Newspapers around the country are going down. Do you know why? It's not for the reasons you have been told -- falling advertising revenues or the deluge of Web-based info, or both.

It's because nobody knows how to read a newspaper.

Most people read the newspaper at breakfast or first thing at the office, quickly and quietly (perhaps even sleepily), getting through with it with scarcely a comment before the ritual is over. No excitement there, no engagement, no drama.

Here's how we do it at Long Meadow Farm.

We're up at 6 a.m., working for an hour and a half or two hours in the cool morning. So we are at least wide awake when we head for breakfast. As we go in, someone gets the paper, the Kennebec Journal, dropped at the head of the driveway.

With five of us around the breakfast table and only four sections to a normal day's paper, competition is intense for each section, although I can always casually pick up the sports section since no one else wants to read it.

Each person holding a specific section is encouraged to read something of interest to the rest of the group. Rarely does that include any national or international news, although the recent "secret" jaunt to Argentina by South Carolina's Republican governor Mark Sanford ("hiking the Appalachian Trail"), punctuated by his romantic bloviating, was eminently readable.

On the editorial pages, only the most and least erudite letters to the editor seem to get notice, not that the rest isn't readable.

More grist is usually found in the State and Local section, like a recent story about an unauthorized mud race and keg party on Two Loon Farm in Vassalboro that ruined 15 acres of alfalfa. We all agreed the guilty ones should be forced to lick out the Aitel's cow barn as part of the punishment.

The really spectacular photo by Andy Molloy of a young man going over a dam, also in Winslow, drew hoots of derision until we learned a few days later that Andy also participated in the rescue as well as getting the shot. I was almost on the phone to Andy, to tell him, "tomorrow at noon at the New Mills Dam -- I'm going over! Be there."

Fun reading is the police blotter, where we rarely find a reference to West Gardiner, and when we do, it's always "suspicious activity on Melissa Lane," or "theft reported at store on Hallowell-Litchfield Road." We sages around the table know that the only store on the Hallowell Litchfield Road in West Gardiner is Fuller's Market.

An important part of this group exercise is to speculate and interpret the printed word, no matter how accurately: What kind of suspicious activity? Who would steal anything from Fuller's?

Real pay dirt is in the last section in which the comics, Annie's Mailbox, the daily horoscope, and Hints from Heloise are carefully hidden amid classifieds for jobs, items for sale, houses, and cars. A hackneyed gimmick from the advertising department, no doubt.

The holder of this section is required to read horoscopes pertaining to all those around the table starting with Aries (Anna), then Taurus (Molly), Gemini (Denis) Leo (Michele) and Scorpio (Jayme). The reader is encouraged to use proper emphasis and perhaps some embellishment to make it relevant to the listener. Phrases like "Love is in the air" and "your charm will win the day" always engender gag responses around the table.

Any juicy stories from Annie's mailbox are given full play and everyone is urged to provide better advice than Annie had proffered. "Just leave the jerk," or "can't you get your own act together?" are things Annie doesn't usually suggest, favoring counseling or medications instead.

Hints from Heloise is often a gold mine, featuring multiple uses for clothes pins, or ways to save money by cutting things in half (shampoo tubes, toothpaste) from people who drive monster SUVs and drink Poland Spring.

Our crew is encouraged to submit their own hints. As an example, we envision a new type of broom that has a scraper at one end and bristles at the other, so that we can scrape the kitchen floor of mud, raisins, food bits before we sweep.

Another idea had to do with saving money on outrageous pet shampooing and grooming charges: Get less demanding pets -- our two cats haven't been shampooed since they were born.

Comics? All I can say is that, for my part, I try to keep alive the spirit of Mark Trail even though everyone I know avoids reading about his adventures. Dilbert and Zits are favored; Family Circus usually draws derisive laughter.

So never read your newspaper alone or quietly!

 

Denis Thoet, with his partner Michele Roy, own and manage Long Meadow Farm in West Gardiner, longmeadowfarm@roadrunner. com