I had same experience. I even had so many customers I had kids working for me.
Newspapers are about defunct. The advent of the internet ended the good old days of paper routes.
I hated Thursday because that was the day all the advertisement inserts had to be placed into the paper.
I had to get up extra early to place the ads and fold the paper and it loaded the bag to the point that I had to make two trips.
I did make a few quarters selling sunfish to black people on the Sudbury River. I went back for a visit (ick) as an adult and now that bridge I used fish off of warns people in (I think) 8 languages the fish are contaminated.
I learned how to work by helping my father in his business.
Great post.
I was just talking about what this was like with my 12 year old son earlier today. He wants to make some money, but there aren’t any paper routes any more and no yard work either. Illegal aliens do both those jobs now.
It would be harder to do a paper route now as less and less people take papers. I did an afternoon route in the summers. On my 10 speed. Most houses took the paper. Now it would be few and far between.
Inserts. Hated those inserts.
I suspect that most delivered the afternoon paper which is most likely extinct. Morning papers are off the press by 5:00 AM and expected by 6:00 or 6:30 which would be tough on school days.
Quit the paper route to bus tables, when I was 15 and could get a work permit.
Paper routes were great jobs for young people to get a start in the working world.
Today they are just jobs for dumbed down Americans, too lazy to develop real skills. So they take a job that a grade school kid can do.
Same thing with fast food. What WAS a starting job for yesterdays high school kid, has become a career choice for todays Obama voter.
The current “paper boys” are the adults who deliver packaged advertisements via their vehicles and throw them onto your driveways every Saturday morning..........
I had the experience of being a paper delivery boy.
I also had the experience of delivering papers as an adult.
When delivering the papers as a boy, I delivered just in our own neighborhood. There were about 50 customers.
As an adult, I took a paper route, at a time when I had been laid off from a job, had a family to support, and was having trouble finding new professional employment. As an adult, the route had about 220 customers. We carriers went to a central warehouse each day, in the middle of the night, to pick up our papers and get ready for delivery.
The reason carriers nowadays toss the paper in the driveway is because there are so many deliveries to be made in a short time, that it would be impractical to deliver on foot, or by bike, and still get all the deliveries done on time.
He’s still around. His name is Matt Drudge.
I’ve recently had delivery problems. My newspaper told me they can’t give me the name of my carrier because it is a privacy issue. My long term carrier always left a Christmas card with name and phone number. The new carrier now throws the paper on my driveway (if I even get it) instead of putting it in the newspaper tube.
I’m thinking these newspapers have become as worthless in informing us as the TV. They now want us to hit their website and give them advertising dollars while wasting hours surfing, instead of allowing us to simply read an informative newspaper while multi-tasking in the powder room.
Where is he? That’s a Good question! I’ve been waiting all friggin day for the paper! (kidding)
My first job ever, in the early 1970s, was a paperboy for the Long Island Press here in NYC.
bttt
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.
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.