Notice the article does not specifically mention social media or even the Internet as competitors for time, ad revenue, money and convenience or the dying off of baby boomers, those most likely to purchase and read print newspapers
Wyoming press corps suffers historic blow as eight local papers closed
Several months ago now, while passing by a local metal salvage yard, I noticed a pickup truck pulling a trailer full of interesting looking carts in to sell for scrap. The carts looked like industrial strength and purposefully designed moving dollies or “hand carts”, except these were enclosed on three sides with sheet steel and solidly built with two spinning castors in the front (for moving in a standing position) and two large wheels in back with a wide handle at the top used to haul loads at a lean. At around 3 feet by 3 feet wide by 5 feet tall… it looked like a sort of vertical wheelbarrow and I had already imagined several uses for them before pulling my truck back around to try and save a few of these from being melted down and sent overseas to make the next electric car.
As I drove up to inspect them closer it dawned on me what they were used for…These were the dollies that were used to transport newspaper machines around to various locations! It doesn’t seem that long ago now, perhaps a bit over a decade, that most every gas station of any size had at least one, and usually two separate paper machines. Most every Sunday I’d spring for the 1$ big paper, a hefty and thick affair full of want ads, several pages of employment and services offered, and of course…the Sunday Comics 
Even when it went up to $1.50 I’d still spring for a paper and read it over breakfast. However, in what seemed like a very short amount of time, the weekly papers began to lose weight…eventually they were a few mere pages and not even an 10th of the former size…
Back at the scrapyard I realized that my small town paper was no more. It had disappeared along with so many local small businesses while I was looking in other directions. Headquarters was liquidating their inventory and with it, part of my memories…
Well, I saved five of those carts. Paid the man $100 to sell me as many as I could haul directly and he sold the remainder of them for what was surely no more than $5 dollars a piece. It’s truly a disgrace to see the position we are in as a country. So many businesses have had to train their overseas replacements, to basically dig their own graves, so corporate can consolidate their wealth…How sad.
I’ve found these carts to be quite useful for many an odd purpose, and unlike our country, they are not for sale.
I’m a little nostalgic about small town newspapers as I had a delivery route for ours when I was in elementary school. My first foray into capitalism as I had to maintain the account by collecting money to pay for the papers by leaving paper tabs when they prepaid or when they finally paid if in arrears, making me an account manager at an early age.
The paper was owned and operated by the editor. I still remember the smell and size of the printing press as we waited for that week’s edition, literally fresh off the printing press.
@Mohgarr Great eye you have; noticing the potential of the carts and snagging them for yourself. “The right tool for the right job”, eh? Thank you for sharing the story.
Me too. I had a large bicycle route for 4.5 yrs. The smell of newsprint ink is embedded forever in my mind and I lament its disappearance.
Some 20 years ago, I attended an automation programming course in the Bay Area. One of the students worked at the San Jose Mercury News, which was a pretty good newspaper in the day. This guy talked about how the industry was collapsing and they were on borrowed time. I felt pretty safe, working in biopharm manufacturing after all Alas; here I am now wishing THAT business was in similar decline.
I had a bit of help, albeit almost subconsciously, in recognizing what they were… There was a square metal plaque on the back of the inside of one of them. It was that special shade of dark green that my mind grasped on and was able to isolate the only other place I’d seen it: Kilgore, Texas Newspaper machines.
Many times I believe the Lord makes us work for it a bit… a sort of exercise for those mental muscles IF we’re willing. I try not to take full credit for most things
I heard somewhere what “ego” represents: Edge God out…
Edit: If I can figure out how…I’ll upload a picture…they sure are handy
… Mitch Hedberg on having a paper route … “I had a paper route when I was a kid. I was supposed to go to 2,000 houses…or 2 dumpsters.”
20 years later I still miss Mitch.
I used to work at a newsstand and tobacconist which is how I met Doc here, at least via his printed material. A customer leant me his Philosophers Stone book and I was hooked.
I recall the morning deliveries of the papers and how they would slowly not only get thinner and thinner but pricier and pricier.
I lament the loss of small press not for the nostalgia or medium per say but for the community, the actual local news (my counties two or three main papers ‘print’ almost the same things and are politicised) and the literary nature and intelligence.
He’s hilarious. That’s philosophy I can get behind.
And who needs a receipt for a donut?
I was a paperboy with my car for a good week until I realized I couldn’t hack it. It was the directions. I was hard put finding houses with no numbers on new streets at 0400 with no gps and no light, when half were apartments. No pay pretty much lol
“Every book is a kids book as long as your kid can read”
Me too brother, me too…