Daily newspapers and the television news.

This beautiful sunny Thursday morning I woke up and looked out the door and saw a blue plastic wrapped newspaper. That made me smile. I almost shouted, "The New York Times is here! The New York Times is here!" I didn't want to scare Felice the cat, so I just got the paper. I know, I sound like such a rube. That's ok I am a rube; country gal living in the city. This is the first day of my subscription.


Half the city of Louisville was outraged Sunday when the paper did not get printed and delivered as usual. Letters to the editor appeared Tuesday and every one was another tale of out of town guests chiding their hosts because this is such a Podunk city we can't get a daily paper printed and delivered. The Courier-Journal had their huge German made, multi-million dollar press go down and no matter what they did, couldn’t get it started again in time to print the "news" sections. We received the pre-printed ads and rotogravure magazine, which were printed earlier in the week. Street sales were printed in Indianapolis. We subscribers received the rest of the paper Monday!


Wednesday there were letters from former paper carriers who told people to get a grip. That was also the day the local Insight cable was down. The report was that sometime during the night the technicians were performing routine maintenance on the router and it died. The back-up router from Lexington died too.


Like all those others I missed having the paper on Sunday to read while watching CBS Sunday, as well as not having television news early before work. I was able to endure without too much upset because I turned on the radio. While scientists tell  us that their studies show people who live orderly lives are healthier and live longer, I don't mind a change in routine.

Things have settled down and Lenny came by last night for dinner, conversation and etc.  He was laughing about my grass having grown so much from recent rains and two weeks of no mowing, as to be almost to my knees.  I told him the thing is I'm short!

Today the grass got mowed and I spent my lunch time sitting on the bench to eat an egg salad sandwich, drink iced tea and smell the scent of mown hay.  My mind wandered to clover and a poem Reggie wrote several years ago about that.  Some lines printed here by permission are:

My lawn has gone to clover.

Alone on a block of manicured lawns

My yard has native grasses.

Its wildness an affront to the orderly.

All the things we do, read, watch, talk about are not that important. I consider myself lucky to have shelter.  The question was asked the other day: Can a person be too rich? I think when someone is so wealthy they are insulated from every inconvenience and there isn't a single thing in the world they could want that they can't have, then a person is too rich.

I think that last line of Reggie's poem describes a worthy goal in our later years; wildness and an affront to the orderly.