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At War With My Newspaper Carrier
Whether the guy who delivers my newspaper knows it or not, we are at war. So far, he has won most of the skirmishes. I am frustrated but not defeated. Like Putin against the Ukraine, I am playing the long game. If I am lucky, one day I will fly a victory flag outside my front door. Until the local homeowners association warns me to take it down.
I was predestined to go into journalism. My parents believed in supporting newspapers. We had a subscription to the local paper for as long as I can remember. After our family moved to Long Island, they even ponied up $2 per week for a student subscription to The New York Times, which I got delivered to my school locker every morning. I’d furtively do the crossword puzzle in algebra class, which was not the right move, as I almost flunked the course.
My first job after college was a staff writing position at a Queens weekly Pennysaver-type publication. If you broke down my salary into an hourly rate, I was living below the poverty line. Luckily, I could crash at childhood home and commute to the storefront office. Annual subscriptions cost a meager $12, but since issues were sent media mail, you were likely to get last week’s issue after the next week’s edition was on the newsstand.
When I moved into an apartment in Bayside and got married in 1994, I started a subscription to Newsday, a Long…
