Papering Things Over

I knew it couldn't last. I was sure the Seattle Times would win the decades long competition between our two big metropolitan dailies. I suspected from the start the PI was a flash in the pan and after a hundred and thirty-some odd years, I was proved right. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer caved and its last delivery today came with a note that it had humiliatingly transferred its subscriber list to the Times, my old route paper. For the PI, papering things are over. An on-line version will continue, for awhile at least. I'll bet it's a flash in the pan.

Though I switched over to the PI for home delivery several years ago, mostly because I thought the Times wasn't playing fair when it gave up its historic afternoon edition and decided to go head to head with the PI in the morning, the Times was the McNeely's newspaper of choice. I grew up with it and my brothers and I had Times afternoon routes with varying degrees of success, excess and trauma. Those route stories are for other posts, but I recall here a vignette specific to the Times and our lifestyle that on reflection seems mildly interesting today.

In the 50's Seattle was a serious union town. Dave Beck, the notorious Teamsters boss started his rise here; crafts unions were in constant battle with employers; everyone knew what AFL-CIO was (American Federation of Labor- Congress of Industrial Organizations, a joining together of unions). Strikes of my dad's union, Machinist Local No. 79, were fairly routine and sometimes lasted quite awhile; we became somewhat resigned to them. When the Seattle Times went on strike, however, we knew a new kind of pain. We weren't able to keep up with the comics! What was going on with the many serial stories? I read them all and was VERY concerned. Here are just a few that come immediately to mind:

Terry and the Pirates
DickTracy
Mary Worth
Brenda Starr
Smilin' Jack - you never got to see anybody's face, only a profile
Li'l Abner - especially Daisy Mae (I'm pretty sure I would have like Blondie, too, but she was in the PI)
Lil' Orphan Annie
Mr. Milquetoast, The Timid Soul
Nancy
Major Hoople (Egad!)
Gasoline Alley - the characters actually aged, though I don't think anyone died

So I was wondering how we'd ever catch up on their exploits. Not to worry it turns out because when, after several weeks, the strike ended the paper published pages and pages of the missed comics completely bringing everything up to date. We could read a whole Dick Tracy story line at once! How cool was that? We had as many as a dozen pages of comics several days in a row to get things caught up. So the Times literally papered over that problem.

I still follow comics regularly. The story lines are a bit more obscure or subtle than in the old days and more socially relevant. Now that the PI is going down I need to find a way to keep up with Drabble, Sherman and his lagoon pals and the babe in 9 Chickweed Lane and her lame boyfriend. Guess I'll just have to go on line 'cuz the PI's papering is over.