DOWNIEVILLE - Last week, all of The Mountain Messenger's subscribers who had given us their e-mail address received an e-mail announcing the fact they have access to all articles and newspaper archives now available, behind a paywall, at our website, themountainmessenger.org.

In the wake of this news, we have received a couple of written responses worth sharing with all of our readers:

Please confirm that we will continue to receive your marvelous print edition!

This subscription began as a response to your nationwide cry for help, when we decided we must do what we could to prevent an end to the publication of this historic newspaper.

It continues because, while we still want to help you continue publication, we look forward to receiving from you some of the most entertaining reading material we see each month.

Our “fun” reading often takes place well away from “screens” of all kinds. It is preferable to have something entertaining to read in waiting areas outside professional offices, while “standing in line” for various services, and while waiting for and traveling on airplanes and trains. We appreciate the opportunity to have our print copies of the Messenger with us in such instances. Strangers have been known to ask to “borrow a page” of our paper after being told “no phones are allowed here”, or finding that unavailable cell service, Wi-Fi, etc. prohibit their planned use of “screen entertainment” to stave off the boredom of just “waiting”.

You are certainly well aware of the very different personal impression one makes, especially in a professional environment, when seen gazing at a screen (“He’s probably checking social media, or playing a game.”) versus being seen reading a newspaper (“He seems to be curious about the world; might be a professional.”). That’s why even the Wall Street Journal makes certain that a complete print version of the current edition of their publication is available, 6 days a week, to subscribers like us, who live very far from New York City.

At home, copies of your paper are readily available in the Reading Room of our library, where neither phones nor computers are allowed. Frequently neighbors, friends and family members in town for the day (this is the medical and shopping center for a large rural area, encompassing the corners of 3 states), and both professional colleagues and college classmates traveling through the region, call to ask whether they can “stop by”, leave their devises at the door, and spend an hour, an afternoon, or an evening in the Reading Room (where no one can reach them), engaged in light conversation over sweet tea and cookies, or lounging on a recliner with a book and a view of hawks swooping over tall pine trees, or comfortably ensconced in an antique leather chair with a glass of aged bourbon and a copy of The Mountain Messenger, following the latest episode of the current serial adventure story.

If our only access to your publication should become a screen, where its articles are buried among the vast number of urgent, annoying, or intrusive items to be read, that would turn reading the Messenger from “fun” to “work”. And it could never again be enjoyed by me or my guests in a room where screens are forbidden. Please tell us that will not be the case.

We hope to make a “family pleasure trip back home” that can include a visit to a place in the mountains I did not know about as a California kid. I want to meet some of these remarkable characters about whom I have been reading, to spend some time visiting the sites you bring to life in your words, and, of course, to spend some money with your advertisers.

A most appreciative Reader in Alabama (our landing pad, following a few dozen academic, military, and corporate relocations since those California days),

Sam Newton

Dothan, AL

Meanwhile, on the other hand, we also received this note:

Hey Team - Congratulations! If you want to stop sending the paper version, that would be ok with me now that I can read it online. Best Wishes, Mary Abbott

So, at this point, we look forward to hearing from all of those subscribers who have e-mail addresses we don't know.

Perhaps they will read this item and call or write us before we send out the letter we owe to everyone about how The Mountain Messenger is trying to extend its life by staying true to its venerable history of putting words on newsprint while also making taking advantage of 21st century technology.

Will the fact our on-line version of the paper is fully available only to subscribers help or hurt our chances for survival? Time will tell. But, in the meantime, we will be working hard to stay alive with continued support from readers.