Posted on 05/16/2015 4:03:41 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Back in the 1970s and into the 1980s, the early morning streets of the cities and suburbs would be full of young boys making the rounds of their paper route, either on foot or on bicycles. Or maybe on a rainy morning, they would be driven around by a sympathetic mother in curlers and bathrobe, in the family station wagon.
Somewhere along the line, the paperboys disappeared, and now newspapers are delivered in pre-dawn darkness by unshaven overweight middle-aged men in beat up Toyotas and Nissans. Wrapped in plastic, the papers are unceremoniously dumped at the foot of your driveway and you get a monthly bill sent to you.
It's a shame. Many successful people started out delivering newspapers as boys (and yes, a few girls, but mostly boys). It was a great entry level job for an enterprising 12 or 13 year old who was too young to bag groceries or shag shopping carts at the local grocery, but wanted to put a few dollars in his pocket.
For me, July of 1976 cleanly separated my innocent (and penniless) childhood from the beginning of my slow and steady path to responsible adulthood. For it was the month I began delivering the Boston Herald American as a 13-year-old kid just out of 8th grade with a lot to learn about the ways of the world.
For months, I had watched with envy as my classmate and next door neighbor delivered his afternoon papers (yes, they actually had afternoon editions in those days). Suddenly he had cash in his pocket and was always able to buy a sack of candy or go to the movies, without having to beg his parents for cash first. I wanted that freedom for myself.
But it was not easy to get a paper route in those days. Newspaper distributors maintained a long waiting list of kids wanting a route. So I had to put my name in and wait for my opportunity. In the meantime, my friend, who was on the lazy side, would let me deliver his papers for him from time to time and he'd toss me a quarter or two for my trouble so he could sit in the house and watch Speed Racer or Munsters re-runs on the TV.
Even though it was not officially "my route", I felt like a big shot walking down the streets with a sack of newspapers bouncing off my hips. I determined that this was what I wanted to do and I started to check in with the "bossman" at the paper distributor to the point of annoyance, to find out where I was on the waiting list.
Finally, I got the call just as school was letting out for the summer. There was a boy with a morning route of 23 papers for the Herald American that was taking a summer job and was quitting his route at the end of June.
I did somersaults and handstands for about half an hour.
The next day, the boss of the paperboys (probably some 19 year old kid) came to my house and showed me the ropes. The papers would be delivered to my house by 5am each morning and I'd have to have them delivered by 7am - no exceptions. Any complaints about the papers being late and I'd have the route taken away from me. I would also have to fold the papers in a specific tri-fold manner and would need to put them in plastic bags if it was raining. Then, once a week, I'd have to go to each house in the afternoon and collect the weekly subscription money. On Saturday mornings, the boss would come by to collect my money. Whatever money I did not collect would come out of my earnings, which was something like 35 cents for each daily subscription and 15 cents for each Sunday paper. (50 cents if customer got both daily and Sunday).
I studied my route carefully, which covered about a 12 block area around my house. I even did dry runs, figuring out the most efficient way to get them delivered.
The day my route officially started, I was up at 4:30 in the morning and was eagerly waiting for the stack of papers to arrive. 5am came and went. No papers. I was starting to panick. Did they forget about me? What would my new customers think if I could not deliver the papers on time on my first day?
Finally, around quarter past 5, a van pulls up to my house and I hear the THUNK of a stack of papers dropped on my porch, wrapped in twine.
I nervously folded the papers, hoping I was getting it right, stuffed my official "Herald American" sack with the neon orange strap, and bolted out the door.
Every morning that week, I had my route completed by 6am. Then it was time to go collect the subscription money, which was around $1.20/wk for the daily and 50 cents on Sunday, for a total of $1.70 if the customer took both. When making the rounds, several customers thanked me for getting the paper there so early (guess the earlier paperboy like to sleep in) and gave me as much as a dollar for a tip. Those most people gave me $2.00 and told me to "keep the rest."
At the end of the first week, I made something like $11.70 from the newspaper company but had another ten dollars just in tips - clearing me just over $20 for my first week.
Up to that point, the most money I ever had in my pocket that was mine was a $5 bill which a "rich" uncle gave me on my birthday. In 1976, to a 13-year-old boy, having $20 in my pocket, to spend any way I pleased, with more to come a week later, made me feel like Nelson Rockefeller.
For the next three years of my life, until I was old enough to get a job at the supermarket, my route and income just grew and grew. When I finally gave up my route in 1979 (delivering papers was considered a child's job and nobody did it once they turned 16), I was delivering over 60 papers a day and making close to $100 a week. I also had several thousand dollars in the bank.
That paper route taught me so much about life and how to make it in the working world. I encountered irate customers who were upset that their paper wasn't in the perfect spot for them. I dealt with deadbeat customers who avoided me on collection day. I knew they were in the house but they wouldn't come to the door. I showed up to one house where the woman I normally collected from was having sex with somebody on the parlor couch with nothing but the screen door between us. I tip-toed off the porch and pretended I saw nothing.
I learned how to take care of customers and do special things for them, such as taking the paper up three flights of stairs to an elderly woman who lived on the third floor apartment. She always tipped me well. I also learned that these people depended on me to get their morning paper in time. People that had to go to work in the morning appreciated having their paper by the time they had to leave for work.
So many stories to tell about that paper route and so much life experience gained. I firmly believe that I would not be nearly as successful in life as I am today if I did not learn to be responsible and dependable at such an early age. Getting up before 5 in the morning no matter what the weather, really builds a work ethic. I delivered papers in drenching downpours, sub-zero weather and blinding snowstorms. Only several times did I not make my rounds, usually due to blizzards in which the papers never came to me (especially in the winter of 1978).
Taking away paper routes from young boys and girls and handing the job to adults who simply fling the papers out of their car windows - not good.
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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