To get to the time where the column has been continuously published for half my life, I’ll need to keep writing until I’m 86 years old. Whether I’ll have anything funny to say at age 86 is questionable at best, but so is whether I’ve had anything funny to say for the past dozen years.
We can only speculate as to why the Review continues to publish Quip Tide, apart from the column’s high return on investment. What we do know is that one subscriber really enjoys writing the column, which I still consider to be the best form of therapy. Whether other subscribers consider reading the column therapeutic or a weekly glimpse into purgatory is something that you’re better qualified to answer than am I.
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Occasionally the discussion is about a particular column that the reader liked. I’m surprised by how well others remember ideas or phrases from columns that they have enjoyed. With the 24/7 video bombardment of information, opinions and spin-doctoring to which we are subjected, it’s a small miracle that any of us can recall anything that we read.
I am also grateful that there is still a genuine local newspaper on the Coastside. It hasn’t been easy to maintain that tradition, especially lately. Nobody whose day job is writing for the Review is going to get rich, unless he or she receives a substantial bequest or buys the right lotto ticket, but there are other kinds of richness to print journalism.
First, there is a rich tradition, extending in America to a time before there was a United States. In the mid-1700s, Philadelphia was considered a large American town, though it had only half the population that Half Moon Bay has today. The proprietor of a small print shop in Philadelphia proved the power of a free press by railing against the abuses of political power. (Speaking of power, he also proved that the power behind lightning is the same as the power behind static electricity. His likeness now graces our country’s $100 bills.)
There is also a certain richness to the feel of paper, to holding a newspaper in your hands. You can get the same content online, but not the same experience. Reading a newspaper is a pleasure, and for those of us who unfailingly recycle, not a guilty one.
As many of us pray in thanks this Thursday, let’s also pray for the 12 percent of us in California who are unemployed this Thanksgiving. Let’s all do what we can to create new jobs so that next year more of us will have Thanksgiving as a day off work, and not just another day without work.
Thanks for reading.
Louie@hmbreview.com thanks God for giving us the Coastside, the Review staff for giving Coastsiders our local paper, and you for reading Quip Tide.
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