An old paperboy delivers his newspaper lament

(645 words)

A younger friend recently asked where my wife and I met. I told him we were working at the local newspaper. And for the first time it dawned on me the story of our romantic coupling will one day soon require further explanation.

Something I’ve cherished nearly my whole life is going away.

And I don’t mean Val (last I checked, at least).

No, today I’m lamenting the apparent and inevitable demise of newspapers.

Many people, especially corporate beancounters, think the solution to declining readership is to make newspapers less like newspapers. They instead cater to people who prefer to get their news digitally.

But what’s even more disappointing is how newspapers are becoming openly hostile to those who enjoy getting home delivery.

It’s not unusual to see front page pictures with cutlines teasing readers to jump to the story — not on an inside page — but to the on-line version with all its tedious distractions.

So they want you to stop reading the paper you paid for and go to site most of them give away for free, the one where none of the industry geniuses have figured out how to earn so much as a dime.

Think I’m kidding?

Just last week the venerable Philadelphia Inquirer (third oldest U.S. newspaper, recipient of 20 Pulitzer Prizes) and its two sister publications were donated — donated! — to the non-profit Institute for Journalism in New Media, part of the Philadelphia Foundation.

So one non-profit is being absorbed by another and at this rate it’s apparent all I have to do to eventually own one of America’s great newspapers is just bide my time.

Did you know my first job was delivering newspapers for the now-defunct Pittsburgh Press?

I had one of the largest routes in the South Hills, 100 daily and 150 Sunday. I was in the 9th grade and making $100 a week; at Christmas I’d earn $500.

I remember thinking, man, if I can get paid this much to deliver the news, how much must they pay the geniuses who write it?”

In my career, I’ve only earned steady newspaper paychecks for five slim years, but I’ve always considered myself a bona fide newsman. I love newspapers and admire the people who put them together.

And I revel in reading a good paper. I savor them. I dart around between sections. I serendipitously discover stories I’d never find on-line.

So it hurts to see them going away or see them pricing themselves to a level that makes me hesitant to purchase. The daily Post-Gazette is now $1.50 a day. I feel like a chump buying it when I know I can get it free on-line.

The pain is particularly acute for me because my Mom feels the same as I do. She must have her daily paper. The problem is she is senile and is merely attached to the idea of getting a newspaper, even though she doesn’t comprehend a word.

“I have to have it to start my day,” she says.

It is her ink-stained security blanket.

And now the (somewhat) more reasonably priced paper, The Tribune-Review (75-cents), has ceased delivery to the 200-unit South Hills apartment where she lives. It’s true. You can no longer get the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review delivered in some places within Pittsburgh.

They say she should read it on-line, this to a woman who often gazes at the TV remote the way the ancients used to gaze at a solar eclipse.

Now I’m looking into ways to pay an exorbitant price to daily deliver a newspaper to a woman no longer mentally agile enough to read it, but feels inexplicably lost when it’s not there.

And newspaper can’t make money with devoted customers like that?

If only I could deliver industry-saving solutions to something that means so much to so many.

Related . . .

The decline of newspapers and the death of Mike Piggott

Industry-saving idea: edible newspapers!

1,001 words on word counts

The vanishing stigma of typos

The coolest I've ever been

Just one more story about why I love Philadelphia before we take the train back to the reality of dashed expectations, earnings chaos and wild uncertainty.

And I’m talking here about my career, not the financial markets.

Philadelphia was the last place where I entered the rarified zone of supercool and there were people around to see it.

I can manage to be really, really cool about once every 10 years. It’s a cool so perfect it’s like a total eclipse of the sun.

Stare at it too long and there’s a chance you’ll go blind.

It happens to all of us. It’s one of those cosmic rarities when you’re dressed great, you look fantastic, your smile dazzles, your surroundings seem to glow and your wit is energized by one of those euphoric buzzes that make profound hilarity roll off your silver tongue like the waters at Niagara.

The problem with most of us those five or six times last for about 12 minutes and they happen when we’re all by ourselves.

That’s the way it is with me. I can feel it coming on. I see the transformation in the mirror. I run outside and start dashing down the street and screaming before it’s too late, “Look at me! I’m cool! I’m cool! I’m cool!” immediately vaporizing any of the cool that hasn’t already naturally dissipated.

With me, it happened in 2007 on the perches astride the very Rocky steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art mentioned in yesterday’s nonsense.

The day was as perfect as I was about to become.

The skies above Philly were azure. It was about 5 p.m. and the still-warm day tingled with the first fresh hints of fall.

The view is truly spectacular, one of the most grand in all America. The museum is atop the region’s highest hill and looks down the boulevard and all the museums, trees and parks leading into the heart of the great metropolis.

It was the last day of a four-day assignment for Cooking Light magazine, which had asked me to come to Philadelphia to write about the best restaurants.

Sweet, huh. And it’s a reputable magazine that paid good money.

See the elements beginning to orbit?

My hosts had invited me to a museum soiree to celebrate the assignment’s success.

I was resplendent. I was wearing pressed black pants with creases sharper than the bow of a battleship. I had thatch colored sports coat, glistening white shirt and a gold and black tie that shimmered like the lights on airport runways. The sun-colored socks were taut inside black Italian loafers.

As is my wont, I’d stopped at friendly cigar store and selected a robust Cohiba Churchill.

And if you didn’t already guess I had a big glass of bourbon on ice, you’re new to the blog.

I don’t know whether it makes me a bad father or a really great drinker, but the sublime buzz I get from smoking a cigar and sipping a bourbon triggers the same joy spot in my brain that comes alive whenever I am cradling one of my daughters and she isn’t saying I’m weird or stupid.

I don’t try and explain or defend it. I just acknowledge it.

So as the party hit a lull, I snuck outside and scampered atop one of the prominent ledges overlooking one of America’s great cities for a good smoke.

Really, if it weren’t for the regular movement of both my arms to my mouth, I could have looked like a work of art.

That’s when it started to happen. I could feel the cool come into me and begin to burst forth.

People began to smile and stare. I could tell some of them wanted to take pictures but were afraid the imperceptible noise would startle the rare butterfly into vanishing

(If it ever happens again and you see it happening, please feel free to snap away. I won’t mind!)

Then with a timing that’s never been duplicated and may never again, the cool came to full fruition just as it was at its most useful.

A touring rock band in town was drawn to me.

It sounds preposterous, but this is exactly as it happened. They came up to the steps below my perch and gazed up at me and asked, “Do you know any good restaurants in Philly?”

I swear to God.

These five musicians, four guys and a babe, looked like they were effortlessly cool for about 14 of their 15 wakeful hours each day.

And they sought me as someone who could give cool advice.

And I was off.

I was funny. I was witty. I was wise. I didn’t stumble off my little stage. It was like I was Aristotle and they were my students.

It was a great conversation.

As we wished each other luck and they turned to say goodbye, I heard the cool rock chick turn to her bandmates and say, “Wow. What a really cool guy.”

Again, that’s exactly how it happened.

The only way this absolutely true story could be any better is if I could now honestly conclude “. . . and the name of that band was Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders.”

I pointed out exactly where it happened on Thursday to my wife. And as she always does whenever I tell this story she started cracking up.

Her cruel laughter stings.

She says the band was probably named the Sarcastic Quintet.

She wouldn’t know true cool if it married her and fathered her children.

In her defense, she’s slept through most of my cool.

Too bad so has everybody else.

Pedicures for all the manly fellas

I still sift through e-spam that promises to get intimate parts of me to grow in the hopes I’ll find one that’ll promise to get part of me to cease growing.

Actually, it’s 10 parts of me. The toe nails. The jagged little helmets on the 10 little piggies.

Millions of research dollars are spent trying to cure male pattern baldness and to turn small, dangly things into bigger dangly things. But nothing’s being done to ease one quality of life issue that affects every man, bald or hirsute, Super-sized or Happy Meal portion.

And this is an issue that concerns the ladies, too.

We could all benefit from research that leads to the cessation of toe nail growth. That would end the twice-monthly contortions it takes to chop them off before they become concealed weapons capable of shredding socks, sheets, sleeping pets and the Achilles tendons of the loved ones with whom we spoon.

This became clear to me yesterday after I got a note from a man who’d read my story about my first pedicure that ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday (posted below).

If there’s any fairness in the world, then the name Carmen Vitanza will become associated with pedicures the way Orville Redenbacher’s is associated with popcorn. The man’s a proselytizing visionary.

Vitanza’s note convinces me men should visit the local nail salon as often as we do the barber. And until the researchers recognize the need to solve this pressing need, maybe that’s what we should consider. Take it from Vitanza (CAPS are his):

“For years I've had the problem trying to bend over and trim my toe nails the way they should be. I'm not fat but there is a little tummy in front of me that should be dissolved ... but at my age, 83, it's not easy.

“I discovered pedicures about 4 years ago and I will tell every Male in the world that one of the best things you can do for your body is to get a PEDICURE!!!

“I'm a Florida snowbird ... in Drexel Hill,Pa summers and Lake Worth Florida winters. I've gone to a variety of nail saloons (just a funny) in both areas. One item seems to be common. Most of the beauticians are of Vietnamese origin and they are GOOD! They have a common system of really trimming, digging, smoothing, etc. ones toes....and not only that...they give your feet and calves a beautiful massage. Wonderful experience for anywhere from $17 to $25 on average.

“So Chris, if anyone wants to make fun of you for getting a pedicure tell them to contact me. My name is CARMEN VITANZA, AN ITALIAN MALE originally from Atlantic City, N.J.”

There was a day when any Italian male from Atlantic City would get the stuffing kicked out of him for taking such a stand on apparently soft, dainty feet. Who knows? Maybe that same result will happen even in a more enlightened future. But if Carmen and I get our way, at least the guys doing the kicking will have lovely little tootsies.


Here's the story, "Personal Journey: It Takes a Real Man to Get a Pedicure."

She brought the sundae out on a little tray. There were big scoops of strawberry, chocolate, vanilla and an oozy river of creamy caramel. How could I resist? I did what any red-blooded American male would do.

I dunked my big cracked, calloused and stinking feet right in the whole gooey mess and began wiggling my toes.

I was at the cloud-clinging Wintergarden Spa at the Wintergreen Resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a heavenly perch so elevated that you’re actually looking down upon hawks. My spa options included standard sports massage and manicure, but I decided to treat the most abused and maltreated part of my entire body.

I decided to treat the feet. I was there to get my first pedicure, something men rarely did and now are doing in growing numbers, according to Debra Locker of the International SPA Assocation. “Our statistics from 2006 found that 22 percent of men who go to spas do so to get their toes done,” she said.

If that’s true, they’re not doing any bragging about it. Anecdotally, I’ve talked to many men who enjoy spas, but none who’ve confessed to getting a pedicure. Perhaps, it’s because men are hard wired to believe, as I’ve been instructed by my wife that “feet should be smelled not seen.”

She may be prejudiced by near constant exposure to mine. They’re everything I try not to be.

I try and comport myself as a gentleman. I wear nice clothes, exercise and address people with refined manners. But if I am a gentleman, my feet are outlaw bikers. They’re scarred, mean-looking rascals. Tattoo-like bruises mar several stubbed toes and one ragged nail makes the left foot look as if it's walking around brandishing a drawn knife and looking for a fight. If you saw them by themselves strolling down the sidewalk without the rest of me to soften their appearance, you’d cross the street.

But despite their haggard appearance, I’ve always considered them to be a pair of sissies. They whimper barefoot on a freshly mown lawn and practically shriek out loud when subjected to things like hot beach sand or pool-side asphalt.

Lately, however, I’ve been immersing myself in foot literature. There was a great Adam Sternbergh article (http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/) in the April 28 edition of New York Magazine that reads: “You Walk Wrong: It took four million years of evolution to perfect the human foot, but we’re wrecking it with every step we take.”

The article says our mistreatment of our feet leads to back and joint pain that’s become unnecessarily endemic to growing old.

Maybe it's time to give more healthcare priority to the feet. That’s why I opted for the Wintergarden Spa’s $75 Sole Sundae pedicure, “designed for the ice cream lover in all of us. First soak in your favorite flavor of ice cream. Next enjoy a scrub in a refreshing sherbet flavor, followed by a choice of foot mask in chocolate, caramel or marshmallow. Top off this Sundae with Body Icing infused with Shea Butter and vitamins that will leave your appetite wanting more.’

The sundae treatment includes soothing elements that mimic ice cream in texture and scent.

“You can’t eat it, but it always makes me hungry,” said pretty blond pedicurist Ashley Newman as she began to massage my tootsies after they’d been soaking for 10 minutes in a warm pool of strawberry-scented water.

It didn’t take long for my feet to fall in love with Ashley. No one had ever treated them the way she did and for the first time I began to understand men for whom the foot is fetishized, and wishing I’d found a woman who felt that way. She rubbed, massaged them with manicured fingers and charmed them when she daintily turned away to cough, rather than risk offending a foot. It was very sweet.

And heavenly. I can’t get my wife to rub my back after I’ve spent an afternoon chopping firewood she’ll use to comfort herself on bitter winter days. There’s no way she’d consider rubbing the ugly feet as a means of giving me physical pleasure. Heck, getting her to rub anything to give me physical pleasure usually takes some gentle persuading, a lit candle and and a nice bottle of cabernet.

Not Ashley. She was into it.

“My friends are always asking me, ‘How can you rub some of those ugly feet?’ she said. “I tell them I can rub any foot that’s been soaked clean. But you have very nice feet. I can tell you take care of them.”

Beneath the dark chocolate scrub, I could tell the boys were blushing. They were unaccustomed to such flattery.

She also shared some fascinating feet facts. For instance, pregnant women are discouraged from getting vigorous foot massage or reflexology, the practice that believes all the bodily constitutions are legislated through precise nerves in our feet and hands.

“They say touching a pregnant woman’s ankle right . . . here . . .” -- ooh! ahhh! -- “can cause her to go right into labor.”

Nothing so dramatic happened when she touched me there, a reassuring sign for a man who was still a little self-conscious about the procedure.

For me, the foot massage was a heavenly revelation. It was better than any back massage I’d ever gotten. Sure, the back has its burdens, but when you think about it rationally, what part of the body undergoes more daily punishment than the feet?

I confess, too, that the encounter left me feeling playful enough that Ashley and I agreed to another act of intimacy that, try as I might, I couldn’t conceal from my wife and daughters. And then I strode out of there on refreshed feet, still a red-blooded American male confident in his stride and the future of his feet.

A red-blooded American male with five toenails alternately painted Disco Inferno Pink and five colored a boldly cerulean Blue Me Away.