BY MAGGIE BEAMGUARD | Insider Editor
The fall and winter months make me nostalgic for cozy things like flickering fireplaces, cozy sweaters, hearty stews and all the rest. Also, oysters.
Where I’m from, this is oyster roast season. Oyster roasts are only properly held on the dampest and coldest day of the year.
A man in a flannel shirt and Dungerees dumps a hot, steaming bushel of mollusks before you. The heat warms your face and the salty steam opens those sinuses.
With gloved hands, you pry open the tasty morsels with a knife. The hardiest will slurp them down plain. But they are divine with a little Tabasco or lemon juice. Every so often you find a pearl.
An authentic oyster roast is hard to come by in these parts unless you are able to order a special delivery from the coast and have the right kind of pot. I was delighted to come upon such an oyster roast on Halloween night in my neighborhood.
One common supply to a roast is yesterday’s news. As I chatted with the tie-dye wearing chef, I noticed he laid the table with the traditional newspaper table covering. Past issues of The Pilot waited to soak up that oyster liquor.
Once the stories are consumed and the news fades away, that is when a paper’s second life begins. I’m hard pressed to think of a major holiday, celebration or season where newspapers don’t have a role to play.
The newspaper you hold right now has a double life. Get your sports scores, the trends, the school board shenanigans, the new business features. Cut out a pearl of a story about your neighbor’s teen who got a scholarship. Mail the cutting to them.
Discard the impermanent sheets in your recycle bin. There the words lose their relevance, but the paper turns into an indispensable tool.
It catches the guts from a carved pumpkin or the drips from eggs dyed at Easter. The paper makes kitschy and ecologically friendly wrapping paper for Christmas or birthdays. In the spring it becomes a weed barrier or gets folded into seed starter pots. Before guests arrive, it transforms into a last minute rag for cleaning the bathroom mirror. Rolled up, it’s a campfire starter. Pet hamsters enjoy it lining their cages. It performs solidly as packing material.
Children can hardly get through their education without a stack of newspapers on hand. That papier-mâché volcano or solar system has to come from somewhere.
Crafty folks will use it to create confetti, collage, paper snowflakes, sewing patterns, paper beads, sailboats and funny hats. And what would Silly Putty be without the newspaper?
Reporters will move on to the next story as soon as the ink dries. And there is always another story. So we can’t afford to be too precious about our words.
But still, the stories in these pages are important. Just like those oysters, there is an occasional pearl. A real gem. And the rest lives on in the pages of our lives, in every splash, spill and moment calling for a little ingenuity.
Contact Maggie Beamguard at maggie@thepilot.com.