Sunday Morning Rituals

What is it about Sunday Morning. A quiet time. No rush and maybe a third cup of coffee. Brunch with friends and jazz music is always welcome. There is something that was part of my ritual for years and years and now it is fading away. The Sunday Paper. Don't get me wrong, they are out there, but I find I don't rush out to get them like I did. Oh when I am on vacation I still snag a copy of The New York Times, but it is now more a luxury at anywhere from $5-12 depending where I am picking up my copy. It still has the best bang for your buck. Unlike the local papers in Seattle and Portland that have become nearly two-thirds ads these days. Most people used to buy them for the TV listings, but even those are going to the wayside. There are now versions for the Kindle and ipod. But oh to look back and see what they were. They were pillars of the weekend and had my attention for several hours. Never got to the crossword puzzles, but such great writing. Sad to know that the USA Today is now ahead of The New York Times in circulation. Times do change.

The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. West Coast founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest by circulation and the 19th largest daily newspaper in the country.

Delivering Oregonians was my first job as a kid and I did it with pride. Earned many a trip to Disneyland and Dad would always help in the rain and snow. Woody was my boss and he was a hoot. I read the Oregonian for years and it was sad to let go when I moved to Seattle, but I will tell you this, the Seattle Times has nothing on The Oregonian. Now the New York Times is a whole different story. What a treat.

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded, and continuously published in New York City, since 1851. The New York Times has won 104 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization. Its website is the most popular American online newspaper website, receiving more than 30 million unique visitors per month.

Although the print version of the paper remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States, as well the third largest newspaper overall, behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, its weekday circulation has fallen since 1990 (not unlike other newspapers) to fewer than one million copies daily, for the first time since the 1980s. Nicknamed "The Gray Lady", and long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record", the Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which also publishes 18 other regional newspapers including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.

The paper's motto, printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is "All the News That's Fit to Print." It is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style, and Features. The New York Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six columns, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography. The New York Times was made available on the iPhone and iPod Touch in 2008, and on the iPad mobile devices in 2010. Ah, you can't stop progress!

All of the papers are slowly dying it seems and I am guilty of not buying them like I used to, but I do still have a ritual and that is every Sunday morning from 7-9:30, I turn on the TV and sit back and watch with pleasure and coffee in hand, CBS Sunday morning.


The program was originally conceived to be a broadcast version of a Sunday newspaper rotogravure section, most typified by the Sunday New York Times Magazine. The format was originally aired six days a week, with the weekday version named "Monday Morning," "Tuesday Morning," etc. The weekday broadcasts were originally anchored by Bob Schieffer (Kuralt eventually took over the daily role, and was for a short time joined by Diane Sawyer as co-host). However, the weekday show's then-limited 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. ET air time (the long-running Captain Kangaroo was entrenched in the 8 o'clock hour) hampered its ability to compete with NBC's and ABC's rival two-hour morning shows, though it expanded to an hour and a half in 1981. The Sunday version, however, survived, and remains in its original form.

OF NOTE: 30 years ago today, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time on the CBS Evening News. Just an observation.

Many thanks to Google Images and Wikipedia for helping with information on this post.