Back when the world was at peace and I was a first grader attending Bogalusa Elementary School, I became a big-time salesman.
While reading a comic book I discovered an ad recruiting young boys like me to become a Grit Family Newspaper salesman.
The rewards were overwhelming to a 6-year-old. I could win a baseball glove, a basketball, binoculars or even a scooter by going from door to door, offering the weekly newspaper for a dime.
I could keep 3 cents for every paper I sold and send in 7 cents to the company, so I signed up. With my parents’ blessings, I was off to the races, running my newfound business as a Grit salesman.
I can still remember that canvas bag slung over my shoulder with the roll of papers inside. I can still smell the ink from the papers and the thrill I received with every sale and the exchange of a dime from the customer’s hand to mine.
I didn’t have to go from door to door, as my dad owned and operated a dry cleaner there on Columbia Street in Bogalusa. My sales came easy as I approached the customers that came in to drop off their clothes or pick them up.
I soon became a successful entrepreneur with a pocket full of dimes and my canvas bag with a roll of newspapers.
I don’t remember ever selling enough papers to win one of those incentive prizes like a baseball glove or a scooter, but my life was revolutionized by my brief stint as a newspaper salesman.
The paper got started in Pennsylvania in 1885 by a German immigrant, Dietrick Lamade.
He insisted his writers avoid any crime stories or warnings of wars. He wanted a clean publication that brought hope and cheer.
It soon caught on fast as a feel-good newspaper that supplied weekly stories of family entertainment, sold by young entrepreneurs such as me in rural settings and towns in all 48 mainland states.
The publication swelled to over 1.5 million copies at its peak in 1969. It was a fixture in small town USA until...
Until printing costs escalated and the once 44-page edition had to be reduced, and sales fell off so much that today it’s only a 150,000-copy bi-monthly magazine offered in a few venues like Tractor Supply.
Like the dinosaurs, it came and went not because it lost its value, but from circumstances beyond the publisher’s control.
This article is in support of the newspaper for which I have been writing for 11 years, the Enterprise-Journal.
It too is being restricted by the ever-rising costs of publication, having to reduce circulation from six days a week to five in 2018, and now to twice a week.
The editor, my dear friend Jack Ryan, is doing everything possible to keep this great publication going.
In my humble opinion, the internet is a huge detriment to buying and reading a hard copy of the news.
Even the iconic presses like The Wall Street Journal are taking a huge hit because of the internet. It has changed everything.
People 40 and under seldom read a newspaper. They don’t have to; the internet keeps them well informed and entertained.
But here is where a hometown paper like the Enterprise-Journal comes into play.
The internet does not have you and me in mind.
The local heroes we rub shoulders with are never going to be mentioned or their good deeds online, but when you pick up a hard copy of the Journal, they will be.
The Enterprise-Journal is published with you and me in mind. I encourage every one of you, my readers who have been following me these 11 years, to do as I have done, and NOT drop your subscription. Rather, keep an old friend alive and well by continuing to subscribe.
Join me in keeping our own good times paper in force and not go the way of the dinosaurs and a Grit for a dime.
God bless you and God bless America.
