Years ago I read a column by the New York Times columnist Russel Baker in which he described a typical day. It started with sitting up in bed with a cup of coffee reading the Times. I was immediately envious, so I started going to bed earlier each night so that I’d have time to read the Times in the morning before getting ready for work.
So it was on November 10, 1989, that I opened the Times and read the headline, EAST GERMANY OPENS FRONTIER TO THE WEST FOR EMIGRATIONS OR VISITS; THOUSANDS CROSS — A Jubilant Horde — Berlin Wall is Rushed by Easterners as Travel Limits are Lifted. “Jennifer, listen to this!” I said to my wife, and proceeded to read her the entire article.
My wife has always preferred listening to the news over reading it. When she had a long commute she got most of her news listening to the local NPR station while on the road. So she was happy to listen to me read this compelling story. (It may have helped that I’d previously worked as a radio announcer for 11 years.)
The next day’s headline read Joyous East Germans Pour Through Wall; Party Pledges Freedoms, and City Exults. I read that one to Jennifer, too. Each day that week there were new developments in the opening of East Germany to the West, and each day I read the stories to Jennifer.
What we discovered was that I liked reading from the paper out loud — it let me practice the news reading that I was no longer doing professionally and it improved my retention of what I’d read — and Jennifer liked getting her news that way. It wasn’t long before I started reading other articles on the front page and then articles further on.
I’ve been reading the Times to Jennifer this way ever since; it’s been more than thirty years, or 11,234 days. (Eight or so years ago I switched from home delivery to a digital subscription and began reading the paper on my iPad. I use the Today’s Paper web app so that I see all the articles as they appear in the printed paper.)
When I retired a few years ago we were able to allocate more time to the paper and now spend 60 to 90 minutes with it each morning. I often read the top stories in their entirety and other front-page stories partway through. For the rest of the paper I read the headlines and in most cases the first couple of paragraphs.
I guess this practice is a little odd, but I can’t think of any other daily routine that we are both more devoted to.