Here I sit on Chebeague Island, idled with my foot in a cast and The Working Waterfront by my side. A rustle through its pages and I can learn what’s going on along the Maine coast. Or, I can pop into my laptop for the paper’s latest E-Weekly and see how other islands nearby, or off in the North Sea, are generating their own electricity.
It brings community connectivity that I appreciate all the more after years of working abroad.
Funny how we not only depend on our newspapers for information, but also how they become part of our daily lives, like good friends. The Working Waterfront goes along with me just about anywhere, just as another good rag once did.
That rag, the International Herald Tribune, is no more. Its demise this October reminded me of how valuable newspapers are. A fearless friend, international journalist Tarzie Vittachi, introduced me to his favorite “rags,” a term of endearment, meaning that in their pages lay straight talk, a platform for humanitarian action or a retreat for just plain fun.
The Tribune offered all of that and more. I’ll miss seeing it on the newsstand by the American Express Office in Piazza di Spagna, or at the bookstore in the Semiramis Hotel, giving an the excuse for timeout away from the fray of Cairo’s Corniche.
For 5 Egyptian pounds I could leave the hassle and wander the galleries of Paris, read the comics, then tuck the prize away to do the crossword puzzle while the UNICEF driver, Khaled Embarez, drove me through the endless fray of traffic.
Those stolen moments recaptured the magic of my first discovery of the International Herald Tribune in 1962 when four of us trekked from the Goethe Institute at Kochel am See in Bavaria to Rome and then to the border of Italy with Yugoslavia at Muggia.
The lira I handed over then were part of a spree after cashing travelers checks from my parents at the American Express Office in the Piazza di Spagna. Nowhere on the trip did I get more of a sense of finding a reassuring escape from an adventure that was surely outside my comfort zone.
The New York Herald Tribune had arrived at our doorstep in Princeton when I was a girl, along with the milk in the morning. I learned to read, starting with its comics and headlines and then moving on to polio cases and the McCarthy hearings.
Standing at 19 years old in a sunbathed piazza far from home, I remembered my mother’s surprise when she discovered me sounding out my way into the New York of her childhood. It was a maternal link, an umbilical cord thrown out to me again in Rome like a life preserver. The paper was not the same, but the quality journalism and comics were, and that was enough to hook me.
Later, each time I was in a tough spot, I’d angle for that escape hatch. In Damascus there was no hope, even at the Sheraton Hotel, nor on missions to Baghdad, but in Amman during the Gulf Wars, when I could afford to buy papers every day, I’d pester the bookstore owner at the Intercontinental Hotel for the latest International Tribune. The last week’s worth became my silent companion to Damascus and Baghdad, a comfort that went beyond the articles, all of which I read to the last word, along with every detail of the apartments for rent in Paris.
The New York Times has us believe that their new version of this old favorite will be as good or better. What about Souren Melikian, the International Tribune art critic, at the latest art show in Paris, or the want ads for a personable driver from Paris to Madrid? Will we still be able to dream about a new adventure, and at the same feel as if the milk has just come to the door and someone is making waffles in the kitchen?
May The Working Waterfront flourish, protecting a landing spot for maritime ventures, new perspectives and debate. With it here, anchored by my side, I can bring the latest catch aboard, imagine myself out on Samso Island in Denmark headed offshore to check out the wind turbines, or muse about chartering a landing craft that carries 50 tons.
Here’s to all fine rags.
Leila Bisharat serves on the board of directors of the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront.