I am not sure how many of you read our advertisements. All of you should read all of them, of course, but I am betting that one or two of you skip that part of the newspaper. We had a boffo offer a couple of weeks ago for your college student heading off to the halls higher learning. Just in case you missed it, I am going to clue you in.

For a mere $25 you can send your child to school with a weekly accounting of what is happening here. The powers that be in our newspaper hierarchy created a special nine-month rate just for your college-bound offspring. And there is an even better part to this offering! Back in May we sent letters to each member of the Peabody-Burns class of 2011 agreeing to send them the Peabody Gazette-Bulletin free of charge. All they had to do was fill out a form letting us know their campus address. Yup, for departing freshmen, we pick up the tab.

I have said before that I grew up in a good sized town in Illinois. We had a daily paper. It never occurred to me to ask my folks for a subscription when I went off to college. I am pretty sure a subscription would have been way down on their list of Susan subsidies! However, I had a roommate from a small town in Missouri and she got a weekly newspaper. What a hoot!

At first, I was baffled by the front page photos of 12-pound tomatoes, the plethora of news from area correspondents, the six or seven columns about the high school football or basketball game, and social items that told of several couples getting together to play bridge on a Saturday evening where delicious refreshments were served … every time.

Eventually there was a group of us that couldn’t wait for Marty’s paper to arrive on Thursday. We thought it was hilarious! She was a good sport and let us make fun of it. And do you think I am finally reaping the rewards of my bad behavior? I expect that I am.

However, somewhere along the way, I kind of enjoyed reading about those big squash and tomatoes. I rooted for the home team every week reading the play by play description of the game. I never did learned to play bridge, but if I had I might also have learned to bake. I already knew delicious refreshments would be expected.

I’m sure the same kind of thing went on in my hometown with its daily publication. There just was no one on the newspaper staff to notice the big tomato or make mention of every kid who got on the court at a basketball game. So maybe there were parts of the community that should have made the news, but never did. How sad for us — who will know that we were there?

There is something to be said for communicating those events that make the world go around right here between Doyle Creek and U.S. 50. I am glad we have the opportunity to share your events with the community, big tomatoes and all. If your child’s roommate is from Olathe or St. Louis and makes cracks about the Gazette-Bulletin, I really don’t care. We are who we are. The Married Daughter once gave a speech in college about how to properly drag Main Street when your town is only nine blocks long. She brought the house down, got an A, and the big city kids wanted to come home with her for a weekend just to see if it was true.

Yes, we are who we are and with any luck we report it in these pages every week. Send the paper either free or at a reduced cost to your college kid to remind him. It might just make his day.

— Susan Marshall