Nov. 23, 2004 - 21:13 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

The Only One ?

I guess I am one who is hopelessly stuck in the 1920s on up. When I was little, the only radio around our house was a crystal set my uncle built, later was the three piece Atwater Kent radio Dad bought.

During those years I saw Dad and Mom reading the paper and talking about the news. Dad would read the funnies to me and bite the bullet and explain them to me. Which wasn't easy for him as I went through the same type of thing with our kids.

I watched Mom work the crossword puzzles so deftly that I couldn't keep up. Dad would take the business section and bring his charts on certain businesses up to date, which fascinated me. He is the person who demonstrated by doing so, that facts can be obfuscated by the way you drew a graph. Which follows along with the polls, what questions asked, of who, where and how they are worded, pollsters often tend to be able put a slant on things. Exit polls ? If anyone would ask me as I was leaving the polls how I voted they would have received a very nasty remark from me indicating that it was none of their damn business.

Back in the other century I remember when some person of importance made a speech it would be reported word for word in our paper. Haven't seen that in a long time.

Then as I grew, in school we had to bring in clippings from the paper, "Current Events" they were called. Thinking about it now I must laugh, some of my classmates had weird ideas on what a current event might be. One of them brought in the headlines from an article, bare, bald and having no content. Of course I suppose some of my ideas were rather off the wall too.

Reading the news paper became an integral part of my routine. Walking to school I would ponder over one thing or another I had read.

I cannot recall Mom and Dad ever listening to the news on our radio, even when they got a Philco "cathedral" type table top one. Radio was entertainment for us. We would listen to One Man's Family and did so for a long time. Will Rogers we listened to also. In the morning "soap operas" were on the radio and after school programs for kids, Jack Armstrong (The All American Boy) and things of that ilk. Later the Inner Sanctum. But, news was in the paper.

One thing I learned early was that in the newspaper, if I missed a point I could go back and reread to make sure I understood it. Then there were the funnies, the comic relief to the grim daily news. I avidly folowed Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Bringing up Father (Maggie and Jiggs), The Katzenjammers, Barney Google, Krazy Kat, Andy Gump, Mutt and Jeff, Harold Teen, Boots And Her Buddies, Gasoline Alley and through the years - many others. The one panel Out Our Way was very good. Little Orphan Annie was with us then and read by me. Some of those disappeared over time and some are still with us.

Never could seem to like the news on the radio, the first time radio news became important to me was when The Pearl Harbor Infamy occurred. But then the newspaper brought more information, and kept us updated. Correspondents like Ernie Pyle and others played a great part in our days.

By the time I got into high school it became apparent to me that not all the news was printed and that some of it was quite slanted. Figures were hellacious things, when given were distorted and other times not mentioned when they should have been or given no means to see the actuality. So, I had the salt shaker handy as I read.

Sound byte news on TV along with the lame humor of the news people plus the commercials leaves me totally cold. The OJ helicopter coverage of the ride down the highway ? Waste of time, to me it was.

One good thing about the newspaper is that one can slip from one article to the other and not even notice the "commercials."

I am still devoted to our Rocky Mountain News, even though I don't always agree with the editorial line of thought. But hey, its a big country and everyone has a say. And the editorial page is a good place for a newspaper to express its opinion. I won't say it is totally accurate, unbiased and is sometimes a bit confused. Its not the only game in town I know, there is always The Denver Post, which has its quirks too. One thing I don't like about it is its "broadsheet" format it seems so clumsy to me as I am used to and like the tabloid size. The times I have read the Post, I didn't agree with a good part of what was printed.

Now, here in Denver, the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post have what they call the JOA (Joint Operating Agreement) wherein they use the same presses, a lot of the hired help is the same and during the week we get the Rocky Mountain News, but on Sunday all subscribers get the Sunday Denver Post. One good thing is the mass of funnies in it. There seems to be a presentation of both sides of what is going on currently, so I guess it is the best we can expect.

Being deaf is no help to me where TV is concerned but before I got that way, often I either would turn it off or go to the other room if Heather was listening. Now with closed caption on the news, it is too much too fast and switches subjects so often that I get no satisfaction !

I think that now a person can, in some instances, subscribe to a monthly paper obtainable off the paper's website, just how it works I am not sure but think the same monthly rate is charged. At least a guy won't have to go out and find it on the roof, in a puddle, in the bushes, flower bed or the branches of a tree. It would be nice for me I think, depends on the monthly rate of course.

Currently fewer people are reading fewer printed books and many of them don't do much more than watch sit-coms or reality type shows. Which is alright, but for me I would have to be reading something by Bill Bryson, or some of the great mystery writers of today, as well as trying to catch up on the classics.

There are so many people nowadays who say, "I don't have the time to read a newspaper." Boggles me a bit, how can they not have the time ? Reading seems to be a dying entity, I'm still here -- but am I The Only One ?

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