Idly perusing job listings at California newspapers — don’t draw any inferences from that activity — I came across an ad from the Patterson Irrigator. I don’t remember what position they’re trying to fill — checking the paper’s site online, it looks like a pretty good little rag — but the name attracted me. The Irrigator. It fits Patterson, which is on the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley, a little south of Altamont Pass; it’s a farm town, and there’s in California that means irrigation’s a big deal.
Made me think of other favorite newspaper names:
–The (Bloomington, Illinois) Pantagraph (until tonight I puzzled over the origin of the name, knowing only that one meaning of pantagraph (or pantograph) is an accordion-like metal device on the top of a train car that transmits power from overhead electrical lines (or alternately,a metal frame used for reproduction in drafting. But neither of these have anything to do with the newspaper’s name, which is explained here.
–The New Orleans Times-Picayune
–The Daily Breeze in Southern California.
–The Laramie Boomerang.
–The Berkeley Daily Planet. A hometown entry, just for the Perry White conceit.
–The Warren Sheaf. Back into farm country; a weekly from Marshall County, Minnesota, my dad’s birthplace.
OK. That’s a baker’s half-dozen in all. Enough for tonight.