Extra!

[nwfloridafalconfan]

50 years ago today, I arrived home from school and set out on my bike on my 3+ mile paper route, delivering the Rochester Times-Union to customers in and around Livonia Center, NY. While the Times-Union was an "evening" paper, it was printed mid-afternoon so it contained mostly yesterday's news. Many customers anxiously awaiting their papers met me at their front doors, only to be disappointed by a lack of any word of the assassination. Remember that this was a time when we received much of our detailed news reporting on a delayed basis on newsprint with printer's ink that blackened our fingers, and not from instantaneous tweets, blogs, emails, and online updates. While I was out delivering the regular edition, my district manager called and left word that an Extra Edition was on the way. I'd seen plenty of black and white era movies featuring newsboys hawking extras on busy city street corners, but in my 3+ years of rural newspaper delivery, November 22, 1963 was the only day I experienced an Extra Edition. As I retraced my route with a bicycle basket full of Extras sometime after 7 PM, I was struck by the immensity of delivering the first in-depth printed accounts of the day's shocking events to so many households in our community. That memory stays with me to this day.

[Donna]

Great story Paul!! That was just a tragic day! 

[MAK]

Thanks for sharing Paul! A sad day indeed...

[Kris G.]

Great story, Paul.  I was a 16 year old HS Junior when this happened...was in French class when the announcements came over the loud speaker at Arcade Central School.  50 yrs later, I still have the Life and Look magazines that my parents subscribed to, showing all the pictures of the events.  Very sad time in our history...

[Shaky]

Remember that this was a time when we received much of our detailed news reporting on a delayed basis on newsprint with printer's ink that blackened our fingers, and not from instantaneous tweets, blogs, emails, and online updates.

And 50 years before that, when radio and movie news reels didn't exist, people received all their news via newspapers.