Posted on 07/18/2022 3:38:42 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
I wouldn’t have been shocked at that on a Sunday paper. On a Monday paper - yes, I would have had sticker shock. I haven’t looked at one recently, but now I am curious.
“... propaganda you are fed....” Not hungry for that recipe.🤣👍
Who are they owned by?
It was 60 cents for the Sunday paper and when I went to collect, I made out tip-wise as many customers gave me a dollar and told me to keep the rest.
But the weekly came out to $1.25 - or $1.85 if they had Sunday too (and most of them did). So big difference giving me two dollars and telling me to keep the change, which was 15 cents for delivering 7 papers a week vs 60 cents for one paper a week on Sunday.
But I did have some more generous tippers. I was quickly making over $50 a week delivering newspapers and while that sounds like a pittance today, this was in the mid 1970s when the minimum wage was $2.30 an hour and it only took me about an hour per day to run my route (three hours on Sundays). Plus I was barely into my teens. So I was quite flush during those years Always had money in my pocket.
Later on the paperboys went away and you started having middle-aged men delivering them in white vans at 4:30 in the morning.
20 years ago, the Broward New Times was a thick weekly FREE newspaper that was making tons of money from the pain clinic ads that ran on the final few pages of the paper. Then after the state cracked down on those pain clinics, that newspaper shriveled up in size and I hardly ever see it nowadays. It was a good source for local restaurant reviews plus as a guide to what was happening in South Florida but without that pain clinic ad money, it is a shell of its former self.
But much thinner than it used to be.
Recently they've dropped down to only 5 copies a week instead of 6, and they've completely removed the obituaries. Stupid. Most people who would buy a print paper do so only to look at the obituaries.
Our local paper was reduced in number of pages, overall dimensions and font size, making it practically unreadable for my elderly mom’s eyes, and this was years ago. I didn’t bother with reading the paper long before that. My father loved to get the morning paper, lay it out on the coffee table and read almost every page (maybe not the sports section), especially the classifieds.
“I really haven’t paid much attention to print edition newspapers for years... “
That is the key quote... nobody has been buying them, and so they’re all going out of business...
Yes, that’s downtown Fort Lauderdale!🥴
You can probably relate to this.
I went to High School in Ardmore Oklahoma.
At the time Ardmore had the highest per capita rate of millions of any town in the US. These were good ole boys who’d struck it rich in the nearby Hewitt oil fields in the 20s, 30s, 40s. Most of them lived in one area in SW Ardmore. If the paper route in that area came open, it was sold at auction. It was a lucrative route.
On Christmas Eve, the paper boy would hand deliver the evening paper by knocking on each door. Hundred dollar tips were not at all uncommon.
I worked one summer as a Waterway Patrolman. Highway patrol in a boat. We had a lake nearby, it was small but we had a 40 foot patrol boat. The reason for the large boat was this. It was quite common for those good ole boys to jump on their yacht after having a couple (maybe more) beers. They would usually make it a couple miles before running out of gas. We had the large boat so we could tow them in. They were very politically connected. I got so good at towing them, I could put you in your stall if you dropped the tow line when I told you too. We could not accept tips.
$3 or $4 for a daily paper? I used to read the Tucson Red Star every day, back when it was 50 cents. Then I moved away in 2000 and quit buying papers because there wasn’t anything local where I was. Now I’m back living near Tucson but haven’t bought a paper since moving. Only good thing about print newspapers is having something to put on the floor when you’re painting, and that sort of thing.
LOL! Yeah, I’ve picked up a copy once or twice. Yikes! If they would list what bands are playing where and when...... LOL! I’ll be playing with some friends at the Ponderosa in VC Saturday night.
Gold plated parakeet cage lining.
This is an area where my wife and I disagree re buying the expensive local fish wraps.
When, it got to over $400 year, delivered, I told her, that comes out of your funds. The daily is $2.50, and it is approaching 5$+ for Sunday’s. We are hearing rumors, due to Gasoline costs and higher prices on everything, our local fish wrap will cost about $1,000 per year delivered.
My wife was the lead RN for a busy Family Practice in our area for over 30 years. She has a lot of friends and just nice people she met over the years. She/we have church friends, bridge friends luncheon friends and she uses the local newspaper to keep up with who is no longer around and any good news with those still here.
I will be 84 in a few months, and there aren’t too many local friends/contacts left in my/our age group. No family members live in our immediate area. I get a free local electronic issue due to past contacts. I might spend 5 minutes in the morning and 5 in the pm scanning those articles.
My wife likes to scan/read the local newspapers, where we have lived or currently have relatives. The high cost of those fish wraps have eliminated subscribing to most of them.
Our sons and daughters and other relatives in the 45-60 age group, basically don’t read, buy nor even scan newspapers.
The younger relatives from age 21 to early 40’s may not have ever bought or subscribed to any newspaper. If it isn’t on the internet, it doesn’t exist for them.
Zero grandkids/nieces/nephews from ages 20-30 buy nor read any newspapers.
I had a similar experience to your paperboy memories in the early ‘70s. I remember having the dual baskets on either side of my Schwinn five-speed for the weekday papers. I had about 80 Sunday customers, but fortunately my dad drove me around on Sunday mornings, so things got done a lot quicker.
I wouldn’t know where to go to find a newspaper.
I haven’t seen one in literally years.
“... but when she saw her local paper, she called police...
Yesterday I got my bill from the Orlando Sentinel - and it jut went up from around $150 a month to over $200 a month. And I live in an outskirt which use to get its own section every day, but now gets one-half page on Sunday. Think I’m through with this arrangement! (Which makes me said - I really enjoy looking through the paper with my morning coffee - but not THAT much!)
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