I grew up near Glens Falls, N.Y. Even though Glens Falls was a city of only 20,000 residents, there were two daily newspapers, The Post-Star in the morning and The Times in the afternoon. Most people read both. And almost everybody read at least one. It was the 1950s and television was just breaking into our living rooms. Radio had become somewhat commonplace following the hour-by-hour reports of “the War” a few years earlier. The newspapers charted local, national, international and personal life for most Americans, including the people in my hometown.

My friend, Bill, had the biggest delivery route in my hometown three miles away. He would get up at the crack of dawn (or earlier) and begin his routine of folding the thin, but newsy daily. He could fold it into quarters, stuffing the final section into itself, until it was an aerodynamic missile. His canvas bag settled comfortably into the basket on the handle-bars, he would toss the paper to its target without a hesitation; his accuracy was phenomenal. Nary had a stray paper found its way into the bushes or in the gutter. If so, he retrieved it and made sure it was where it should be, on the stoop of the house of his customer. He was a professional.

I’ve thought a lot about this nostalgic memory lately, particularly after reading depressing stories about the potential demise of the American newspaper. Article after article reports the failure of newspapers around the country, and they are not restricted to small towns. To the contrary, some of the biggest papers in the country are treading water to stay solvent. Mergers seem to grant brief reprieves, but if I read the reports carefully, I discover that fear of extinction is rampant in the field of newspaper publishing.

Many attribute this decline in readership to the advent of the online news phenomenon. It is true that the most current news is at one’s fingertips twenty-four hours a day with just a click of a key. Assuming good eyesight and better middle-of-the-night alertness than I possess, one can discover breaking news as easily at 3 a.m. as at 6 p.m. I suspect that those of us who admire Andy Rooney might say to this, “I’m not sure I want breaking news in the middle of the night.” But I suspect there are many who do.

It troubles me to imagine the potential demise of the newspaper. As one who devours The New York Times on a daily basis over coffee and a bran muffin, it is inconceivable. There is something about the texture of the newspaper in my hands, the scent of the ink, and the serendipity of unexpected news just over the page that helps form my day. Its reporters and columnists have become part of my family. Not hearing from them on a daily basis is comparable to not having regular conversations with my wife and children. It is possible, but not desirable. On those days when a doctor’s appointment or some other interference keeps me from my appointment with “the Times,” my day is incomplete. I’ve begun to recognize the photographers from their styles, cartoonists from their oddities, and writers from their use of the English language. Monday is my favorite day for reading the Times, as I find myself addicted to the Metropolitan Diary. I suspect that it exposes that I’m a Gotham-phile, having longed for years to live in Manhattan.

I read other newspapers too. Every day the less scholarly Providence Journal arrives at my home in its orange plastic wrapper. I can finish the Journal in about a half hour, as it provides, for the most part, my need for an update on regional sports, the comics, and my wasted money on Power Ball twice a week. Most of the national news is co-opted from other, larger papers, and the local news tends to be repetitive reporting of fires, accidents, political skullduggery, and economic morass at the local level. But I would miss the Journal. There has been talk of it folding, and The Boston Globe printing a Providence edition. I suppose that would be okay, but I prefer the locally-written and locally-published paper to a regional edition of a city paper. When an article refers to Federal Hill, Smith Hill, the Jewelry District or WaterFire it doesn’t require an explanation. People in Providence know what it means.

Twice a week I receive in the mail from Martha’s Vineyard the most fantastic newspaper published in America, the Vineyard Gazette. Intentionally printed on newsprint which is 35 inches by 46 inches, it takes someone with the wingspan of Michael Jordan to hold it aloft to read it. But it is worth every arm cramp. Martha’s Vineyard being the summer or permanent home to hundreds of writers, artists, poets, and musicians, reading the Gazette often resembles reading an anthology of works by the most recent Pulitzer Prize winners. The obituaries soar with language usually reserved for eulogies of deceased Presidents. Articles are filled with passion and humor that easily could have been written by Oscar-winning screenwriters or authors of recent best-sellers. Occasionally, some are.

Last year, for instance, a lengthy, well-written, front-page article told of the local court appearance of principals involved in the death of Tom, the rogue leader of a gang of ne’er-do-well, wild and vicious turkeys who were threatening and attacking local citizens. In a follow-up story, the Gazette reporter chronicled his attempt to meet the gang face-to-face, only to be chased back to the safety of his car. While the court session came to a predictable conclusion, it was pointed out that a remaining problem facing local authorities is the disposition of the victim’s body, which remains as evidence, frozen in the freezer of the local constable. I had to hold this massive newspaper and lay it down on the table to overcome the quaking with laughter which accompanied my reading aloud of the story. I can’t imagine reading this story on my computer and having the same visceral appreciation for it. The Gazette reporter won a well-deserved journalism award for the story.

I do not pretend to be oblivious to the fiscal circumstance in which this nation finds itself. There is no question that the cost of operation for newspapers, large and small, is overwhelming. The cost of materials, labor, printing and distribution is huge and getting more massive every day. Layoffs in the newspaper publishing industry have included not only production employees, but columnists, management personnel, and specialty reporters. In some cases, what is left is a skeleton force unable to produce a product of the quality desired by the public. The results seem self-defeating.

Every now and then when I think about this dilemma, I am tempted to chalk up my concern to a generational change. Clearly, my youth in another era conditioned me to the need for a printed newspaper and planted the tactile, visual and olfactory sensitivities within me which cling to newsprint. Just about then I watch a group of teenage girls grouped around a table at the bakery where I read the Times as they search for the sports writer’s comments on their high school cross-country team’s victory the day before. Or I see an elementary-age child engrossed in the comics from the Sunday papers, fully enveloped in the escapades of his superheroes, even though their illustrated stories are now compressed into a crowded, single-fold section. A fellow breakfast patron searches for the crossword puzzle which begins his day.

My life would be diminished by the demise of the printed newspaper. Not seriously damaged, and certainly not destroyed. But the thought of never feeling the crispness of a fresh newspaper again, nor feeling that sense of accomplishment and well-being when at last I close the Times, reassemble its sections, and place it on the window counter for someone else to appreciate it, leaves me a sad person indeed.

Ed Putnam, who lives and writes in Providence, Rhode Island, is a frequent visitor to the Vineyard. His daughter lives in Vineyard Haven.