Papaw Bonifer waxes poetic

We are in the middle of replacing our current printer in the CM Studio. We’ve had our model for roughly 5 years & like everything else, the new models are better, faster & promise to improve life as we know it.
It got me thinking about the world of print, particularly where I cut my teeth, newspaper. I’ll admit I’m one of the few daily paper subscribers at our office & based on the number of carriers I see on my morning runs, maybe one of the few left in the neighborhood.
By the time I sit down with the paper, I already know the top news stories – having read them online & heard NPR’s take the hour prior. The sports scores and statistics (or at least the ones that I care about) have been known for hours.
Maybe it’s the nostalgia of the whole thing, but to me there is something comforting about the ritual of a cup of coffee and the morning paper. I spread it out across the table. I get ink on my finger tips. I occasionally utter the phrase, “ohhh Maramduke what will you get into next?”

But alas, its days are clearly numbered. On printing alone, it’s been estimated the New York Times could save $644 million annually if they were distributed electronically and that was 1 year ago. With the advent & gaining popularity of the iPad and newspaper specific devices like the Skiff all signs point to the digital route. Heck, even the latest version of InDesign is set up to publish digital content.
I envision a day when I wax poetically to my kids about the daily paper. How I was known to pace the living room waiting for it to show up. I’m sure they’ll laugh at the fact the content was out of date before the ink hit the paper; wonder where the video content was; and ask how it linked to advertisers’ online content. I’m beginning to feel like my grandparents when they told me of the joys of the radio.

I know there is an iPad in my future, but until then, I’ll continue my subscription to the very end and probably shed a tear when I step onto the front porch for that final issue.