No. 51: MEMOIR / How I fell in love with newspapers (and why I've never bought one in 40 years). An essay titled "Paper Boy"

My boyhood dream was to work at a daily. When I landed in a tabloid newsroom, a crisis of conscience changed my mind. It wasn't that my heart wasn't into it. It was the simple fact that I had a heart.

Off the top, a minor bit of housekeeping. I’m posting just this one essay for all readers this week—not a nod to the holidays but rather a case of bronchitis. I’ll be back in action next week with a few pieces, some free, some paid content.

At least a couple of people have asked how I set my mind on writing about sportswriting in the first person for my Audible Original and for this Substack. The idea spun out of a story that I wrote for the CBC’s literary contest. Against really long odds (more than 2,000 entries) I had made CBC’s long list, the final 30, for a piece about my awful stint at a private school. The piece…