Paper delivery has gotten easier

Today’s paper is big, no doubt about it.

But delivering it is easier than it used to be.

For better or worse, I’ve had the opportunity to watch The Commercial Review’s annual Thanksgiving edition evolve over the years, first as a paperboy, then as a reporter, then as editor, and then as publisher.

There have been a few changes over the decades.

Back in the 1960s and 1950s, the Thanksgiving edition kicked off the Christmas season.

These days, the pre-Christmas hype begins sometime in October. The day after Halloween, my wife and I stepped out into a supermarket parking lot to hear the public address system broadcast, “And so this is Christmas.”

We laughed a rueful laugh, but there’s no denying that the calendar and dynamic and boundaries of the Christmas season have changed.

If you doubt that, check out the listings on the Hallmark Channel.

Then again, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the businesses advertising their holiday specials were mostly Mom and Pop enterprises. And most of those are gone.

If I pull a bound volume of newspapers down from the shelves and check out the Thanksgiving edition from way back when, it’s like getting into a time machine. If I flip through the pages I’ll find ads from Weiler’s, Ramsey’s Men’s Store, Jani Lynn, G.C. Murphy, McCord’s, Goodman’s, Miller’s Dress Shop, John May Shoes, Jack’s Surplus City, Holthouse Furniture, and many more.

(Is it any wonder newspaper publishers go gray?)

Then there’s the editorial content.

With limited resources, back in those days the newsroom’s emphasis was on filling the pages with anything available.

For years, readers were invited to submit poetry for publication to fill the space.

It wasn’t very good poetry, but it did the job.

One family favorite was titled “Trees” and went something like this: “Trees are all different/No two alike/All are named different/And none are named Mike.”

That should give you a pretty good snapshot of the verse on display.

The Thanksgiving edition also featured, for years, children’s letters to Santa Claus. Those have since moved to our annual Christmas Greetings section in December. My understanding is that Santa continues to be a subscriber and watches for those letters each year.

Instead of just filling the pages, we’ve tried diligently for the past couple of decades to make the Thanksgiving edition a showplace for stories that otherwise might not be told. The space provided gave reporters the room to write, to ask questions and to stretch themselves professionally.

We’re still doing that today, though the newsroom is still not back to 100% staffing levels.

I think you’ll see evidence of our labors — and those of a cadre of freelancers — in these pages today.

Chances are, you won’t get through the whole thing today.

That’s OK. Like Thanksgiving, this edition is a feast best enjoyed at a leisurely pace. Some folks we know take a week to get through the whole thing. They don’t want to miss a single bit.

It’s a little like nibbling at that turkey carcass and enjoying leftovers, making the holiday last.

But big as it is, this edition is still easier to deliver than it was back in my days as a paperboy.

Why? Because during my paperboy era, the Thanksgiving edition was delivered to every single household, whether they subscribed to the paper or not.

So instead of a good-sized bundle of papers, a mountain of newsprint was delivered to my door when I was a paper carrier.

That’s a marketing approach we may revisit next year.

But for now, I wouldn’t want to wish that on anyone bringing the news to your door. It makes this old paperboy’s shoulders ache just to think about it.