Holding the words in my hands

Yesterday, it was noted that the print edition of The News & Observer is a key component of my morning schedule. When it’s not in the driveway as the day begins causes delays in the schedule. There’s fretting about a delivery person who takes the early morning commitment with a you’ll-get-it-when-it’s-delivered attitude. Usually, though, it lands before six in the morning Monday-Saturday and by seven Sunday morning. The previous carrier his customers with delivery before three a.m. unless the newspaper presses were held for a late night story, but that’s not been the case lately.

When the paper doesn’t arrive in timely fashion, the e-reader format on the iPAD is a substitute but it’s not the same as turning the newsprint and looking at the big photos, especially when NC State defeats Duke in basketball. For the younger set, a few days or weeks of holding and reading an actual printed newspaper while sitting in a Starbucks instead of of getting the news from an iPhone or some other electronic device would be good for you. You might actually read about something you otherwise would not seek out and you may learn something you didn’t already know.

There are several publications in printed form read at our house: Time, Sports Illustrated, Southern Living, to name a few. They are also available for the iPAD but not accessed that way. For the longer stories, reading the printed version allows starting and stopping by picking up or putting down the magazine open to the story. And again, having the printed publication in hand encourages the reader to peruse other articles which upon first glance might not be a subject of interest. It’s a learning process every time one of these publications arrives.

While electronic instruments such as smart phones, tablets, and laptops offer a wider window to the world, there is a lot to learn from reading a publication that’s in printed form. One may search through the newspaper just for stories of interest but then find a column that offers a differing opinion that helps to open the mind of conservatives and liberals. If it weren’t for a laptop and the internet, what you are reading now would not be available to read and probably not written at all, unless it was in print someplace as a column which is probably not going to happen. But that would be okay as long as you’re reading something that’s in printed form, even if it hits the driveway later than desired.

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Dictionary.com word of the day

glut (noun) [gluht]: an excessive supply or amount