We hadn’t driven to the levee and it was too early in the day for whiskey or rye. On this day the good old boys, now old men, gathered at the diner like we do every Tuesday at noon. Once each week for about ninety minutes, lots of humor lay like an afghan over more than a thousand years of accumulated living and wisdom present in that room. Someone mentioned that his newspaper hadn’t arrived in his driveway until after 7:30 that morning. Another said his paper hadn’t been delivered at all on several recent days. Yet another commented that it really didn’t qualify as news anyway. The paper is printed in Des Moines, about a three hour drive from Kansas City, so a recap of the Thursday Royals game wouldn’t meet the Friday printing deadline. With no Saturday paper, the recap would first appear in Sunday’s edition. That drew a laugh because the team is in such a slump that the newspaper schedule w...