I was probably ten years old when I started bringing the paper in regularly, opening it on the coffee table, and pulling it apart to read. My early interests were the sports section, but I voraciously read all our cereal boxes, shampoo labels, the jackets of cassette tapes, and just about anything else with words. So it didn’t take long before I was reading the rest of the paper too.
This was aggravating to my dad—he could live without the sports section since he wasn’t a huge fan, but he always wanted the main section and the local news, and when it turned out that I had them, he scolded me. We both read at the kitchen table while we ate breakfast, which regularly triggered paroxysms of anger from my mother who always cited the first marriage of the main character in Citizen Kane as her evidence of the evils of newspapers at the table (if you haven’t seen the movie, the disintegration of the marriage is shown by a montage of the two sitting at the breakfast table elbow to elbow then gradually drifting apart until Kane reads a newspaper at one end while his wife carries on at the other end).
Mom hated everything about the newspaper. “Every flat surface in this house is covered with a damn newspaper!” she would yell roughly once a week. “You two Gordons, throw your damn newspapers away!”
The rule was that yesterday’s paper had to be tossed before today’s paper could be brought in, but if I threw it away too early in the day, Dad wouldn’t get to read the rest he had missed from breakfast when he got home from work. So overlaps happened. And no one was ever, EVER, allowed to read at the table if mom sat down to join.
I say all this because Grant’s new job is at-home care of men in my Dad’s generation, and I am getting from him all sorts of interesting texts that bring back memories.
Grant: Dad, have you ever seen Mississippi Burning?
Me: Yep. Saw it when I was a teenager. Wanted to show it to you all but Mom thought it was too upsetting.
Grant: Mort and I watched it together. It’s infuriating.
That is doubly personal to Grant since he married a Dominican, and they have already experienced moments of racism.
Another time, I got this.
Grant: Did Grandpa like westerns?
Me: Loved em. Watched em all the time. The Magnificent Seven; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Anything with John Wayne.
Grant: Mort and I watched High Noon together.
Me: Great movie. So many moral dilemmas.
Grant: I liked it.
Kids don’t consume a lot of tv news, but Bill does, so when Grant is with Bill, they watch CNN together and I get a lot of questions and thoughts texted to me about national and world events.
The best part now is this message from today.
Grant: Holy hell I read the newspaper everytime I go to bills house 😂😂😂. Literally.
Me: I miss the regular newspaper.
Grant: Trust me bill gives me the paper every time I go, I started reading the sports section but now I read most of the paper 😂.
Grant started sending me snapshots of articles he agreed with. This kills me—the modern version of clipping.
Bill is a widower, I believe, so there’s no one to stop him from reading at the table or yell at him to throw his “damn newspapers away.” He does have Grant to clean up after him and help around the house, though. Grant, just remember not to throw it away before Bill has finished all the sections. Your grandfather would not be pleased.
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