By Mike Olszewski
What was the worst job you ever had?
Hands down, my worst was my first, delivering The Plain Dealer. This isn’t a slam at the PD. It was one of two well-respected daily papers when I was a kid and is still with us today.
My gripe centers on a 14-year-old being pushed into a route that had me getting up at 5 a.m. seven days a week, battling snowstorms, stray animals and sleepy drivers; then later trying to collect money from people who didn’t answer their door. There was a guy in an iron lung who had a mirror pointed out his bedroom window and stared at me when I rang the doorbell. What am I supposed to do? Wave?
Even my parents stiffed me, claiming they got a free subscription. One of my junior high school friends loved his route. He delivered to two high-rises, was always indoors and took an elevator when he went collecting. I eventually convinced my parents to let me give up the route to a kid down the street.
Turning the Page
Here’s my point: Traditional media moved online long ago, and most traditional newspapers don’t print every day. I get one delivered six days a week just for the crossword puzzle, and it’s as thick as a church bulletin. It’s a far cry from when we had two (and at one point three) daily papers.
The Cleveland Press closed in 1982 after a 103-year run. It was one of the most influential papers in the country (along with the PD) but a lot of factors — loss of ad revenue, a bad economy and competition from electronic media —sealed its fate. There’s an old saying that journalists are the “midwives of history,” but how do we access that history?
A huge file of newspaper clippings and thousands of photos that ran in the Press were donated to Cleveland State University’s Special Collections library. The problem right now is that the collection is not available to the public.
You can find some related photos at the Cleveland Public Library’s Main Branch, but what if I want to read a specific issue of the Press? That’s where CPL has an advantage. Their online research database page can link you to the complete run of the Plain Dealer, Call & Post and other publications… but no Press.
Cleveland State has been trying to get copies of the Press digitized for years. A handful of dedicated volunteers are in the process of working with other libraries and organizations to determine how to digitize the full run of the Press, pay for it, and get it online. With luck, the daily record of our past lives in Northeast Ohio could soon be just a few keystrokes away.
BOOMER TRIVIA: Last issue, I mentioned the ‘70s comedy, “Animal House” and its link to Northeast Ohio. In part, the movie was based on a special issue of National Lampoon magazine, a parody of a 1964 yearbook for C. Estes Kefauver High School in “Dacron, Ohio” (a reference to the city Akron and to the cheap polyester fabric, Dacron). It focuses heavily on student Larry Kroger who is also a character in “Animal House.” Coincidentally, it introduces the fictional TV station WOIO years before Channel 19 got those call letters.
Next time, let’s stick with newspapers. This novelist, a long-time columnist at the Cleveland Press, was a favorite of renowned horror author Stephen King. Name that writer.
