Posted on 05/16/2015 4:03:41 PM PDT by SamAdams76
I was a paperboy from around 7th grade to when I was a graduated from high school! The later years I was busy with sports and stuff I had a younger kid deliver when I couldn’t. But I still would do the collections and keep the tips! The collections took forever because the people knew me so well. I had accumulated other smaller routes along the way as those kids dropped off.
The last three years I also ran the paper drop. And I was the only one there! (So they paid me to deliver the papers to my house!!) They had wanted to move the drop to a place a half-mile away, and I told them I would quit if they did that -it wasn’t worth the hassle.
My fingers are the first thing to feel the cold now. Trying to fold papers in the dark at 10 below zero in Minnesota did a number on them.
“I want my two dollars...”
bttt
Worms were the easiest. A penny a piece. Only took a few minutes to pick 300 to take to the bait shop.
The potholders were made on a loom. Early on, we found out that people (women) picked by color. So we took orders. We were practically mass producing them.
Routes have been combined & as a result are too big for a before school job, collecting payment is done in office. My kids & my husband all carried papers, like you. Carriers are totally at the bottom of the food chain & barely make enough to cover gas let alone insurance. Each carrier is an independent contractor. Subscriptions are falling & miles per carrier are up. Carrier retention lasts about 10 days to two weeks. No one wants to work that hard. My hubbie was a manager & some days had to cover 2-3 routes because of no shows. He quit because the publisher wouldn’t fix the problem.
Afternoon delivery of the Times Herald was the first job for me, in the 5th grade. I quit after 4-5 months mainly because of the deadbeats who wanted a free newspaper and guess who got to pay for it (the paper ALWAYS got fully paid).
It was hard work, this was an upscale neighborhood (Casa Linda Estates) and all the houses were way back off the road and I had like nearly a 100 customers and my Schwinn Typhoon. Nobody around there was poor, so there was no excuse not to pay the bill (at the time less than $4 a month). Still a good experience for a young kid to get a little extra cash and a lot of life’s lessons.
In 5th grade, I was both a crossing guard and a paper boy...
both adult “jobs” today.
I delivered Papers as well.
Up and down my route everyday.
Got attacked and bit by an Airedale.
Had competition from the order kids with there “Red Rider” Wagons.
I was never very good at collections.
Early one sunday morning on my paper route, I saw a couple, completely naked, passed out cold with the man on top, in the back seat of a car. It was the oldest son of one of my customers - I think he was about 25. so I left the newspaper on their windshield.
Many of us used to cut grass as kids in the summer or work in McDonalds, etc.
Now we have adults cutting grass and working in McDonalds because the former good jobs are now in China or Mexico. The political elites have been telling us for years that open borders and free trade are a good deal for us, when the reality it is only good for them and their scum bag lobbyists.
They are changing our legacy USA culture not to benefit us, and not as a result of our vote, but unilaterally to give them and their cronies more power over us. Both Parties and their owners are playing us as fools.
I miss having the milkman even more. We had a milkman well into the 1970s. Ours used to also carry around things like chocolate milk and orange-juice and even cottage-cheese in his little basket, as he came to the door. I’d always be begging my mother (usually to no avail) to buy some chocolate milk.
But nope, haven’t seen a newsboy in ages. Nor a Fuller-Brush Man. Nor a Good-Humor Man. Nor the sight of going down the neighborhood street and seeing all the housewives pinning up their clothes and linens on a clothesline. I don’t even see kids outdoors playing or riding bikes much anymore either.
I had a Hartford Times paper route for almost 2 years before it went out of business. The last day, I decided to deliver only a few papers. I used my bicycle, dirt bike, snowmobile and when it rained my parents drove me on Sunday morning.
The route had mostly nice customers... but one was a customer from hell...
My neighbor had a paper route. I worked through the finances with her and when you figured in the wear and tear on her car she was losing more than she made. When she tried to get out of it, they threatened her with the contract she’d signed. Yes, they knew she’d lose money, no doubt. When the contract ended she quit. (Her route was mostly unpaved dirt roads in the country. Her car was worthless when she finished.)
My entire three years of delivery papers was in the morning. Like I stated, the papers would arrive on my porch around 5am and I’d have them delivered by 6 and no later than 6:30. Plenty of time to get to school. But yes, I did have to hit the sack by 10 most nights.
5 of my paper customers hired me to mow their lawns...once I delivered my paper on my wheel horse riding lawnmower... I was going from a lawn mowing job to another lawn mowing job.
Oh yeah, back then people wanted the paper ON THE PORCH.
Sometimes I rode through a few yards to save time. =^___^=
Now the real kicker is this - when I was busting my butt to make $20 a month throwing papers...my step-dad was running a multi-million dollar business with offices in Dallas, Chicago & London.
Golf balls! We tried that but got caught and run off from the golf course.
We did one of those carnivals to raise money for charity - they gave you a package of posters and ideas for games. We did it once.
Then every summer after we did it to raise money for ourselves. We would have 100 kids easy on a Saturday. Pay to enter with lots of free games and stupid prizes. A few games that you had to pay for with better prizes. And the cake walk - with our moms supplying the cakes.
At Halloween we turned a friend’s garage into a haunted house with kids up in the rafters pulling strings attached to dummies and ghosts, bowls of brains and eyeballs (spaghetti and peeled grapes), etc.
We had a coffin with a dummy in it and the hands with strings up to the rafters when a kid would be looking. This one kid kept saying stuff like “its just a bowl of grapes”, “its just a dummy in the coffin”, etc. He kept going through the little route we had set up, and was ruining it for the younger kids.
My buddy climbed into the coffin and put the mask on. The next time this older kid comes by my buddy jumps up and tries to grab him, and ends up chasing him out! (The kid didn’t come back!)
Fun times. Lots of creative stuff went on.
Depends if the HOA allow it... HOA is a bunch of busybodies.
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