I Bought A Paper

I bought a copy of my local newspaper, The Anoka Herald, last night.This was the first time this century that I bought this particular paper. In the previous century I bought it quite often. I even had a subscription for the Herald for a few years. You may wonder why I bought one for a dollar last night. The clerk at Bill's Gas station also wondered. Questioning minds want to know. I will explain. The front cover of the Herald was mostly blank space.I admire the marketing of a blank page and fell for it just like I buy Brawny paper towels (the handsome hipster), and some kind of dog food that upset Ruby's tummy (more bark for your buck.) Newspapers all over the country also made the front page blank with the exception of four words and three dots .. .  The four words in headline sized font and all capitals are "IMAGINE THERE'S NO NEWSPAPER . . . "  Can you imagine no newspaper? The thing is I can imagine no newspaper. I bought this newspaper and I am going to save it in the drawer with the other newspaper I saved from the day Princess Diana married her prince. I will surely make a fortune selling these two newspapers someday. I used to subscribe to the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and I remember when that paper came in the morning and another edition in the afternoon. In college my roommates preferred the Minneapolis Star so I read that too. I preferred the Saint Paul comics for many years but I enjoyed both newspapers. I subscribed daily for 20 years, maybe more. Then I quit the subscription because of the cost. I bought Sunday editions of both the Saint Paul paper and the Minneapolis paper at the grocery store. Then the Minneapolis paper published an article that made me angry so I vowed never to buy it again. I also appreciate the Parkers Prairie Independent. I recently read a very good article in that paper about tourism. I like it for nostalgic reasons too because as a child I sat by my paternal grandmother and she read the society news to me. One of her friends had visitors from the Twin Cities. I came to visit her from the same Twin Cities and at that moment I realized I could someday be important enough to be mentioned in the newspaper. That was a moment! I also like the newspaper from Iowa. What is the best thing to come out of Iowa? Highway 35 and The Storm Lake Times. I read an excellent article about genetically modified foods in the Storm Lake Times after I heard they won the Pulitzer prize. Seriously, who has time to read newspapers anymore? All the ads bother me. I do not enjoy shopping. I have too much stuff now. Isn't it a greener choice to get my news online? Aren't I saving the trees? But what will I use to line the bottom of my canary cage?  I am too busy relieving my curiosity itches with Wikepedia and Google searches to take the time to read a newspaper. Newspaper articles are not in depth enough for me. By the way, I almost always go to the third page of Google and not the first page just because I feel like Google is stalking me and trying to learn all about me. I get this impression because my new phone keeps asking for my Google email password and stuff I browse on the ethernet shows up in the ads on various websites. I get paranoid when I search for a picture of an old fashioned telephone for a power point presentation at work and then I see that same rotary phone in the ad next to my personal emails when I am home at the kitchen table. Freaks. Me. Out. How does Google know where I live? What about personal privacy? Isn't privacy a right? I think I now regret mailing a test tube of my saliva to 23 & Me. On the other hand, I would not connect with my cousin who lives in Bangor, Maine and had a sister-in-law who sold a dog to Stephen King with a newspaper. Yeah, that is right, Stephen King has or once had a Corgi dog!!! And Stephen King once chatted with my very own cousin on my mother's side in the Bangor Mall about Little League! I am keeping this blank newspaper. Just like my Dad showed me a square nail hand forged by his father, I will show my Sicilian grandchildren one of the very last newspapers ever printed.