Joe Ryan says they’re as Valley as the “Why Lennon” graffiti sprawled along a retaining wall on Olsen Drive.
“I love those boxes,” Ryan told us on Facebook.
Shelton’s Chad Jansen is proud to have two — orange and yellow.
They’re talking about the Sentinel newspaper boxes that dot the landscape in the lower Valley — some 16 years after the paper it held it shut down.
What the heck are they still doing around?
A Little Background
For the noobs reading this, once upon a time The Evening Sentinel was the paper of record for the area. It lasted more then a century, but was killed — in cold, cold blood — after being taken over by The Connecticut Post, a regional daily based in a far away, not-so-magical place called Bridgeport.
(It was like the scene in Shrek, where Lord Farquaad tortures the Gingerbread Man)
A Little Speculation
The Sentinel’s demise predated the corporate takeover of local news by a decade. Yet, while the Post is portrayed as the bad guy in the Sentinel’s death — they apparently didn’t go to any great lengths to eradicate the Sentinel brand.
Sentinel boxes were not collected and replaced, which usually happens in name changes or corporate takeovers.
Instead, the Sentinel newspaper box has become a source of nostalgic pride for the Valley.
(This publication, the Valley Independent Sentinel, is named in honor of the paper.)
Ask Facebook
We asked our readers on Facebook to explain to us why they held onto the old boxes.
No one really answered the question directly. Instead, they shared memories of the old publication — which, when you think about it, pretty much explains why the boxes endure.
Jansen and his brother, Derek, were once paper boys for the Sentinel. So was Paige E. Fanning’s brother in Oxford. Emily Maud was a papergirl.
People loved the paper because it had so many local connections.
Other Thoughts
Seymour’s Lou Wilber has a practical use for his old Sentinel box.
“I have it for the other papers that we get,” he said.
Wilber said he used to have six Sentinel boxes that he gave to friends over time.
He also got creative in his use of the Sentinel box, cutting a hole in the back of it, to see when his paper comes.
“I cut the hole in it, so we don’t have to walk all the way down here and look in it,” Wilber said.
Wilber also said that the papers he receives never gave him a box, so he had no reason to remove the Sentinel’s old one.
History Online!
Parts of The Evening Sentinel are still alive, by the way, thanks to the Derby Historical Society and Robert Novak, Jr. its executive director.
The Historical Society faithfully maintains a “This Week in History” column, using old Sentinel articles.
It’s one way to keep the paper’s spirit alive.
“It was almost like a death in the family,” Novak said about the paper’s demise. “When it went by the wayside, a lot of us were very disappointed.”
