Chattanooga Times Free Press

Newspaper reader savors a morning tradition

Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfree press.com.

Lately, Eleanor McCallie Cooper has been ruminating about her hometown newspaper’s countdown to digital delivery.

For the past three weeks, Cooper has been journaling about picking up her newspaper in front of her Missionary Ridge house, as a way of saying goodbye to a lifelong ritual.

Like many people of her generation (she is an older baby boomer), Cooper says she can never remember a time when there wasn’t a physical newspaper in her house. Even when she moved away from Chattanooga for a time as a young adult, Cooper said her mother would save local newspaper clippings to mail to her, even sending them overseas.

“[She would] pack the clippings in manila envelope,” Cooper said in a telephone interview last week. “That was my connector to home.”

Cooper, a community activist and author, said her mother’s mailed clips were mainly about family friends and high school sports, with a few selfhelp articles mixed in.

“Sometimes, I couldn’t tell which side of the clipping she was sending me,” Cooper said. “One side might be ‘how to diet,’ and the other side might be ‘how to dress.’”

Cooper said she decided to start jotting down journal entries after she realized future generations won’t know what it feels like to greet the day with a trip outdoors to scoop up a newspaper. To squint at the sunshine on a summer morning or to cross one’s fingers for a dry newspaper on

a rainy day are sensory memories that may eventually fade into history.

“Some people already get the news on their phone or laptop. But for me, the newspaper has always been delivered daily to my doorstep or to the end of my driveway,” Cooper wrote in her journal.

Times Free Press officials announced last year that the newspaper would shift to online delivery Monday through Saturday each week in 2022 with home delivery continuing on Sundays. Subscribers are being provided iPads to read the paper in its standard print layout all seven days a week.

Far from feeling melancholy, Cooper says her journal entries are simply her way of adapting to change. She said she intends to read the newspaper online once the full conversion happens in her neighborhood later this year.

“I’m getting prepared,” she said. “The ritual of keeping the journal has gotten me ready.”

Below are a few of Cooper’s journal entries about her trips outdoors to retrieve the Times Free Press in the past two weeks.

Jan. 1: It’s eerily warm today, wearing short sleeves on January 1. There’s a breeze in the tops of the trees, birds chirping, clouds moving across the sky, the sun creeping in at the edge.

… Storing away the Christmas lights today — I wrap the newspaper around the lights so that the strings won’t get tangled. I can’t help wondering what it will feel like a year from now to open this up and see an actual printed newspaper.

Jan. 2: It rained last night but it’s still unusually warm this morning. I wouldn’t know what the weather was like if I didn’t walk out to get the newspaper. … The newspaper is heavy. It’s always heavier on Sunday but the water seeped in the open flap and it’s much heavier today. … Hoping the comics are still dry.”

Jan. 5: So cold I have to put on a coat to go get the newspaper. Oh, my gosh, it’s gorgeous. Sky blue. Clouds pink. … I’m grateful for this walk to get the newspaper.

Jan. 9: It’s raining and I don’t feel like putting on my raincoat and going outside and getting wet. I’ll wait and get the news later.

Jan. 13: I have a cold this morning and I don’t feel like going out, but if I don’t I won’t have any news.

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