What's Old Is New

Given that I do a great deal of thinking, idle and otherwise, my impending layoff in the summer of 2016 (that will be another post) has provided me much food for thought. My "little grey cells" as Hercule Poirot might have said, Agatha Christie's fictional detective, have been working overtime on what my next job and/or career will be.

With any new beginning comes new habits. These can be stress-filled at first, but later become so entrenched that you wonder what the worry was about in the first place.

After a lunch last spring in Asbury Park, it was the casual remark of a mentor of mine and lunch companion that day which caused me to consider why I had stopped my life long habit of reading The NY Times every day. When I moved to Forest Hills, NY in 2002 there were newspaper vending boxes on two corners near our apartment, and I befriended our newspaper vendor on nearby Queens Boulevard. It probable cost about $6.00 a week to read it everyday. Then the price inched up again and again where it became an expense I started to notice. Today it would cost closer to $23.00 a week to buy it at the news stand.

I have enjoyed having The Wall Street Journal delivered to my door since 2002 when I inherited the former tenant's subscription. Shortly after it ran out I discovered one of my credit cards offered Wall Street Journal subscriptions in exchange for the points you earned for using your credit card. It didn't take me long to do the math on that one and I have had "free" newspapers ever since. Sometimes I would see the person in the early morning who delivered the paper and would tip him to also leave any extra NY Times he might have on a given morning. The NY Times appeared fairly regularly so I knew I was getting my money's worth.

It was when my regular delivery guy changed that I started to miss reading both the Journal and the "Grey Lady" as the NY Times is known. Then when the merger of my current company was announced I decided that reading the NY Times would be an excellent investment. I've rediscovered that it gives me great joy to leaf through one of the best english language newspapers in the world. Who would have thought that such a trifle would bring such pleasure. Besides feeling more connected to the city I call home, reading The NY Times keeps me in the know on the Art World and local happenings. I read about a local Italian market in Corona that we are going to visit for supplies such as olive oil and cheeses. What's old is new couldn't be more true.