Goodbye to the Trib

 I figured it would end, imagined it happening, but not like this.  The Chicago Tribune no longer appears on my driveway every day of the week.  I had a long run of having the most read newspaper in Illinois in my hands and on my kitchen counter with morning coffee, answers to crossword puzzle clues ready to be solved and recorded with a yellow Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil. And now it’s over.  Just like that. 

Used to be you couldn’t get home delivery of the Tribune in Ottawa.  I don’t know when it started.  Before I subscribed, I bought single issues from Earl Gray off the news rack at Senate billiards.  I’d buy it when the state legislature got serious about passing a budget in Springfield, so I could get a good analysis of what they had done to social services.  I had a vested interest; kids and families in LaSalle County, later more counties.  I needed good information, and they gave it to me. 

The Trib always had good political coverage.  They had Mike Royko for God's sake, with slats Grobnik and news from the Billy Goat Tavern.  Later there was Mary Schmich, Erik Zorn, and the Greek guy.  You know his name.  Famous for beer can chicken and barbecuing a whole lamb at Easter somewhere in the suburbs. 

I also wanted the inside scoop on the Cubs from fanatic sports writers.  There were reviews of movies, stage plays, concerts, and a schedule of bands and solo artists coming to Chicago.  The Trib offered what I wanted in a single source.  I coveted the information and had it in black and white on paper for I’m guessing 34 years.  And now I don’t.

I still have it, however, in pixels with the print blown up on this giant screen I’m typing on.  I also have it on my tiny cramped I Phone screen.  But it’s not the same.  It will never be the same.

I figured they would simply end delivery in small towns, reversing the trend that brought home delivery to Ottawa when I first subscribed.  The costs must be enormous compared to sending it over the Internet.  There are tons of newsprint, 50-gallon drums of ink to buy, presses to maintain, and trucks hauling printed papers in the middle of the night across Northern Illinois. 

All that coupled with a local carrier who loads papers in the back of a car with chronically worn brakes and heads out into the early morning.  They pull into my driveway and throw a real paper that thumps against my garage door while I’m still sleeping.  I figured those costs would be what took the physical paper out of my hands.   

I thought home delivery would implode, they would discontinue the paper edition in outlying towns, and I would have no other choice but to read it in the shack on my desktop computer, or squint and swipe on my tiny I Phone screen.   But that’s not the case.  Something else happened, ever more insidious.

The Chicago Tribune has made the cost of having a printed paper delivered to homes outrageously expensive.  I have gotten postcards every couple of months for all these years telling me how much the Tribune appreciates my readership and support, and how much they are going to automatically charge my credit card for the privilege.  I’ve known it was high, but I’m pretty good at ignoring the cost of things that are important to me. 

And then I read this latest postcard.

“Your credit/debit card will be charged $400.00 on approximately 3/24/25 for service period 3/26/25 through 5/20/25.”

That’s not all.  “Your subscription may include up to fifteen Premium issues per year.  For each Premium issue, your account balance will be charged an additional fee up to $13.99 in the billing period when the section publishes.  The charge will shorten the pay-through date listed above.”

The time period projected above is 55 days.  Let’s see, 365 divided by 55 is about 6.6.  Multiply that by $400 and you get $2,654 and some change.  Can that total be right?  Wait.  What about those Premium issues that you get whether you want them or not? 15 of those at $13.99 is $210 in round numbers.  So, $2,864 total?  Can that be right?  I think it is.  I’ve run the numbers more than once.  Math is not my strong suit.

But being cheap, now that has served me well.  I try to look at what I’m spending and align it with what I value.  $2,864 is darn close to $240 a month.  I could support local charities more with that money, donate more to June’s (my granddaughter’s) college fund, or pay the entire cost for a fishing trip to Northern Ontario with a thousand bucks to spare.  I might even be able to self-publish a book for that amount of money.  In the end, I had to break off our relationship myself.

Here’s my current reality: I’m not going to be on my driveway at 6:00 a.m. gathering up the news in a blue plastic bag anymore.  Adios, Chicago Tribune paper edition.  It was great while it lasted.

Panimatzalan, Guatemala 2025

 I Care - Panimatzalan, Guatemala 2025

The hour-long van ride to Panimatzalam, the first of I Care International’s two clinic sites in Guatemala this year, told us a lot about the village we had never before served.  From our hotel in San Lucas Toliman, on the shore of Lake Atitlan, it was way up the mountain in the neighboring Solola district.  

As we made the steep and winding climb in a caravan of three vans, we passed through smaller and smaller villages: Aguas Escondido, Godinez, Las Conoas.  Along the way, we drove by the very full local landfill.  In contrast, the views below of Lake Atitlan were spectacular.  

But most striking to us were the steep fields of corn, fava beans, mangoes, and avocado trees.  Those fields could not be farmed with tractors and conventional farm implements.  As evidence, field workers with heavy hoes walked along the road to begin their day of manual labor tending those fields with hand tools.  

Word has it that in some fields the campesinos tie themselves to trees with rope to cultivate and harvest the most dangerous inclines.  We didn’t see that, but most of the corn had been harvested, the stalks left standing, indicating the ears were shucked by hand.  

When we turned off the main road into Panimatzalam, we climbed even higher.  It felt as if we were on the very top of the volcano.  The town was small.  I can’t find a population count, but a tour guide with a commercial website estimates 150 to 200 families live in the village.  It is described as a Kaqchikel community that few outsiders visit.  Kaqchikel refers to their shared pre-Columbian language spoken in Panimatzalan, one of 21 pre-Columbian languages spoken in Guatemala before the conquistadors introduced Spanish in the 1500’s.

I Care International gained entry to this community as we always must, by establishing rapport and trust with community leaders and receiving an invitation to serve.  We can’t do our work without such contacts.  We have partnered with national, state, and local government, health departments, Rotary clubs, hospitals, and clinics.  I may have left some partners out.  

But our community partner in Panimatzalan was new; a committee representing the Ancient Mayan Authority of the Solola region, pictured here, with their leader Tata Domingo Quino. 

 

They’re trying to keep their community alive by attracting tourism, practicing sustainable farming practices, and preserving their Mayan customs.  Tata, along with his wife and members of the committee served our 30+ volunteers lunch at noon down the street at their home.   

They let us use their community center, a simple concrete block building with a basketball court, a stage, and good bathrooms.  It was a perfect place to work, with lots of space and the added benefit of having our whole clinic operate in one big room.  

We set up our six stations: Intake, Nurses (checking blood sugar and blood pressure), Acuity (eye charts), Autorefractors (machines which measure the eye), Eye Exams by our optometrists and optometry students, and finally, the Dispensary where pickers choose an appropriate pair of glasses from our inventory of used glasses and fitters give them to our patients. 

Watching each other work together in an open setting like that not only reminds us how important every volunteer is to the process, it also fosters good communication between us.

Late on the second day, when presented with a 24-year-old woman with a serious case of astigmatism and a very strong prescription to correct it, I asked her this.

“Tienes lentes antes?”  Have you had glasses before?

“De nina, tenge lentes.  Pero ahora son muy pequenos, y roto también.”   

“De niña” is a convenient Spanish phrase I just learned.  It means, “as a girl.”  She was telling me that “as a girl she had glasses, but they are now too small and also broken.

“Cuantos años sin lentes?”  I asked.  How many years without glasses?

“Diez, mas or menos.”  Ten, more or less.  

I put my hand on my heart.

“Hace diez años, que no ves bien?”  For ten years, you haven’t seen well?

I have similar eyes.  Without my glasses, I’m lost.  With her condition, her field of vision would be extremely limited.

I pulled out my stock phrase for such moments.

“Sin lentes, el mundo está muy pequeña para ti.”  Without glasses, the world is very small for you.

She understood too well.  I showed her the glasses the pickers selected for her. Thankfully, the prescription was extremely close to the one the optometrist had prescribed.  

“Pruebe estos.” Try these. 

I carefully put them on her face.

“Mira el arbol afuera.”  Look at the tree outside. 

I pointed through the open exit door where a tree stood some 25 feet away.

When I put glasses on a person in the clinic I look closely at their face for their reaction.  She smiled.

“Como es la vista?”  How is the view?

“Muy claro.  Tan claro.”  Very clear.  So clear. 

She spoke to the four-year-old who had been so quiet through the process.

“Mama tienes lentes nuevos!”  Mama has new glasses!

“Con tu permiso, un juguete para tu hijo?  With your permission, a toy for your son?

“Si.”

I went to my stash of Pez and fished one out, with a couple of sleeves of extra candy.  I held it in front of him.

“Mira aqui.  Es un juguete, y también tienes dulces.  Look here.  It’s a toy, and it also has candy.

I bent the head back and the little sugar tablet poked out.  I got a smile from him too. 

Next, I fit her sister, age 20, with an infant on her back.  She had almost identical eyes.  Yes, these conditions do run in families.  We had glasses that met her needs very well also.  Her story was similar.  Glasses when young.  No means to replace them when she outgrew them.  I was so glad they came to our clinic.

About the time I was finishing with the sisters, my friend Mark Bindner, a fluent Spanish speaker who does intakes, came over to see what was going on in dispensing.  It was slow at his station.  I was impressing upon the sisters the importance of eye exams for their kids when they were older.  Maybe we would be back in the area in a few years.  

When Mark walked up to me, the second sister looked at us standing together, about the same age, both with white hair and beards, and asked me,

“Tu hermano?”  Your brother?

We looked at each other and laughed.  Mark put his hand on my shoulder. 

“No. Pero viejos amigos.  Muy viejos.”  No.  But old friends.  Very old.

As we talked, the four-year-old was getting quite good at getting the candy out of his Pez.  Mark was talking to the sisters in Spanish when he felt a little tap on his leg and looked down.  

The boy was holding a Pez up to him.  Big eyes.  Big smile.  Not so common for a four-year-old to share so freely.

“Oh my god, he’s giving me his candy.”

I saw tears in Mark’s eyes.  The boy handed me a sugary tablet as well.  All we could manage to say was gracias and put the candy in our mouths.

 

After Panimatzalan, we served the larger more urban town of San Lucas Toliman for two days at a hospital there.  San Lucas Toliman is a different place, a popular lake town with gringo visitors, now developing tourism and the businesses that go with it quite well.  It’s a very different place from the Kaqchikel village of Panimatzalam on top of the volcano. 

In our four days of clinic, we served 1100 patients, each getting a thorough eye exam and glasses if needed.  It was a joy to work with I Care volunteers again bringing quality eye care to people outside our borders.

Each year I seem to forget how much I love that work.  And then the people we serve remind me why.