Bob Schwartz

This Sunday morning began, as mornings do, with a quick check of the online news sites. Some of them may still be known as “newspapers” because of their legendary legacy, but I haven’t read a paper edition of the New York Times or Washington Post in ages.

Sundays were not always like this. I have been reading newspapers as long as I could read. In my first life chapter, ours was a New York Daily News/New York Mirror/New York Post kind of family. Sunday meant a fat paper with all kinds of special sections, especially the color comics pages.

My Sunday papers story expanded when we moved to the suburbs. I was in junior high school and more interested in everything than ever. On Sunday I walked a few blocks to the convenience store and picked up one or two of the weightiest (literally) New York Sunday papers: often the Herald Tribune (in its various merged incarnations such as the World Journal Tribune) and every week the Sunday Times. You could spend hours working your way through the Sunday Times if you were a completist, learning about things you didn’t even know you cared about. Many New Yorkers did, and so did I, then and for years to come.

It’s been a while since Sunday started with a Sunday paper paper for me, fat like the Times or skinnier like some of the local ones. So many other options now that don’t weigh or cost so much. But trust me, there’s something about drinking coffee and holding all the inked news “that’s fit to print” in your hands, spread out on the table or floor. That’s not nostalgia, just a different way that has its unique values and charms.

© 2023 by Bob Schwartz