Newspapers

July 25, 2011

I am one of those people who likes to have a newspaper to read in the morning.  Yes, I check all the on-line news sites, too, but there is something visceral and comforting aboot the feel of the actual printed page.  It's the same reason I stubbornly cling to "real" books - things like the Kindle and Nook fascinate me, and I really do want one, but for someone whose prized possessions are books, having created an actual library in my home, it is literally impossible for me to give up on the printing press.

When we first moved up here to The Okanagan, I wanted to maintain my daily regimen of having my morning coffee and paper.  I called the Vancouver Sun for delivery, but because I live at the top of a mountain, I could only get yesterday's paper mailed to me (which would mean no paper on Sunday, and Sunday's paper on a Monday), but that did not appeal to me. So I called the Calgary Herald.  Same story.  Those are the two closest major cities, and here I was, stuck without a newspaper from either.

So I called the local paper, the The Daily Courier, printed right here in Kelowna.  It's what you'd expect from a small town newspaper.  It's quite thin and has a certain Mayberry charm to it.  It does not have, to my chagrin, a large Sunday paper with sale flyers and coupons (man, I really need coupons here - the prices and taxes are killer).  And the comics are 1950s leftovers:  Andy Capp, Fred Bassett, Blondie (with no larger colour comics section on Sunday, either!  In fact, the comics page is smaller on Sundays).

But there is one thing aboot this paper that I absolutely love.  It may seem insignificant to some, but to me, after 6 years of epic battles with The Oregonian back at our home in the States, this is a huge deal:

Every day, my paper is wrapped neatly in either a thin cardboard sheath or plastic wrapper, rubber-banded, sitting on my welcome mat at the foot of my front door.  Every single day, without fail.

Why is this such a big deal?  Well, back in Oregon, where my driveway was only aboot 25 yards long (sorry, don't know what that is in meters yet), every single day, my paper would either be at the end of my driveway, in my bushes, in the debris of a knocked-over flower pot, in my neighbor's yard, on the side of the hoose, or missing altogether - but NEVER on my doorstep.  Now here in Canada, my driveway is at least 60 yards long, and yet, it would seem, that the delivery person walks the paper up to my doorstep each and every day, without fail.  I have never had to go searching for it, clean up after it (those flower pots got knocked over more times than I can count), or blow dry it after it being left at the end of the driveway, in the pouring rain, because it had fallen 2/3 out of the ripped and torn plastic shopping bag the delivery troll had haphazardly thrown around it before dropping it unceremoniously out the window of his speeding Pinto.  I never once had my Oregonian appear at my doorstep - not once in 6 years.  I had to call aboot one Sunday a month because I either didn't get any sale & coupon flyers, or my paper was 6 sets of flyers and no other sections at all.

Now my newspaper arrives in perfect condition, gives me a nice peek into life here in this small mountain town, and allows me to keep my great creature comfort of coffee and paper in the morning.  Yes, I know that makes me sound like a crotchety old man.  But the youngster inside me totally thinks:

"Suck it, Oregonian."


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