Now, I'm Not Complaining, But???

[Henry]

I keep seeing 8 to 16 inches of snow, Well, not here at my place.  Took my trusty 18 inch ruler out with me around 4:30 when I went out to get the mail and Messenger and found in between my house and garage, I had an accumulation of only 2 inches.  Out in the driveway, where there was already snow on the ground before this storm started, the most I could find was 4 inches.

Maybe God is smiling down on this old couple here on the Fletcher Road.  Heard the Fletcher Town Truck say he had about 5 inches up around the Mayotte Road - Going to have to snow like blazes to get the minimum 8 inches they are predicting up in this area.

University Mall will be closing in about 4 minutes, at 6 p.m., however, it isn't in my plans to go anyplace.

[Henry]

Well, I just trudged out through 6 inches of snow, out to the paper box and guess what, No Free Press.  I did wake up to my driveway all plowed (Chris Howard does a great job and is very dependable), Now I just have to plug in my little Toro Snow Shovel and it won't be long and everything will be back to normal.  Needless to say, I drove nowhere yesterday. There didn't seem to be a lot of traffic last night, so I guess everybody is getting older and wiser, although I wouldn't say those two words always go together.

[MikeF9]

I didn't get my Free Press, either.

[stewarp]

We did not get our paper either though my sister-in-law did on the Cambridge route of Fairfax.

[Loctavious]

you should start a betting pool for when it's not coming - it might make the situation tolerable untilt they can finally fill the void(s) ( or the paper goes under).  You'd think with unemployment skyrocketing - someone would step up right?!

[greenek]

Yesterday's paper was in our blue chute when we got home last night. This morning, we got another copy of yesterday's paper.

[mirjo]

If anyone reads 7 Days, the lead story this week is on the Free Press. The top dog who was hired in 07 (a Gannett prodigy) thinks that the Freep is doing great and there are no problems at all!! He said there is more local news in it now than before and the short story style is a throw back to the 50's & 60's.

Would you agree with his assessment of his paper  Henry or do you think he's simply blowing smoke up the backside stack?

I think the guy doesn't really understand the place he moved to. Personally, I think the paper might be better off it were locally owned. People here prefer to do business with people they know--not large out-of-state corporations. I would be willing to bet that you might not feel quite so irritated at your Messenger not showing up, knowing it's a small local operation and you could call there to speak to an actual person to find out the problem. Perhaps even Emerson Lynn himself, if he were in the office.

[Henry]

I have to agree, and never really thought of it before, but I do have a very different feeling about the Messenger and its people.  In regards to speaking with Emerson Lynn, I actually go in one time and asked to speak to him and the girl at the counter went in and got him and we had a good conversation.  Quite a few years ago, I brought Albert Rich down to St. Albans with me as he had a treasured photo that I was going to use in a Messenger article.  Albert wasn't aware of what you did when you scanned a photo, so when we got down to the Messenger, I asked for Gary Rutkowski.  Gary came out and when he saw that Albert was apprehensive about what he was going to do with the photo, he told Albert, "Come with me."  He brought Albert out back and explained in every detail just what he was doing.  I believe the photo was of the State Department building Route 104 just North of Fairfax.  Albert had a picture of Andrew King's snow machine that Andrew had built back in the 1920's and Gary asked him if he scan a photo of that and Albert told him he could.  When we got out to the car, Albert said, "He's a nice young fella, isn't he?"

The other difference, other than calling the Messenger and getting a real person is the reporters.  Leon Thompson and Stina Plant the photographer are really very accessible also.  Leon & Stina came out to Bob Ovitt's sugar house a few years ago when Bob was boiling really early and took pictures and wrote a story on it.  Stina sent me all of the photos she took for use on my Web site.  The only thing any of them ask is to give them credit for what they did, and that certainly is no problem.

I can't really talk about missing paper deliveries, as you can always depend on them.  For many, many years, Pete Ashline delivered the Messenger up in this area.  Pete drove like a maniac, cutting across the road, then back across, leaving the Messenger at many places around this area.  The only time he missed was in the miraculously occasional fender bender he might get into in the pursuit of his deliveries in record time.

Bottom line, I guess I probably think differently of the people at the Messenger than I do at the Free Press.  The relationship of course goes back many years, even before my high school years in the 1950s when one of my classmates was a sports reporter for the Messenger while in high school.  The Messenger has always been big on reporting local High School Sports.  Just a few weeks before the Steeple Market burned, I saw a young man come in the store, I believe he was a BFA Student, pick up the St. Albans Messenger and go to the sports section to read what I assume was a writeup on a Fairfax game.  He then folded it up neatly, put it back and walked out.  Needless to say, I am sure he knew which paper to look at to find the local news, which is something, I think most of us like, something we can relate to.

It is much easier to become upset with people you don't know than people you do.

[mirjo]

EXACTLY! What you described Henry is quite simply known as customer service, something large corporations are not known for. The way I see it, a company like Gannett doesn't really know or care what happens here in Vermont, we're just another notch in their corporate belt and if readership of their paper is down, well it must be that the locals aren't reading it, not anything on their part.

What's interesting is that while daily paper sales were declining for the Freep, the Franklin County Sunday Edition saw an increase, but they axed it!!! This says something about Franklin County wanting to read the news especially about their neighborhoods and shows Gannett to be a little out of touch with this small market in the north!