When I was a child our family in Toronto took two papers: the Toronto Telegram (afternoon paper) and the Globe and Mail (morning paper). In both, the first thing I’d turn to was the comics page, a.k.a. the features page.
There were the comics, of course, but there were also other things. Generally, the bridge column would be there, and horoscopes, and the daily crossword puzzle (which I’d always try, but never quite got there*). In the Telegram, there would also be “Ask Andy,” where kids wrote in questions, often about science and nature, which a pixie named Andy would answer.
Anyway, the features page of the paper was the first I turned to as a kid. Pretty sure a lot of us kids did, due to the comics. What else do you remember about your local newspaper’s features page? Did it have a bridge column? Horoscopes? A crossword? “Ask Andy”?
(*) Those long-ago crosswords created a monster. Crossword puzzles remain a pleasant hobby for me, and by now, I’ve filled probably dozens of NYT Sunday crossword books.
Classifieds
These had fun things like announcements for garage sales, personal ads for those looking for dates, job announcements, social group announcements such as Rotary Club meetings.
Comics
I loved this section on Sundays! These were the ones in color. They also had a few puzzles. Weekdays were in black and white
Enterntainment.
This was for movies and theatre.
Sports
Fairly obvious. This is also where I’d find reports on Chess matches.
Separate sections for local, regional, state, national, and international news.
Usually, these sections were not too small. On Sundays, they were quite substational and had a lot of inserts (ads, coupons).
My family took the Toronto Star on Saturdays. There is a stereotype that the Sunday edition of a newspaper is the thickest and most loaded with features, but the Star published its weekend edition on Saturdays. From a certain age, I would often walk a number of blocks to the corner store and bring the newspaper home for the family.
As soon as the paper was home, I would dive into the comics section, one of the simple pleasures of life back in the day. My father would read it too, sometimes my mother would look into it as well.
The features I gradually started to show interest in from about the age of nine-ten were:
-the Life section (IIRC this included the Dear Ann column, the Miss Manners column, and also sometimes a “strange news” column.
-The religion page. This was a full page of articles, probably also in Life.
-As I got older, I showed more interest in the main news page, and would have given a cursory look at the sports page.
In Toronto we also have the Sun, a conservative-leaning newspaper with borderline tabloid reporting. I would look at this anytime I was at my local greasy spoon, mainly for the comics (it had a few the Star didn’t have), but would also give a cursory look at other sections.
My mother would often give me newspaper articles to read to further my education about the world out there (I think she took a hint from my Grade 4 teacher, who did the same in class.) Some would have come from the Globe and Mail, which she would have acquired from time to time. This newspaper I got the impression was a little more “serious” than the Star and the Sun.
Man do I miss the newspapers of old. I would start every day reading The Detroit Free Press from first page to last.
Mitch Albom, Bob Talbert, Joe Falls, Susan Ager, Gary Graff, Iffy the Dopester, Action Line, Ashleigh Brilliant, Dear Abby (or was it Ann Landers?), Neal Rubin, Miss Manners…
On or near the comics page there was also a comic-style drawing called “Ripley’s Believe it or Not!” , which presented obscure facts.
And the Sunday comics were in color, so you had fun making impressions of them using Silly Putty.
(But–help me out, folks–how did that work? I remember 6 year old me pressing the Silly Putty flat over the comic, peeling it up and seeing the comic on the putty. But… that’s where my memories end. What the hell did we do with the image after it was on the putty? And why was it fun? )
Sorry if this isn’t in the spirit of the OP – 18 years old is no longer a “kid” – but for all our sake, it’s worth mentioning my pleasure at moving to Chicago (from the East Coast) to go to college, and picking up in restaurants or laundromats this free newspaper called the Weekly Reader, and enjoying “News from the Weird” (a compilation of snippets of odd news worldwide), plus this fun little column in which some local guy would answer a different question each week, on any topic at all – the “Right Stuff”? The “Direct Goods”? Something like that…
On Sunday’s there was the “Rich People Amuse Themselves” section. I wasn’t too interested in it as a kid, but teenage me found it comical that they never just got together for a party – there was always some BS fund-raising or charity reason.
I spent part of my younger and teen years in Arkansas, and learned a lot about politics from George Fisher’s cartoons. Like many, I pounced on the paper to be the first to find “Snooky”. He hid his wife’s nickname in every cartoon somewhere, and it was a game to see who could find it first.
Example (Aug 17, 1984): “Snooky” is easy to find here, but was much harder in some of them.
Probably his most famous drawing, the day after the Challenger disaster:
As soon as I found out there would be a book, I told my parents about it, so that they could buy Tales of the Truly Unpleasant by Seattle Times’ columnist Steve Johnston. He always had a column in the Pacific NW magazine, which was, and is, part of the Sunday Seattle Times. So on Sundays I read the comics and then dove into the Pacific.
I also looked for columns by Emmet Watson, who led the chant of KBO (Keep the Bastards Out). I still have clippings of some of his articles.
I have a cookbook from John Owen, who actually worked for the Seattle PI, but my neighbors would share his recipes. And then there was John Hinterberger, who did food and restaurant review for the Seattle Times. I may have some of his clippings as well.
Reading any of their articles reminds me of those Sunday mornings - comics and Pacific.
Hah As one of the “bastards”, I remember him well. I lived in Seattle during the late 80s, and found that longtime residents were somewhat reserved. I suppose my gigantic F250 pickup with Texas plates might have had something to do with this.
As a longtime reader of Cecil’s columns since the 80s, I still wonder who Joyce K. was.
The ‘Funnies’, AKA the comics. The ‘Word Jumble’, finding different words from a limited set of letters, and the thing where there’s a grid of letters and you find words in it. Crossword puzzles and my favorite the ‘Cryptoquote’ where you solve a simple cypher to reveal a well known quote. There was the horoscope and something with daily inspirational message. I liked different comedic columns, Art Buchwald in the Washington Post, and lesser stuff like celebrity gossip that didn’t really hold my interest. The Philadelphia Inquirer had a column to help people find rare items and resolve issues dealing with red tape and retail problems. Then there was Ann Landers and Dear Abby. Landers was the more sensible and aware one but there was something insipid about their columns. Oh yeah, ‘Hints from Heloise’, helpful household tips like “Don’t throw away your dirty dishes, wash them and use them again!”. Then during baseball season I’d watch the stats for the Senators and later the Phillies. They were easy to find at the bottom of the list.
The Milwaukee Journal used to have what was called the Green Sheet. This 4 page green section contained the comics, puzzles, advice columns, and similar general interest stuff. Grandpa would get the paper and hand me that part of it while he read the rest of it. Great memories from that! The Green Sheet ran from 1910 to 1994, and has been revived from time to time.
Somewhat similarly, Yardley Jones was the editorial cartoonist of the Toronto Telegram, and later, the Toronto Sun, Jones always hid a black cat in his cartoons. It was often peeking out from around a corner or in a building window. Once I learned that, the editorial page was among my “must-reads,” if only for looking for the cat in the Jones cartoon.
Interesting difference in cultures. When I was a child (in Canada), and @themapleleaf touched on it, we had no Sunday papers. The Saturday paper was the paper of the week. It had the colour comics, the Weekend Magazine included with the Tely (Toronto Star readers got The Canadian magazine; to our American friends, each was much like Parade). But publishing a newspaper on Sundays was Just Not Done. Y’know, “Toronto the Good,” and church, and all that.
Until the Sunday Sun started publishing in about 1973. A newspaper publishing on Sundays? Much pearl-clutching and fainting among Toronto’s society set occurred. But it had colour comics, so as a kid, I was interested. So was my Dad, who appreciated reports on Saturday sports, without having to wait for stale sports news on Monday.
The Sun, though it has changed greatly from its early days, was always an iconoclast in Toronto journalism. Once the Sun did it, and everybody saw that it worked, everybody else tried to do it too.
I do miss those Weekend and Canadian magazines though. Just light fluff, nothing serious (mostly), and perfect to enjoy over coffee on a Saturday morning at the cottage.
We had the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin delivered to our home, and Dad often brought The Philadelphia Inquirer back with him after his bus ride home from work—at the Bulletin, of course.
Growing up in the '60s, I naturally gravitated toward the Bulletin. Sure, Dad worked there, but it also felt more connected to our community. The Bulletin had a special way of covering local news, with darker, crisper print that was easier on the eyes, and, best of all, their Comics section was second to none. The Inquirer was more adult-oriented and concentrated more on national/international news…boring!
The moment the Bulletin arrived, I’d flip it straight to the back page for the Comics. I loved all the “funny” strips, though The Family Circus always felt a bit too tame for my taste (I was a Mad Magazine aficionado, after all). I did feel a little guilty about that, especially since Dad knew Bil Keane personally from his time on staff at the paper. Honestly, I couldn’t help but think, “Gee, Dad, couldn’t you have been friends with Charles Schulz instead?”
The Bulletin’s Comics section was a goldmine of kid-friendly features—trivia, jumbles, and all sorts of other puzzles and games that kept me entertained. The Inquirer was fine, but it just never quite captured the same magic that the Bulletin had for me.
Not really that strange, when you think about it. One wants to keep up with what the competition is doing.
When I was in my 20s, I had a friend who worked at the Toronto Sun as a photographer. He could get the Sun from work, no problem, but he also read the Star and the Globe and Mail. One of the most informed people I’ve ever known, news-wise.
For that matter, I had occasion to be in the city newsroom of the Toronto Star in about 1986. It was exactly like the city newsroom on Lou Grant: no cubicles, just desks as far as the eye could see. Phones ringing, typewriters clacking, people hollering, “Copy!” and so on.
And on every desk in the Star’s city room was a copy of today’s Sun and Globe and Mail. Just keeping up with the competition, after all.
So I’d suggest that your Dad wasn’t out of the ordinary—he was just keeping up with the competition.
Hell, I remember one famous time when the Sun’s presses conked out. It still managed to put out an edition, as they said, “Thanks to our friends at the Star.” Yep, the Star loaned its presses to the Sun, so it could get out a paper. After that day’s edition of the Star was printed, of course; but the point is that there is collegiality among journalists. At least, in those days.
Back to the features page. As I mentioned, I could manage maybe half the daily crossword puzzle. But that was at age 10. Today, I can knock off a newspaper’s daily crossword in about 15 minutes, tops. Did anybody else try the crossword as a child?
Dad mainly bought the Philadelphia Inquire for the bus drive home because it featured the syndicated New York Times crossword puzzle. When I got to the paper, the puzzle was always completed, in ink, with no mistakes. He was a puzzle whiz.
I remember my father taking me to work on Saturdays when I was quite young to see the printing presses. It was a massive room filled with loud, clanking machines that scared the hell out of me! But there was an upside—Dad always treated me to a cream soda and a hoagie for lunch. Now that was something to look forward to!
That was the situation in Philly. And of course my parents were only interested in the high brow Inquirer style. I would pick up the Bulletin when I started taking the train into the city to work, and then also the Daily News for the sports pages. The News could barely be found out in the burbs.
I can’t be the only kid who despised Omar Sharif for taking up real estate on the comics page. Or was every other 10 year old just bananas about playing bridge?
My hometown paper had Ann Landers’s advice column daily and Hints from Heloise on Sundays.
Not technically on the features page, but when I was high school & college age, I liked reading the crime page and seeing what some of my high school classmates were up to (DUI arrests, etc.)
I loved our local newspaper - actually, we had two of them, moning and evening. Daily almanac and weather in boxes on the second page. ‘What-is-this-thing’ column, weird-but-true stories, a weekly column answering reader questions (sort of like the Nextdoor App we have now). Later I read Mike Royko and Bob Greene columns on the editorial page. But the best was ‘The Women’s Section.’ Movie reviews! Ann Landers, Hints from Heloise, a little ad where you could send away for a cute sewing pattern, and a whole page of Readers Recipes. Requests taken and responses printed. (Every single fall, without fail, there was that dam request and recipe for pumpkin bread again.) And how to make chili sauce from end of summer tomatoes and spices. I sent in a recipe for Loose Meats (which on ‘Roseanne’ tv show they sold at the diner). The local Grande Dame of the paper called me at home to clarify the ingredients!
As one of the “bastards”, I remember him well. I lived in Seattle during the late 80s, and found that longtime residents were somewhat reserved. I suppose my gigantic F250 pickup with Texas plates might have had something to do with this.
I sent in a recipe for Loose Meats (which on ‘Roseanne’ tv show they sold at the diner). The local Grande Dame of the paper called me at home to clarify the ingredients!