Newspapers, Dentist, and a Few Thoughts
by Barry Bauer
The job of delivering the newspaper has changed over the years. When I was young (last century), my oldest brother had a newspaper route. I used to help him fold the papers in a particular way (without the plastic bag) and stack them standing up in the delivery bag.
Today we’ve lived at the same address for 41 years so far and we’ve seen many newspaper deliveries by various kids/adults. First it was the kids, all of them boys, who rode their bikes around their route delivering the paper. They would collect every week or every other week but we could always pay in advance if we wanted to. They would just tear off so many dated tabs from their book that said we paid for that week. In those days it was an afternoon paper. Nowadays, it’s delivered in the morning. Most of the time it’s delivered before we wake up . . . someplace in our yard.
We like our paper delivered at our side porch but depending on the always changing delivery people, it may be there or it may be out front in the flower bed.
We had the best newspaper delivery husband and wife team but they gave up the route just before Christmas. We think they did sub to fill in the change from one newspaper delivery person to another which happens way too often. We could always tell it was them by the way they delivered our paper.
We gave a tip to those who did a good job getting the paper to us but now we’re considering giving up the home delivery and just check the news on the internet.
Home delivery is just too much trouble some days.
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As of this writing I just got back from a dentist appointment. The rumors about the dentist using a car jack to hold your mouth open or numbing your mouth with a 6 inch needle are just that . . . a rumor.
I had some things going on with a couple of teeth and of course, I thought the worst. Turns out it just the normal wear and tear. They only needed a little smoothing of the rough edges and everything was okay again, at least for my age.
I’ve known people who have literally let their teeth rot out of their mouths because they had an abnormal fear of dentists. It got so bad their dentist removed what remained of their teeth and gave them a new set of plastics.
I’m hoping to avoid that.
* * *
A few thoughts:
Basic training for our military takes a few weeks, basic training for foreign troops in Iraq and Afghanistan takes years. What the hell gives?
Can somebody tell me why anyone would buy a ticket to see the Detroit Pistons play after what they did?
While nobody seems to worry about the Tuxes the guys wear to the Oscars, but everybody talks about what the women wore. It’s too high cut, it’s too low cut, it’s a bit busy around the bottom, it was too short, or it was the wrong color. Who gives a crap, the ladies all looked great!
Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan have been the absolute center of our news media’s attention, over and above anything that really affects our lives. They are apparently our stars and our heroes – I didn’t know that. One question we need to ask ourselves, who gives a damn? Lohan ought to be serving 5 to 10 for her crimes and Sheen, I don’t even watch his show so what’s going on in his life means nothing to me. His own actions will soon rid the world of another nut case.
Until the next time . . .