My Mouse took this picture, not me. We were doing the usual urban hiking thing down by Barton Dam last Sunday and I was taking some pictures of flowers and we saw some beautiful-looking purples down a short but steep dirt/gravel embankment and she grabbed my cam, I guess thinking that I might not be capable of scrambling down there. Truth be told, I certainly could’ve scrambled down there but I really didn’t want to. But I thought I saw forget-me-nots down there too. I think I told her that those would be really hard to photograph but yaknow, my Mouse can be much more intrepid than I am and she managed to get *this* photo with *my* camera (which isn’t a bad camera) and it is *much* better than any forget-me-not photo I have tried to take this year. And I have tried…

174 years. The paper that I have often referred to (affectionately) as the Ann Arbor Snooze published its last paper today. I have mixed feelings about this that I have written about before. On one hand, I am going to sorely miss having a paper copy of the newspaper to read at the end of the day. On the other hand, printing umpteen gazillion newspapers every day has got to be taking out a lot of trees (I took a lot of them out myself at work this week but that’s a whole ‘nother story and, believe me, you do not wanta know). So maybe this *is* the future. I am still sad, well, maybe not sad, shell-shocked might be the best word, that I will not be receiving a daily *local* newspaper after today.

I *am* sad thinking about what so many A2 Snooze employees are going through right now. I have never actually *lost* a job, but I have quit two jobs in my post-college life and, in both cases, I was not facing the unemployment line or any kind of soup kitchen. Thanks to being married to someone who has been a little more focused on a career than I ever have been. Like, what do I want to do when I grow up? I do okay in that respect if and when someone actually sees beyond the craziness and hires me. I show up, even when there’s a ton of snow. I work hard and I have basic writing skills (important) and I get “nitsy” when I don’t have enough to do.

(Whew, looking back, I sure got off on a self-centered tangent there. What I meant to say is that I know what it’s like to have to change your career path midway through life. It is not easy and I wish all of those folks the best of luck.)

I am not sure that I will make the effort to go to the website that’s supposed to replace the paper. But we’ll see. In the long run, I think we need to stop chopping down trees to make newspapers. I think my kids get their news on the internet and may occasionally read a newspaper. I don’t *think* either of them subscribe to one. I do worry about our older folks who haven’t and won’t make the switch to computers.

And so. On the last day of our local newspaper, no less than *three* newspapers were delivered to our doorstep/driveway. Our last edition of the A2 Snooze. The Detroit Free Press. And a new paper called the Ann Arbor Journal. Not sure what I will do…

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 7:14 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.