It’s time for another “thought” column. This last month has been one of the busiest of my entire life. Between umpiring and working at the newspaper, my summer has been hijacked! With just over a month until I’m back at school, I’m not exactly sure what I should do to try and get the most out of my summer.
Umpiring - This was the first summer I did not play baseball since fourth grade. It certainly doesn’t feel that way with the amount of baseball games I’ve been a part of, but I miss it. I’ve written in the past about how much I miss playing the sport I love. Umpiring helps fill the void, but I miss lacing up the cleats and throwing the ball around. The vibration when the bat makes contact or the feeling after throwing strike three for the final out of the game. There’s nothing like it.
When I feel this way I am reminded of what the critics said to me when I complained about not getting to play enough. “You’ll have the rest of your life to play baseball. You can play for the Reds the rest of your life.” But we don’t have a town team anymore. We don’t even have a legion team this year.
Looking back at the old newspapers, every one of them is filled with baseball stories the entire summer. Going back a hundred years, there are baseball game stories in the paper. This year there won’t be any. It makes me think about what people will think in 25, 50, or 100 years from now when they look back to do “looking back” and realize there aren’t any baseball articles.
Thinking that far ahead makes me wonder if there will still be a newspaper here that long from now. As long as the town is still thriving, I’m certain there will still be a newspaper. It’s more of a question of if my family has what it takes to continue in a business many think is dying.
It certainly isn’t easy. I love doing my job and I know my family enjoys it, but what about our readers? Often I only hear complaints, or rather, nothing at all from people around town. Once in awhile I will ask one of my old teachers I run into what they think of my column. Often they haven’t read in weeks, or they say they don’t get the paper. It makes me wonder how much people actually care about the work we do every week.
On the bright side - There are people I see, often, who tell me how proud they are to see me following in my father’s footsteps. They tell me how much they like seeing my writing every week and it makes my stomach get that nice feeling, like a ball of goodness welling up in my stomach. It’s moments like those that make the hours of tedious minutiae worth it.
I think the problem isn’t exactly what people think it is when they say newspapers are dying. People just don’t read like they used to. Some people say fads come and go and I’m starting to think that newspapers are kind of like that. This generation may not read as much, but the next generation could be the exact opposite. Previous generations have all had specific preferences that identified them, and who knows, the next generation could be defined as avid readers.
But what do I know - I’m only 20 years old. I am ignorant and naive in many many respects and most of the time, I can guarantee, I don’t know everything about what I am speaking of, or in this case, writing about.
Thought for the day - People often don’t know as much as they think they do. I certainly don’t!