I love the smell of the newspaper when I open it up over coffee in the morning.
I think of seeing Ben Bradlee striding across the newsroom when Barry was caught in a seedy hotel with a crack pipe; the deaf typesetters signing to each other in paste up; the roar of the press under the gaze of men with inky hands. I think of the bundles of papers still warm off the rollers.
Early edition. Late edition. Black star edition.
Paper and ink mixed together like a bad temporary tattoo, the world in my hands, touching... easily tossed under the Christmas tree as blotter, but filled with stories more likely to be remembered because they rubbed off on your finger tips.
Oily grit that had to be scrubbed to get off — a true measure of the realness the words described.
I once cut an article out of one and gave it to a therapist who laughed like she was receiving a strange gift for the past, which indeed it was.
But it was truer than a phone app.