I used to go to a school just two blocks from my house. The building is still there, so the school is over one hundred years old. The grades in my school were K through 6. Three of our subjects were Reading, Writing and Spelling. Don’t like to brag, but put me in a spelling contest and you were looking at a winner.

We had a newspaper day once a week and each kid would bring in a newspaper and read his favorite article. This was my favorite day. We used to get the Perth Amboy Evening News  delivered to our house six days a week and on Sunday my Father would get the NY Times and The Daily News on the way home from church. My mom liked the Daily News and I loved the comics from Dick Tracy and read all the way to the last page.

Every neighbor got a newspaper back then.  We even had a magazine rack. I can still see it now.  It was wooden with four legs. Had two sides – one side was for magazines like LIFE and LOOK and the other side was for newspapers.  The number of homes in my two blocks used to be twelve. There was a newspaper in their mailbox every day. There are double that number of homes in the same area. About four of those homes get a newspaper.  I really believe that newspapers taught me to read.

The years have passed and I see a different scene. People are on cell phones, have plugs in their ears for e-mail, dot com or whatever. They have in their backpack or shoulder bag. They are totally in a trance. Once they get home, it’s on the computer again and then the TV.  Some people tell me that the newspaper and books are obsolete. Didn’t a guy named Adolph Hitler have ideas like that before WWII?

Cell phones, computers and TVs are great, but you are missing the boat if you don’t have a newspaper in the house. Yes, my friends, a house is not a home without a newspaper in it.

Thomas Francis Clark