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NEWSPAPERS AND SHELVA

I remember the first newspaper I ever read. I was in the first grade and just learning to read and I picked up a newspaper somewhere in our home to try to learn to read better. The article contained the word "can't" and I was totally stumped. I hadn't seen that one in the Dick & Jane book at school. I took it to my grandmother who told me what it meant and that it was a contraction as she used my question as a teachable moment. From that moment on, I was hooked on newspapers and newspaper clippings and it is an addiction which continues to this day. If you don't believe me, just come visit me sometime. There are newspapers in every room, on every table, under the bed and you would probably have to move one or several to find a chair to sit in. I got to the point where I let them stack up, threw a tablecloth over them and used them as a lamp table. I can't bear to throw them away until I have read them and obviously I will never get that done. I have stacks and stacks of Lebanon and Springfield papers which contain my column and I can't bear to part with them. There is a funny family story in all this which my brother-in-law (Shelva) has never let me live down. When we moved to Washington St from Viewland, we had a large chest freezer out on the back porch and it was very heavy. We had family members helping us move and there was no way I could supervise it all. At the end of the day Shelvie, as we call him, as complaining to me about having to move that heavy freezer and wanted to know what we had in it. Newspapers, I told him. I thought he would kill me right then and there. I tried to explain to him that I read once that if you don't keep your freezers full, they won't stay cold very well. And since I had all these newspapers saved and no where to put them, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and I had stashed all the newspapers in the freezer to keep it running well! This is not where we came up with the phrase "news too hot to print". The possible complete demise of the daily/weekly newspaper makes me very sad. We have already lost so many of them.

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