The New York Times

Grandpa And The Entire 1938 Corn Crop
The Year Before Daddy Returned To The Farm

     I doubt than anyone else in our county subscribed to the Sunday New York Times with the possible exception of public libraries in the larger towns near by.   Our rural mailman delivered it by car each Tuesday morning.  I was always amazed that it came all the way from New York City to our mailbox within 48 hours of its publication.  I don't remember when Daddy's subscription to the Times began, but I cannot connect the paper in my memory with Mommy or Grammy.  So I assume it began to arrive after they had passed away.  If the paper did not come on Tuesday for some reason, Daddy was very disappointed and in a blue funk until the Wednesday mail delivery arrived.

     We had a big mailbox across the road from the entrance to our short lane but the Times was so large that it usually wouldn't fit in the box.  The mailman had to drive it up to the house, a short distance but a bit of a nuisance for him.  He was natured about it and never complained, but he did tease Daddy about the huge paper.  The weekly four-page local town paper and the slightly larger county paper paled in comparison to the Times.

     Daddy claimed that life in the big city had so changed by the late 1930's when he returned to the Midwest that he did not mind coming home.  The obvious joy he felt when reading the Times, however, spoke volumes about the fact that he did indeed miss the City and at least some of the life and friends he had left behind.  The difference between his days in Manhattan, even during the Depression, and his life as a farmer must have been striking.  
     During those 18 years Daddy had spent "back East", he had seen a slice of life unknown to most of our neighbors and friends (other than those who had been in The War).  That wider view of the world always set him apart from them somewhat.  That wider view of the world was also shared with us children in many subtle ways during our growing up, much to our advantage.

     On the day when the New York Times arrived, all farming on our 80 acres stopped while Daddy immersed himself in his newspaper.  I can picture him clearly even now, as if he were standing before me.  He stood at the kitchen counter dressed in his blue overalls. He was about 5'10" tall, so the bottoms of his pant legs were usually rolled up and frayed on the lower edges.  He favored long-sleeved plaid flannel shirts, winter and summer, which he usually wore rolled up to his elbows.  
     While reading the Times, Daddy always had a mug of instant coffee with milk or whitener and many tablespoons of sugar.  Except when we were extremely financially strapped, he ate saltine crackers with his coffee which he spread with a thick layer of peanut butter.  He was oblivious to everything around him.  As he read, he would get excited, twitching his face and snapping the paper whenever he reacted strongly to what he was reading.

     Daddy loved politics and disliked politicians, particularly the liberal ones.  He was a life-long Republican and served for many years on the local election board.  He was almost as conservative as John Birch or Barry Goldwater.  The late David Lawrence, editor of the US News & World Report, was his favorite columnist and hero.  He had no use for the views of the "do-gooder" liberals, as he called them,  like the ones that published Time Magazine, though he religiously read Time Magazine every week, complaining at length about its liberal slant.

     In my role as approval-seeking eldest child, I too read the Times and Time Magazine.  Daddy liked the editorial page and the controversial stories most of all.  We would read them and he would expound in detail on his agreement or disagreement.  The Times was a bond between us.  Because we had no television during the years I lived at home on the farm, it was that big newspaper than introduced me to the world and politics and fostered my life-long love of current events.

     After Mommy and Grammy had died, there were days when Daddy seemed lonely and withdrawn.  Chewing on the toothpick he habitually had in his mouth, he would retreat to his rocking chair in the living room, in front of the Grandfather clock with Elizabeth Taylor's picture in the glass door, surrounded by shelves of the hundreds of books and classical records he loved.  He would escape into his newspaper, reading those pages again and again.