When I was 12 years old, delivering the Vancouver Sun was one of my first jobs. Originally (or maybe just during the period when I was delivering) it was an evening paper that was published in the afternoon, which meant that I could deliver them after school. Riding my bike around the neighborhood in the pre-dusk hours was sweet, delivering information to people's doorsteps. In the pre-internet age my bike was the modem, how fast it was, depended on my mood.
This all changed when the paper switched to a morning format which meant that I had to get up at 5:45 every morning in order to make sure the information was waiting for the customers when they got up. Delivering news was no longer fun, it was a chore, it was a job. I will admit though that once in a while, on a clear morning, just as the sun was coming up, and I had already got my delivery under way, I had an overwhelming a feeling of serenity. I was the only person on the suburban streets, my biked owned the road, it owned the neighborhood. I am the information deliverer. This is when I began to actually read the Vancouver Sun. I would divide my entire delivery into sections, and once I completed a section I would read a section of the newspaper. Of course the comics were always a draw, I got addicted to Rex Morgan M.D., three panels at a time slowly drawing out the medical soap opera. My favourite sections continue to be the page that has all the weather around the world, sports box scores, and obituaries. I suppose that means I'm not praising the writing of the paper, which I believe people in this city will agree on the low quality of it, but then it's hard to find quality journalistic writing especially for local news. It's also the only physical paper that you can get in the city, besides the New York Times, that actually prints the New York Times Crossword.
It will not be too long into the future when this paper will cease to exist, and that boy who ruled the suburban neighborhood will just be a faded memory. read more