My Christmas 2008 Prayer

The heartbreaking photo on page three in yesterday's City Paper of the man who often panhandles near the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, who is missing so many pieces of himself I can't bear to count, made me think to read last year's My Christmas Prayer. But in that missive, it's the wind-up - all I had read in the Sun that day - not the pitch, that I'm still chewing over, maybe because today I collaborated on another stunning image with amazingly gifted Sun photographer Amy Davis, for perhaps the last time, for maybe my last Sun food story. I am told the budget for most freelancers was wiped out, and with that, my favorite paying, creative gig since 1991. There's symmetry, at least - Amy was the first Sun photographer with whom I worked.

I've taken to weighing our emaciated hometown newspaper of record every morning; it was at its lightest ten days ago at 4.95 ounces (update on 26 January - 3.7 ounces). Usually awaiting me at 4 AM, thanks to my carrier who knows I really really must have my paper first thing, I pick it up and utter, yes, a prayer, that it not be the last time to appear in my vestibule.

Bizarre, but true - I have never missed reading a Morning Sun, Sunday Sun, or Evening Sun (may it rest in peace) since kindergarten - reading the paper in arrears the few brief times I ventured from range. A priceless childhood memory, and no doubt the impetus behind the obsession, is of sitting with my father every morning, he with his coffee and me with my tea, reading the paper in silence. In fact, I was not allowed to speak until he finished the paper. He often disappeared to soak in his tub and converse about what he had just read with Carl Schoettler, a career, now-retired, Sun reporter. My daddy got lots of Sun ink, making the news (often hilariously, when being a hometown character was akin to being a hero) and also commenting on everything in endless letters to the editor.

And so I followed in his footsteps, insisting on a cone of Sun-reading silence; doing newsworthy, albeit not so crazy things (hmmm, well, there was that front-page goldfish incident); writing letters and commentary; making decades-long friendships with reporters and photographers; but also being lucky enough to write food and features stories and style photographs.

Uh, sorry to be post-tense so post-haste. But when the Sun and the Washington Post are set to share content and even the solvency of the New York Times is questioned, I naturally think the Baltimore Sun probably mirrors that (lack of) fortune. And BTW, the check for my last story and photo bounced and I'm doubting I'll get paid for what I just wrote and styled.

My Christmas 2008 prayer is that 365 days from now, I am still getting the paper, whatever it weighs, through my mail slot (at 4 AM, please) and that none of my friends or anyone else at the Sun is bought out or booted in the process.

Heck, I'll go for a miracle - that a local interest buys the paper and pulls it back from the brink and that youngsters - and their parents - again find that starting the day with the newspaper is non-negotiable.