Readers
Pony Express, papers put out to pasture
Apropos the twin demise of the Tucson Citizen and the Rocky Mountain News.
At the U.S. Post Office Museum in D.C. (right next to Union Station) is a replica of a wicked “path” visitors can walk, which passes through the mostly wooded precursor of U.S. #1 dangerous woods from Philadelphia and all the towns in New Jersey, southern New York and Connecticut, to Boston and Maine.
It’s meant to reproduce the route our mail persons (men of course) rode on their ponies to deliver the mail.
And why, in the 18th century, was delivering the mail including the weekly newspapers, so important? Because it was believed(!) that without news (political news), citizens could not properly exercise their democratic rights intelligently; and without that exercise, their democracy could not flourish.
In those woods lay not just the proverbial rain, snow, sleet and “gloom of night, and the ever-present risk of a pony stumbling, but panthers! Panthers – yet they rode and delivered and democracy flourished.
That’s the role newsprint has played in our history.
What lies ahead?
Sheila Tobias
Local family tradition was delivering its all
The Tucson Citizen: a family tradition where my father and uncle worked in the early ’40s, which my brothers delivered in the 1960s, which my sister and I carried from the corner of our street where they were dropped off back in the old days.
We’d carry the bundles back to the house, fold the papers and put them into our brothers’ bags on their bikes for delivery.
We collected the subscription money for them, and they kept the tips. We were only girls after all!
Decades later, I would become a monthly columnist for four years. I was proud to be one of your monthly columnists and counted that as one of my claims to fame.
I also am proud that at least two other papers in the country reprinted several of my Citizen columns. Keep the traditions going; save our paper.
Yolanda D. Herrera
community advocate
former Citizen columnist
Investor could buffet deadly blows to Citizen
I’ve taken the Citizen since 1964 when we moved to Tucson. My son was a paperboy for a long time.
The Citizen is my source of information about what’s happening in Tucson, Arizona and the world. I always read the headline on the front page and then the editorial pages and other internal pages and then the comics!
I’m in my 80s and I still like to read Charlie Brown (Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Dennis, Luann, Hi and Lois, Spiderman, Rex Morgan, Between Friends and Brenda Starr!
And my son and I love to read Prince Valiant on Saturdays.
I even read the writers I don’t like! Their opinions are for the birds, but I read them so I can say, “you jerks.”
When I think of the Citizen being no more, I want to cry. I won’t take the Star or the Republic. I’ll just have to watch TV news now. But it won’t be the same.
Why doesn’t someone ask Warren Buffett to buy the historic Citizen?
I hope you can read this; I’d rather talk. When (Michael) Chihak was there, I’d call, and he always answered the phone and he never acted like he didn’t want to talk a short time. He was so nice.
I sure did miss “Ask Beth.” She’d always amused me, and if she didn’t know the answer she’d say she would answer the next day.
E. DAVIS
Reader’s sentiments cobble our hobble
I have been an on-and-off subscriber to the Citizen for more than 60 years. I have a 52-year-old son who received great training wrapping, collecting and delivering the Citizen when he was about 12.
I have loved Corky Simpson and other sportswriters because of the encouragement and constructive criticism they have written.
I will miss my carrier, who places the paper accessible for someone my age.
Bless you all! Good luck.
LETITIA COBBLE
Dear old friends sadly parting ways
I moved to Tucson in 1965, and I missed my hometown paper very much. When I read the Citizen, it was a lot like my hometown paper.
I have been a subscriber to the Citizen for a long time and have placed many ads in the Citizen and I have always gotten very good service from the Citizen.
I have loved reading the Citizen at night after I get home from work. I am sorry to hear that the Citizen will be no more!
I am 76 years old, and I pray that someone will keep the Citizen going a few more years.
On March 21, I will cry on the inside because I have lost a dear old friend. Thank you, Citizen, for many years of good reading. I will miss you very much. The Citizen is not a perfect paper. But it is a very good paper!
JAMES F. BURTON
We’ve shared kicks en route to 66
Moved to Tucson from Chicago in September 1943. The Tucson Citizen has been our newspaper in our household since then. Thank you very much for all these years.
Frances Millbrandt