"World's Greatest Newspaper"

There it was, just as promised, laying on the front stoop. My Sunday paper, the Chicago Tribune. Last week I got an offer in my email, ninety nine cents for eight weeks and ninety nine cents a week there after. That included unlimited digital access. I have missed getting the Sunday paper. Sure I can get a lot of news off the internet. The fake news, the real news, the shady news, and some news that seems very plausible until you notice that it's from The Onion, but I like the feel of an actual newspaper in my hands. Growing up, the Tribune was considered to be the Republican newspaper. We did not get that paper. We got the Sun-Times in the morning, the Daily News in the afternoon, and we got the Chicago American on Sunday morning. The Chicago American on Sunday because it had the best funnies. With all those papers we got more than enough viewpoints. Now Chicago has but two daily newspapers, and that is a stretch. The Sun-Times is little more than a pamphlet with screaming news. So anyway, I pulled the Trib off the stoop, took it into the house, and sat down in my big chair with a cup of coffee. As I pulled the plastic cover off of the newspaper, the aroma of newsprint filled the room. It smelled exactly the same as when I was a kid. The paper was essentially the same too. The front section, international section, opinion, sports, lifestyle, the magazine, the comics. It was all there. Sure, the comic section is only two pages and no longer has Blondie, but I enjoyed it. So there I was in my big leather chair with my cup of coffee, the Sunday paper, my dogs at my feet, and right on cue, the trumpet announcing the start of the CBS Sunday Morning Show. Just like thirty years ago in my apartment on Halsted. Only back then I probably didn't have a cup of coffee, and I didn't have any dogs, only cats, and no big leather chair, and the paper was not delivered. I had to go down to the corner to buy it. Other than that, and the fact that Charles Kuralt was not the voice of the CBS Sunday Morning Show, it was just like thirty years ago.