As a paper delivery boy in the mid 1970’s, I got to spend my predawn hours turning up, transporting and tossing the SF Chronicle on porches all over my Redwood City neighborhood. I do not see kids deliver papers anymore. Mostly its adults in cars now. It is not exactly the stuff of a Norman Rockwell painting, but when I think back it really seems like a crazy job to give a twelve year old anyway.
Riding my bike around in the dark at some crazy, too early hour, having my hands go numb in winter, never getting a day off and being paid less than minimum wage. No shortage of character building fodder with that job. Of course, the work of delivering the papers was little stuff. The really bizarre part was collecting the money. Today a newspaper bill is just like any other bill, paid using the mail or web, but back then things were different. I went wandering around from door to door asking for the monthly $6.25 subscription fee. If you have never dealt with the public, let me tell you, in the aggregate you and everyone else, on the whole, are frick’n crazy.
Most of the time, it went smoothly. Look out for dangerous animals, knock on the door and listen for movement, announce loudly that you were "Collecting for the Chronicle!" Give thanks for the money, thanks again for a tip, allow the lonely to chat it up a bit. Sometimes, it did not go smoothly.
Behind the door I could hear the yelling of a rabid man and a crying woman or two. After a hesitation I loudly knocked my introduction and quickly ran back to my bike on the sidewalk. I wanted to disrupt the scene but not become part of it. As luck would have it, he came to the door without a gun, but the large kitchen knife in his hand was still a bit unnerving. Returning another day the mother apologized and said she had called the police on her hot head son that day. On another occasion a weeping woman answered the door at my request. Her husband was "not waking up", she told me. I went with her to the back bed room and there was no pulse or even much warmth left in his arm. I had her dial up the fire department and told her I would come back another day for the money. I learned later he died from a burst artery.
It was not all hardship and drama. In fact, when I think back on delivering papers, the most memorable aspect of the job was the food. Oddly, my later food service jobs have no such associations. In the early summer mornings, it was easy to steal fruit from the trees around town. On the weekends I always made my way over to one of the donut shops. After school, with my new found riches, I could stuff myself with every kind of sugary treat imaginable. I broke free of the relatively healthy eating habits enforced by my parents and washed Hostess snacks down with Pepsi sucked through a red-vine straw, finally chased with a mix of caramels and fruit flavored chews.
Looking back I am not sure if working a paper route was the most healthy job to have, but at least it tasted good.