and on the cashiers’ counters in local stores. Not the best system ever devised but it kept everyone in the community involved. In larger communities, daily newspapers provided similar services and included front page national and international news. We could get our national/international news from television (which had strict rules separating opinion/editorial commentary from news reports), but we relied on our community newspapers to keep us connected at home. But now many local papers are gone and those that survive are available both online and in print. But they seem to be much more ‘selective’ in their local coverage. We have lost that community-wide connectivity. Not all events and activities manage to get announced, depending on the discretion of the editors (e.g., for events not considered to have ‘wide appeal’, the organizers have to pay for ads) and the willingness and ability of volunteers to do the write-ups.

Don’t get a morning paper anymore. Started costing too much and the most of the upcoming local activities mentioned were past and most of the news was three to four days past.

In the driveway with the sprinklers running. Water goes right in plastic wrapper.

During the 18 months I spent doing odd jobs after the 2008 recession cost me my entry-level office position, I spent a few weeks delivering for a different paper than the one I currently work for now.

This other paper had, as their stated policy, that you had to finish your deliveries before a certain time of the morning, typically 6 AM Monday – Saturday and 7 AM Sunday. If you weren’t finished before this time period, you had to call circulation and let them know you were running behind, then call them again once your last customer was delivered to.

…Regardless of the circumstances behind your not being done on time.

Because this was a regional newspaper, those of us who did deliveries in the individual cities had to wait at designated staging areas for the vehicles that would bring each day’s load of papers. Then we would grab our specific set and get moving.

One Sunday morning, the truck that was supposed to bring our load up broke down. There weren’t any additional trucks to spare, so we all had to wait for another truck to finish its run, meet the broken-down truck, get its load, and come to us. We were two hours late in getting on the road because of this, and as dawn approached and traffic started to pick up, things got even slower.

People were waiting outside of their houses demanding to know why I was so late, and explaining it to them put me even further behind schedule.

By the time I was finished, I had just enough time to come home, grab a bowl of ice cream (literally the first thing I saw in the freezer; I was looking for some waffles), get ready, and head to church… where I was intercepted by someone and asked to deliver one of the Sunday school lessons as the teacher for that class had been called out of town. So instead of sitting in the very back of the chapel and getting a few minutes’ sleep during the sermon, I had to read the chapter in the lesson manual.

I was ultimately a wreck from sleep deprivation.

Ours were delivered, twice a day, by 4 guys in a pickup with a camper shell on the back. There was a driver, a left and a right thrower, and one that wrapped the papers with a string tieing machine. Most people wouldn’t recognize a string tieing machine if they saw one.

Haven’t had that problem since going digital. I do occasionally miss the feel and smell, don’t miss the inky fingers.

Once upon a time, papers were delivered. Now in Duluth, Minnesota, by the mail

I remember those days … but my short term memory doesn’t

Time to have the grandson print out some news. :)

Ain’t that the truth.

My first job was in 8th grade 1967, stuffing Sunday comics/ads into Sunday papers at 2am. $1 for every 500 papers I stuffed. I was small, and had to fight for leftover bundles after the rough big boys swooped in first.

I’ve clerked in the hearts-blood of what kept a Newspaper running, advertising … My late father was in the business for forty four years before retiring. When he moved to Texas, and took a subscription to the major local daily, I asked him his opinion, to which he said “I think they’re starving,” commenting on the absence of advertising in the newspaper. I imagine that at some time in the near future we’ll all be telling the younger folks about what it was like to read all that was fit to print back in our day, and how our fingertips blackened from handing the pages as we turned from one section to another. Even today, we turn to a great site like GoComics just to read our funnies … Times change, eh? … :\

Yes, yes it is.

The Akron Beacon Journal recently was bought into the USA Today network. I have been a subscriber for 50+ years. I have not had a paper delivered since Feb. 14. Every day I call and go through their automated complaint system. “Production issues” – “we will deliver it with tomorrow’s paper” “we are short of carriers.” I live in a rural area so I do not have a corner store to go and buy a paper. Anyway, they already billed me for this month’s subscription. I can usually relate to Pluggers but this especially hits the mark !

I know that look. My guess is it’s in the bushes. He probably has four teenage daughters! 1000 apologies, Mr. Schumacher.

Wait… they still have newspapers? And delivery?

I cancelled delivery because I rarely got the paper. The digital version is a mangled mess that jumps around, changes sizes, and acts like it’s possessed by demons. I’ve given up on trying to read anything but the obituaries and an occasional article whose headline makes it seem like it might be important enough to fight with the digital garbage. (And I do know how to read digital newspapers – I read several others). They just got a new editor, so I hope things will improve, but I’m not going to bet money or hold my breath.

Psper? What paper?

If it was undelivered does that mean that the paper boy picked it up off the lawn and took it back? Or does he mean the paper was not delivered?