Grew up reading The Greenville News (morning) and The Greenville-Piedmont (afternoon) newspapers. Really liked them. Greenville (SC) is a city, but not a large one. It was a lot smaller in the mid-1950s when my family moved there, but it was a growing population. Today it's nearly twice the population it was back then. Even so, when I moved there it was large enough to have several high school rivalries, crosstown cultural events, etc. If you didn't "know" the folks you were reading about, you had at least "heard" of them...or knew someone who had.
I discovered The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (a Sunday paper) thanks to my grandparents. I was fascinated that it had a whole section dedicated to "entertainment." I grew up waiting for the critical assessments of Mr. Sam Lucchesi, its resident film critic, and enjoying the vast displays of movie ads and photos that were liberally sprinkled throughout.
From there, I gravitated toward weekly Variety, which I'd pick up in the "one" (as in "singular") drug store in town that carried it -- Shaw's on North Main, near the SC National Bank Building (all are long gone now).
Courtesy of the library, I found the major newspapers...NY Times, in particular...well worth perusing. I had the library save (from the trash bins) many issues of the times, especially the ones in which Mr. Bosley Crowther was reviewing a film in which I was interested, and carried home the entertainment sections from which I'd clip articles, photos, etc.
...the good old days, fer sure.
Oh, yes...I still get the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. I rarely remove it from the plastic. Don't really like it much, but I feel it ought to "survive" to some extent. They make it VERY cheap for me to get the Sunday edition at 1/10 the advertised annual rate. I was alos a fan of the San Francisco Examiner (evening paper) in the 1980s, but it died for me in the arly 1990s even before it ceased it's "normal" publication. It is now a city rag that bears no resemblance to what it had been (if, in fact, it is still being published).
I always loved the Datebook...the pink section. All its focus on the arts and movies and music and TV was wonderful. It's still pretty much that way, now, except that what passes for movies and music these days doesn't ring my bells. I'm also not a fan of the major film critic, one Mr. Mick LaSalle. He has his strengths, but I disagree with him more often than not. Still, he does mention the music in films once in a while...and not just the song tracks...but the score proper. Big plus. When it happens.
