Every early morning when I was up and out, I was in the company of an entire army of newspaper deliverers. I had friends who had paper routes. I knew families who delivered newspapers for extra income. Remember the boy on his bike with a canvas bag full of newsprint?
Reading the newspaper was a habit from the time I was young. I would scour it each evening learning about the fall of Saigon, about Watergate, about the Iranian hostage crisis. I noticed the short column announcements about another dead body found in the Las Vegas desert. I always read Dear Abby and Hints from Heloise.
Sunday morning was the best: cartoons and the weekly magazine with feature stories. When my own column ran in the local newspaper, it was especially exciting to wake up and grab the newspaper. Some dedicated deliverer had it on my porch before I was awake.
I assume there are no more paperboys.
Today I found a newspaper supplement "The Digest" that was delivered by mail. Front page news included a photo and a caption "Utah welcomes thousands of rookie K-12 teachers" or first year teachers. What was noteworthy was the photo included two new teachers--one was the twenty something new graduate sitting next to a fifty-something new teacher. The obviously older teacher was wearing glasses, had silver hair, but was as exuberant looking as the twenty-year-old.
The older teacher was me, twenty years ago.
I had to go back to college for a post baccalaureate degree in teaching English. I was one of two older women in the program. The rest, and there were at least forty, were younger women. Going back to teach at an older age is a calling. When there are teacher shortages, we can fill in. We've often raised children, experienced life's heartaches and triumphs and most off all understand that misbehavior is deeper than misbehavior. We have a capacity to love all the flowers in the garden from the friends our children brought home.
Things and people may be old or may seem obsolete; but then a newspaper shows up in the mail and you know everything can have a second life.
Comments