2019.11.21 Throw Back Thursday The Newspaper plus Class News

THROW BACK THURSDAY - THE NEWPAPER plus Class News

IN HONOR OF THE 200th ANNIVERSARY OF AN ARKANSAS NEWSPAPER
When I was a kid, we lived in a four-room, flat-topped house at the end of a graveled lane extending from Stanton Road in southwest Little Rock to a dead end at woods that soon would be cleared for a subdivision.

My dad worked nights loading Nabisco cookie trucks downtown. He left the house in our only vehicle about 3:30 p.m., returned around 1:00 a.m., and slept late in the mornings.

My life was sheltered, especially in summer, when I would spend all day imagining baseball games in the backyard--acting out all the parts--and waiting for the afternoon Arkansas Democrat to be thrown in our driveway around 4:00 p.m.

We didn't take the Gazette because it was too liberal.

Each afternoon, at the moment I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel of our driveway, and the ensuing thud of the thrown paper's landing, I would rush to retrieve what would provide my day's highlight. I would spread the broadsheet on the living room floor, put my elbows on the pages and get them inky black, and devour the sports pages, mainly to study the box scores and standings and see how the Detroit Tigers had made out the night before.

Yes, children, it is true: It was possible in the early 1960s not to know for nearly 24 hours the score of a ballgame.

I also read many of the sports articles and revered the bylines. I could figure out from the context the meaning of words even as I mangled their pronunciation. A rookie had made his major league "de butt." That meant his first game, his "debut." In a player's contract dispute one guy accused another of having "my-zuld" him. That meant telling him something that wasn't so. It was spelled "midled."

I recall my mother telling people that she never heard of a kid who loved spreading a newspaper in the floor and baptizing himself in it, though baptizing is my metaphor now, not hers then. We weren't metaphorical in our house, and we certainly weren't metaphorical about salvation.

When I was 16, a high school junior and sports editor of the McClellan High newspaper, I heard that the Democrat hired high school kids from Central, Hall, and Parkview as part-time sports department staffers. I sent sports editor Jack Keady a letter of application. I came home from school a couple of days later and my mom said a Mr. Keady had called and wanted me at the Democrat the next morning at 6 o'clock to join other staffers in putting out the afternoon sports section. I and the other high schoolers worked until 8, then headed to school.

What that meant was that my dad would have to let me drive the sole family car, the 1962 Dodge Dart with the push-button automatic transmission, and extend himself financially to get another vehicle. His sister's husband, my uncle Bob Bevis, had at that time Bevis Dodge at Ninth and Spring Streets. Bob let a late-model yellow Chevy Impala go to my dad on a literal brother-in-law deal. It took an extended family to raise a newspaperman.

This was December 1969 and I was getting up before dawn and driving I-30 downtown to do professional journalism. I used high school algebra to size AP photos for the column width of the paper. I wrote headlines, such as 2-36-2 Bodoni. That meant two columns, 36-point type, two lines, Bodoni font. "Kaline's homers/lift Detroit, 7-3." I remember asking the slot man - a dear, heavy-drinking man who laid out the sports section - if he had meant for that headline to be "ital" or "padonna." He said "Padonna? Oh, dear, Jaybrum. It's Bodoni."

Some mornings another guy would clip local high school basketball game articles from the morning Gazette and hand me a stack to rewrite. I could deliver a half-dozen three-paragraph Gazette rewrites in 15 minutes, then head back out on the freeway to first-period English class.

A printed newspaper delivered daily to the driveway or porch is thus the thread and theme of my life. And now the year I go on Medicare is the year I read that the printed newspaper may soon stop coming except on Sunday. I get it. I've insisted on keeping up with the digital technology in other areas of my life. I have the fiber optics. I have the Internet TV. My life is pretty thoroughly served by a stream and a download. I read as much of this paper on my phone as on paper.

But a mild May morning spent on the deck with a cup of coffee, a pair of happy beagles and the newsprint newspaper spread before me ... it's a transcendent joy of a seamless life.

So this will be a seam.

A newspaper life . . . I should write a book - a digital one, self-published, on Amazon.

John Brummett

CLASS NEWS
Lydia Lincoln reports that she is still on the road to recovery from Bladder Cancer.

Still getting responses re Cars in the Central Parking Lots in '56:
Our Dad was a very "conservative" person ( attorney) except for car colors. He traded our 1950 Ford (Chartreuse) in on this 1954 Ford hard top--( Pink top, Cream body, Black interior dash). As we recall, Chartreuse and Pink/ Black were popular colors for teens back in the '50's. Me and my buddies ( and also Carolyn) raised a lot of hell in that '54 Ford. Our Dad also would break out his 2 tone (black/white and 2 tone brown/white) wing tip shoes in the spring for his "summer wear" with his "seersucker" suits and sport jackets. Jimmy Martin*

Following up on a recent email subject, here is almost the same car I had after the Ford/Walt Winters deal.  Although, mine was a two door hard top (same color scheme) with a continental kit.  Really loved that car and kept it for years.  Wish I had it now. Jim Norsworthy

Stolen car

The proud owner  of a magnificent 1956 Chevrolet convertible wrote to say he had restored the car to perfection over the last few years, and sent this:

On a very warm summer afternoon, he decided to take his car to town. It needed gas, as the gauge was practically empty, but he wanted ice cream, so he headed first to his favorite ice cream shop.

He had trouble finding a parking space and had to park the car down a side street.  He noticed a group of young guys standing around smoking cigarettes and eyeing the car rather covetously.  He was a bit uneasy leaving it there, but people often take an interest in such an old and well-preserved car, so he went off to enjoy his ice cream.

The line at the ice cream shop was long and it took him quite a while to return to his car.  When he did, his worst fears were realized... his car was gone.

He called the police and reported the theft. About ten minutes later the police called him to say they had found the car abandoned near a gas station a few miles out of town.

It was unharmed and he was relieved.

It seems just before he called, the police had received a call from a young woman who was an employee at a self-service gas station.  She told them that three young men had driven in with this beautiful old convertible.  One of them came to the window and prepaid for 20 dollars worth of gas. 

Then all three of them walked around the car.

Then they all got in the car and drove off, without filling the tank.

The question is, why would anybody steal a car, pay for gas that they never pumped, and then abandon the car later and walk away?

NO PEEKING !

IF YOU GIVE UP----

SCROLL Down

They couldn't find where to put the gas!

ML