It is not for naught that I am alone at a coffee shop this morning. Nevermind: I just liked typing that out loud. The morning sun has already popped up, beginning its long crawl against blue skies until it eventually sneaks behind Pikes Peak, that granite mountain of a purple majesty, as a song goes. On evenings, the horizon offers a sharp and contrasting black and white silhouette of what was once day before blending into nighttime.
But this is morning, and my routine at the coffee shop typically consists of sipping an iced chai as I read a local newspaper scavenged from other people who have already read the same newspaper. Sometimes, entire sections of the morning’s newspaper are missing; sometimes only an article will be torn out of a page, like the front page. Sometimes, there is no newspaper whatsoever. And every now and then, when the stars align, and the government bureaucrats call in sick en masse, there’s a full edition of a local newspaper, and that is what I read today..
I have read the Sports in newspapers every morning since as far back as I can remember, which lands me in elementary school age back in Albuquerque. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Albuquerque Dukes were the hottest and best minor league baseball team that ever played, and they were and remain my favorite sports team of all time. My mornings then and during baseball season were spent scouring the Sports section of the Albuquerque Journal to track the latest statistics. The Dukes won multiple championships; multiple players were sent to the parent team, the LA Dodgers and helped win championships there. Heck, the Dukes even played the Dodgers in an exhibition game and the minor league team won! On Monday mornings in the autumn, I would review the Sports section in search of the NFL’s box scores from games played on Sundays so I could statistically keep track of the yards gained, points scored, and interceptions returned by the Dallas Cowboys, my favorite professional football team. I kept a thin notebook originally purchased for school but it eventually, and somehow or another, ended up being my Cowboys Statistics Book, where I wrote down all the important statistics of all the important players.
I carried the Book around with me all during the NFL season, which runs from August to January, at least back in the day. Today, for some reason or another, the Super Bowl seems to be playing later and later, like in February. By the noots, I have digressed. Anyway, I liked to use my Cowboys Stats book to win arguments at school, especially whenever there was an upcoming important game, usually between the Cowboys and Redskins, or even the Cowboys and the hated Eagles, or Cowboys vs Giants, and Steelers, and Raiders, and especially the 49ers. Most of my childhood friends were either Cowboys or Broncos fans, and every chance I had, I reminded them of the 1978 Super Bowl.
As an adult, though, I do not much follow the NFL anymore. The game has changed, and the entertainment value has waned. I seem to much prefer the bloody violence of the UFC and mixed martial arts in general to the NFL. Sure, hard hits by helmeted football players are fun to watch but there’s really nothing like the anticipation and the result of a huge fight in the UFC as with the recent Max Holloway vs Brian Ortega fight. Wow! What a bloody brawl!
But most UFC and MMA fights are not covered by the mainstream media, so it is not unusual for, say, a UFC fight card happening tonight that the local media won’t mention much, if at all, about the card until a few days’ morning. By any noots, I digress. Still my lifelong addiction to reading newspapers continues in spite of the fact most MMA fights and cards are routinely ignored by local media, especially newspapers.
When I was younger, I would ignore the front pages of the Albuquerque Journal. I always started read first with the Sports section. I wasn’t interested in politics, really, until I was voted class president in middle school. We didn’t really do anything. But the title, “Class President”, stuck with me, and little by little, I began peering into the front pages of the Journal and began reading political stories. But try explaining to a 9-year-old kid that the latest GDP numbers are a sign of impending economic doom. I didn’t care. But I did care about who won and who lost in politics.
Today, though, I don’t read the political section of the Colorado Springs Gazette to see who won or who lost. Instead, I read the political section to see who lied and who is playing semantics with the general public. I was wondering just the other day, what if I could go back in time, what I would tell the 9-year-old kid who rushed outside each morning to grab the newspaper from the front yard, pour a bowl of cereal, and start eating as I opened the Sports section. I mean, I’d probably tell myself, “Knock off with the politics! It’s a soul-sucking enterprise that will destroy your ability to trust most people. Check out mixed martial arts, bro. We may be good at it.”
Ahh, well. In some ways, my morning routine has only shifted from a focus on sports towards a focus on politics, although lately, I seem to be more and more interested in the gossipings of mixed martial artists, largely thanks to YouTube. These guys are hilarious in how they talk smack against other fighters. It’s good entertainment. Will YouTube ever replace the newspaper? I hope not! But in many ways, I find out more about various MMA fighters and their own fights on YouTube than I do reading newspapers, local or otherwise. I suppose the same may be true for some politicians.
By all the noots, I have again digressed! That’s okay. I have a large book in front of me right now. It is a political book that also contains information about medicine and psychology. I like reading books like that. But nothing will ever replace the feeling I have each morning when I walk into the coffee shop, full of anticipation of reading the the box scores from games played yesterday and last night. And, of course, I’ll skim the political section, but only briefly before studying the articles and facts contained in them.
Well, it’s time for me to go. Time for me to head back to Manitou Springs. I work today, a busy tourist day. I’ll think about this morning’s Sports section, which was mostly about the Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns playing last night (the Broncos lost -- maybe the head coach should be fired? By the noots!). And tomorrow morning, I’ll again bounce into the coffee shop, looking for the morning’s newspaper in hopes of stories about the UFC. And I’ll skim the politics section, too.
Who knows? Maybe that’s the allure of a newspaper? It contains information you could easily find somewhere else, like online. But what the Internet doesn’t have is the smell of ink, paper, and the rustling and crinkling that accompanies newspapers as they are read. And this, to me, is why I love newspapers: they are relics from the past and also offer a sense of modernity.
Plus, they don’t make them like they used to anymore. I hope newspapers can stick around for a few more decades at least. That’d be nice.
Have yourself a great day.