I just subscribed to our local newspaper. For the first time in 5 years and in the early morning hours, I am getting a newspaper delivered to my door for my reading pleasure. Every morning and afternoon this past week, I have plopped myself at the kitchen table and read the paper with great interest.
I've scoffed at some of the articles, laughed at others, and even tried to work the crossword puzzle, of which I'm clearly out of practice. Even though the newsprint makes my eyes itch and causes me to sneeze, I have enjoyed reading that paper every single day section-by-section and cover-to-cover.
In this digital age, I have been getting my news by going directly to each large news organization's web page, instead of through that old archaic method known as the daily paper. Most people have been predicting the newspaper is going the way of the dinosaur and will soon be extinct, but after my return to the paper platform, I hope their predictions are wrong.
The newspaper, for me, is enjoyable. I've tried reading it online and the enjoyment gets lost as I try to navigate the pages while not smearing breakfast on the screen of my phone or getting breakfast crumbs on my keyboard.
With the cutbacks at many of the major newspapers, a lot of the characters and personalities of the past have been removed from the paper. With the loss of Erma Bombeck and the retirement of Dave Barry, the Lifestyle section of the paper has lost some of its humor.
While these 2 great personalities can never be duplicated, I greatly looked forward to reading their form of dry wit and humor in the paper a couple of days a week. As a matter of fact, I memorized which days their columns appeared and would go directly to their columns on those days. I miss that.
My husband loved the sports columnists. Whether he agreed with them or vehemently disagreed with them was a subject of great debate in our house. The newspaper was our conversation starter and it was something we could read at the same time without breathing down each other's necks or fighting over who gets the computer first.
Recently while sitting in the customer lounge at the car dealership, I perched myself in a corner spot where I could observe the behavior of the other 12 waiting customers (yes, I counted). In this lounge, there is free Wi-Fi for those who want to play on social media, a bank of computer docking stations for those who need to work, a soundproof playroom for kids (my eardrums thank the dealership every time I'm there), 3 different wide screen televisions which were set to 3 different television stations, as well as a coffee table filled with multiple copies of different newspapers, and a number of magazines covering a wide range of interests.
For all of our focus on being connected every second of every day to our digital devices, 8 of the people in the waiting room were reading the newspaper, another was thumbing through a magazine, 2 were watching ESPN and discussing sports stats, and the last person was talking loudly on their cell phone about an impending child support court date.
It was surprising to see two-thirds of the people reading the newspaper, even though their cell phones, iPads, or laptops were also available. How can the newspaper business be going extinct if 2/3rds of the people chose paper over digital?
The memories I have as a kid of trying to beat my brothers to the paper so I could be the first to read the Sunday comics are priceless. The newspaper has also been a source of comedy for our family for years as we remember back to the day when one of my brothers was reading the comics on the living room floor, only to have our new puppy walk over and piddle on The Wizard of Id.
I know you can get the very latest update online and the newspaper's stories will always be a little bit behind due to printing deadlines, but, in a world filled with a need for convenience, what is more convenient than having everything laid out nicely right in front of you. Oh, how I hope the newspaper industry doesn't go the way of the dinosaur and die off.
Written by Christie Bielss
You may be wondering why I've started a blog when there are over 160 million people with blogs already. Well, as the title of this post says, there was an intervention of sorts.
Last Tuesday, as I'd finished putting a coat of primer on half of our kitchen cabinets while my husband was trying to carry on some philosophical discussion, there was a knock on our garage door. My husband stopped rambling and got a bit of an odd look on his face. I looked over at my son who was playing in the leftover paint while our other child was giving the dog a bath, so it couldn't be either of them. Who on earth was knocking on our garage door?
To my great surprise, my parents were stopping by after having a late lunch. I thought they were coming to see the progress on our kitchen renovation. I was wrong. They were interested in the renovation but they really had an ulterior motive - they wanted to have a "discussion". That's usually never a good thing.
A million thoughts immediately ran through my head - none of them good. All of those thoughts had to do with everyone else and involved illness, injury, or something someone had done wrong. But all of those thoughts were for other people, not for me. Why, it couldn't possibly be about me because my halo is usually just above my head and fully visible.......ok, so there is the rare occasion when the halo is held up by my horns, but there's a halo nonetheless..... ok, so the horns protrude on a regular basis but I'm the baby of the family, I could not have possibly done anything wrong.
And then the words came out "We've talked with your brother (I won't name him here on the blog but he knows who he is) and he thinks you are like the Erma Bombeck of Facebook.". Say WHAT?!! What the heck does that mean?! Is being called the Erma Bombeck of Facebook a good thing or is he calling me names like a bratty kid? Thoughts started racing through my mind. My daughter, who was as wet as the dog and covered in so much dog hair I was having difficulty differentiating between which one of them was the human and which was the canine, was asking for help trying to dry the dog.
Then, as I noticed my son occupying himself by painting himself white with the last dregs of paint, the next punch came, "We all think you should be writing and should really think of compiling your current writings into a book...... but at the very least you should be writing a blog". And before this sentence had even had time to sink in, my husband jumps in on the bandwagon and says he's been telling me to do this for a couple of weeks but hasn't convinced me.
So this is why the normally quiet and reserved man who is my husband was suddenly verbose and could talked the ear off a billygoat. Oh yeah, you think I can't see those horns holding up the halo which just magically appeared Mr. I've-been-trying-to-convince-her-for-weeks-now?!
And who are these people? Have aliens come and taken over the bodies of my family? Throughout my high school and college years, my parents would critique my writings as not being meaty enough. My husband has always said I was too wordy and that I need to be more concise. And now, out of the blue, these aliens are banding together telling me they like my writing? And my youngest brother was in on this too?!
I was having some difficulty processing all of this and had to ask "So, when (insert my brother's name here) said I was the Erma Bombeck of Facebook, is he saying I need to quit rambling and that I'm sharing things I shouldn't? Am I being one of those people?!". "No" they said, "he thinks you're funny but need a better format to write, such as a blog, and that you should go after it.". Go after what?!!
Well, I'd never thought much about writing other than it was my 2nd most favorite things to do when I was in school, with my most favorite being high school marching band in 110 degree heat with a wool uniform on, sweating until I thought my entire body had become completely devoid of all liquid matter and the sun had incinerated my brain. (I really did love marching band though.)
For 15 minutes, as I cleaned the paint off my son and de-dog-haired my daughter, they hounded me until I finally agreed to think about it. As my parents were leaving, my Mom said she'd think up a name for my blog while my husband interjected that he had already come up with a name for my first book - which, by the way was really funny. "Y'all are just plain nuts", was my reply to all of this hullabaloo. But, I had pacified them somewhat by agreeing to think on it and would let them know in a few days.
In those few days, my husband continued to be "supportive".... for my parents idea. I decided to shoot off an email to my brother to say "Hey Mr. Instigator! Have you lost your marbles?" - to which came the ever-so-brotherly reply which pretty much said "shut up and do it". Nothing like family to cut to the heart of the matter.
After a couple of days of thinking it over, I ran the family's idea past some friends who I thought I had stacked the deck with and would back me up and say "yeah, there are 100+ million blogs. It's a waste of time". To my shock (and utter dismay ....... and then fear!) they said "Do it!".
So, after a couple more days of contemplating the pitfalls of writing and how stupid I could sound, I figured, oh what the heck! I probably already sound that way to all of my friends and they still talk to me and acknowledge me in public, I guess I can try this whole blogging thing.
So there you go. That's my "short" story of how this blog came to be. Maybe if this goes well, we can even make this into a reality show................ we could call it "The Looneys"........
by: Christie Bielss
