The News of the Day

being engaged in the world

When I was young, the news was “simpler”. Almost every big city had a thriving newspaper and sometimes two! My dad was an avid consumer of the news and the boundaries between morning and evening news were blurred in our home. Dad was a shift worker at a sprawling steel mill in Lackawanna, NY. His love for the newspaper and being engaged in the world meant that, regardless of the time of day, he wanted to know what was happening. For him, the workday start and end depended upon whether the shift was days, afternoons, or nights. What never changed was that when he returned home from work, the family knew the newspaper should be left in that familiar location next to the rocking chair in the dining room. The understanding of what your place in the world is was instilled in my brothers and me partly through the rejection of narrow-mindedness.

I remember that we accrued quite a pile of newspapers in those days. Being a child of a large family born before the depression, dad had some lifetime habits. Long before curbside recycling, we would take our spent newspapers and get pennies per pound by dropping them off at a recycler. I remember the ritual of stacking them and tying them into reasonable bundles with string. It was amazing how fast two daily newspapers and both a Sunday local and the occasional New York Times would stack up. The newspaper, even on the weekdays, was substantial. When I browse a newspaper today, it is noticeable that they are much smaller in content than in the past. My dad was a cover-to-cover newspaper reader. It was rare to be bundling those papers and feel like some of it had not been read.

Dad had a good job and was able to provide a great life for our family. The sacrifices of that job were not as clear to me when I was young. Looking back, it is clear how much work it was for my mom and dad to make such a life work. I believe now that his job was not easy on him physically and the shift work took its toll on him. I also believe that immersion into many cultures that occurred in the setting of the plant also shaped the man I just knew as Dad. One of my father’s great gifts to me was his engagement in the world.

He knew what was going on in the world, retained his core priorities and principles throughout his life, and set a great example for me. Dinner conversations were enriched by being “out in the world” and bringing it back into our home with professional journalism. Dad read the news and was a keen observer. He realized there wasn’t a shortcut to knowing what was happening in the world. I am grateful for his example.