I Needed A Compliment!

Ha! Ha! I got what I wanted. At no cost to me! And it came with no consideration from the editor of Hernando Today.

When the subscription renewal notice came due from The Tampa Tribune I set it aside while I pondered when I’d have the funds available to submit payment without adding to my credit card debt. Heck, on top of that concern, there’s always those lurking expenses that hang over my head at every turn of the new year like dark clouds of dismal misfortune – property taxes, home insurance and auto insurance, amounts that come due at times that are always inconvenient to my financial situation. Therefore, credit card balance increases give me no recourse but to cut spending… discretionary spending that might otherwise contribute to spurring economic recovery. Admittedly, I don’t like spending money but for necessities.

I had little choice but to place the renewal notice at the back of a stack of other bills that were either due upon receipt or within a two week period. Having provided months of columns of The Rae Way chock full of (too many?) words for what were two ‘contributions’ per week to the editorial pages of Hernando Today and, after dwelling for days as to whether it would be appropriate to do so, I shot off an email to the editor of Hernando Today titled “I need a compliment!” and sheepishly suggested that perhaps the newspaper could help me out with a complimentary subscription. The account number was provided.

Perhaps my mistake was sending the email to Tim Howsare, apparently a subordinate to top dog editor Chris Wessel. I typically sent my columns to both, plus Karen Raimondi, whatever position she holds in the organization. Tim shot off a quick acknowledgement to the request, explaining the decision had to be made by Mr. Wessel. A bit of confusion on my part ensued because Tim’s reply made me realize I had failed to send the request to both men.

The resulting no reply/no acknowledgement to my request meant there was ‘no way’ I would be given what must have been interpreted as an arrogant requisition. Once the deadline for payment for renewal had passed and the Tampa Tribune continued to be delivered, I contacted the newspaper’s circulation department to verify the expiration date and advised the representative I was discontinuing the subscription. I gave the rep a quick rundown on the gratis columns I had provided for Hernando Today and how I had been denied a response to my request of assistance to continue my readership of the Tribune. I expressed no animosity. I followed the general rule of expressing ‘just the facts’ with the attitude ‘that’s the way it is', i.e., whatever...

The representative gave me an offer to discount the regular yearly subscription rate from $118 to $58 but still I declined the attempt to salvage my readership. My decision was just one more hit against the paper’s circulation figures, a major selling point to prospective advertisers. I subsequently discontinued submitting column entries to Hernando Today a week after the subscription was terminated. The final The Rae Way column appeared in the August 1st edition. Good, bad, evil, virtuous – in the words of George Harrison, All Things Must Pass, the most excellent of all after-the-Beatles albums.

Still, I continued to read the Tribune but restricted it to a month of Sunday editions. Actually, it was only three Sunday editions for which I paid a premium price at my local convenience store.

Lo and behold! Just this past week I found myself securing a FREE 7-day non-subscription to the Tampa Tribune. Hot damn! Do I feel like a lucky man! And I didn’t even have to ask; circumstances of their own accord put the daily printed edition of the Tribune once again before my eyes with the resultant additional blackening of my little fingers added to the print from the other newspapers to which I subscribe. (I limit smudge marks around the house with frequent hand-washing.)

There’s no apparent explanation why my request was denied or why there was no response to my request of Hernando Today to provide to me a paid-for subscription to the Tribune. Perhaps contributing reasons were frequent references in my columns to what I had read in The New York Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, plus other periodicals. Free on-line news sources provided filler comments. Perhaps assumptions were made that, since I subscribe to these publications, and surely must pay for the delivery of each, that I have the means to pay-up for The Tampa Tribune as well.

How does the saying go? Something to the effect that only asses make assumptions? Regardless, the means by which I can ‘afford’ to subscribe to numerous newspapers and a couple of magazines is through ‘contributions’ from friends and family members. They know me very well and my habitual fascination with newspapers; it goes back to the days of my youth when the Sunday edition of the Detroit Free Press consumed much of those mornings. I would get upset when sections of the paper were left in disarray by other family members.

Therefore, folks who know me are accustomed to accommodate my request that, rather than give me a birthday or Christmas present, cash in hand allows me to continue my various subscriptions. I can’t even guess the number of near-to-nothing introductory offers for magazines (examples: Time, Bloomberg/Business Week, The New Yorker, Discover) that were never intended to be maintained after the trial period.
Newspapers are my cherished source of current events, the variety of which to some may seem redundant but each newspaper provides an array of different reporting techniques and unique takes on all the news I care to read. The content of multiple sources of editorial pages from these purveyors of news provide me diversified and sundry points of view.

The variety of newspapers has a great, positive effect on my interpretation and understanding of what’s going in the country and the impact of world involvement will have on our national destiny. Unfortunately, what I read quite often leads me to doubt the prospects of protracted American influence in world affairs in the coming decades. Positive takes on economic indicators are most often nullified with facts and figures that reflect the reality of the alarming confrontations to our economy recovery – scary prospects that will forever mold our society into a fashion unlike that of today.

For me, to a large part the importance of local area newspapers has diminished in recent months. The Tampa Tribune lacks the degree of investigative reporting that The St. Petersburg Times provides to its readers – it wasn’t always so. But, Hernando Today by far outshines the pages of Hernando Times. Whereby Hernando Times might have two, sometimes three, pages of news with an occasional commentary from the editorial staff and a few Letters to the Editor, Hernando Today typically has a half dozen pages of news and opinions, although those opinions are quite often repetitive and tilted one-sided in their views – conservative is the descriptive word.

The one saving factor of Hernando Times is the prowess, and importance, of Dan DeWitt’s columns. Many times I’m at a loss at relating to his musings of family, personal experiences and the history of Hernando County. Still, when Dan writes about his nature outings with his son, there’s a bit of envy on my part. Unfortunately, I don’t have social connections who share my love of going places away from congestive communities. But… Dan has quite the ability and a rather impressive technique to write a column that slam-dunks local political figures and their lack of responsible insightful governance; neither do local business figures escape his in-your-face vitriols.

So, I don’t pay for The Tampa Tribune but I’m once again reading its daily printings. Neither do I pay for The St. Petersburg Times but it too finds its way to my home with my neighbor placing the paper against my garage door at the end of each day. Although not quite in the same timely manner, and understandably so, the Sunday edition of The Tennessean is sent by postal service from a friend who lives where I will eventually relocate – Nashville.