Paper Boy

 

Shortly after my nineth birthday, my eleven-year-old brother, always looking for a way to make more money, came up with a scheme to double his paper route income.  He had a route but discovered that a slightly larger route was available.  The paper dealer did not let boys have two routes.  Jim had a plan, but he needed my help.  All I had to do—Jim said—was sign up for the second route, but he planned to cover both. 

          I don’t remember how long I considered it; I do remember that I did not want to lie about it.  I told him that if I signed for a route, I would take it.  So, Jim took the new, larger route, and I took his old route.  We lived in the small town of Alliance, Ohio, where our father taught at Mount Union College.  The paper was the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Not many people in Alliance subscribed as it had no local news; consequently, my route, spread over about five miles, had only 36 daily and 45 Sunday customers.  The papers, tied with twine in a bundle, were dropped at the curb in front of our house at about a quarter to six each morning.  I brought my bundle into the house, cut the cord, and folded each to make delivery easier: some I left open (folded in half as they came), some I folded in thirds for delivery to stores or restaurants, and the rest I folded into a square so without stopping I could throw them onto porches.  Then I packed them into my bag and loaded them onto my bike and started riding. 

When I finished, I returned home to eat Pep cereal flakes so my brother could collect the pinback prize

or the oatmeal mush that my father left in the double boiler heating on the stove.   

          I liked the ride in the morning before most people were up, unless it was raining or snowing, then not so nice.  I enjoyed throwing the paper onto porches while speeding along on my bike.  I even got to the point where I enjoyed getting out of bed in the dark; all these years later, I still wake each morning at about six.

          The fiction was that paper boys were independent contractors.  We contracted for a specific number of papers each day and paid for them at the end of each week.  They cost the customer five cents each for the daily and 15 cents Sunday.   I received half a cent for each daily and slightly more for the Sundays.  My profit each week came to about $2.43, if I could collect from all my customers.

          Every Friday evening, I rode my bike to each customer’s home to collect fifteen, thirty, or forty-five cents.  The year was 1949.  Customers were a varied lot, living in older houses in established neighborhoods.  Houses with television were closed up, shades pulled, dark except for the glow of the machine.  I had a customer who showed me the invention he hoped would improve his life: a light assembly that looked like a small trough that hung below the tv screen to limit glare.  He told me that if it didn’t work out as a tv accessory, he would market it as a flower pot.

          Another customer was building his house.  He and his wife lived in the finished basement with a stairway leading out; when he got more money, he was going to construct the first floor.

Collecting was an education.  Customers could usually find the necessary change but often did not.  When a woman answered my knock and my “Collecting for the paper, please,” she might scrounge through a purse or purses, look behind sofa cushions, search pants pockets, before saying, “Could you come back tomorrow?”  Men were more likely to say immediately, “Haven’t got it, come back tomorrow,” or “Come back next week.” 

So, Saturday mornings I repeated the process, hoping to catch those customers I missed or who had told me they didn’t have the money.  Saturday afternoon, I had to pay for the week’s papers.  If I had not collected enough, the dealer would let me carry the shortage to the next week, but it meant that I made nothing that week.  A few times, a customer told me to come back next week and when I returned, I found they had moved so I lost the entire cost and my profit.  I was only nine but I was seldom without a little change in my pocket; I could not understand how adults would not have thirty or forty-five cents.

One of my customers was a radio announcer at a local station.  Once, when he opened his door and saw me, he slurred, “Don’t have it, kid, come back next week.”  I had never before seen a man drunk, but I could tell something was wrong.  I continued collecting from other customers, and perhaps 30 minutes or so later, was at a gas station on my route, inside, lusting for a nickel candy in the candy machine, when the announcer drove up.  I distinctly heard him tell the attendant: “Fifty cents worth of regular.”  I had suspected that customers lied to me, but the baldness of his lie shocked me.  He could have told me he had only fifty cents and he needed it for gas to get to work; he could have said he was sorry; I might have understood, but he clearly lied.  I had absolute proof about my suspicions of so many of the people I dealt with. 

Seventy-five years later, that memory is as sharp as if it happened yesterday. 

While trying to collect pennies from customers back then undoubtedly still shapes my attitude toward people, I enjoyed riding my bicycle in the mornings and have continued riding ever since.  I enjoyed having a little money I earned myself.  But more significant were the coins I received.  At that time, every coin minted by the U.S. government was still in circulation.  From time to time, my brother and I received Indian head cents, flying eagle cents, large cents, and occasionally silver half-dimes, about the size of dimes, which we mistakenly thought were dimes.

 

        When we found a coin that looked strange to us, we asked our father about it.  At first he knew as little as we did, but he knew how to research, and he found out and told us.  We kept the odd coins, and in time he bought folders to hold them and books that told about them.

He started cashing his paycheck at the bank and bringing home bags of coins which he spread across the kitchen table; we examined each coin to find rare ones.  Although I was interested, Jim and Dad were more captivated.  They joined coin clubs and attended coin shows, becoming more and more knowledgeable about American coinage.  In time, Jim and I left home, but Dad retained his interest.  Then he fell on hard times, could not find college teaching, tried teaching high school but his deafness made him a target for some students, and he found that he could no longer teach and was not suited for many other jobs.

At this time, coin collecting was becoming popular, partly because some coins were selling at prices well above face value. In Sidney, Ohio, Oliver Amos, owner of the local paper, decided to start a numismatic weekly with national circulation.  It immediately struck a chord with collectors, but he had a problem.  The ads he ran often had mistakes which his proofreaders did not catch.  They could easily find an error such as an ad for a “19311 coin” but because they did not know numismatics, did not know if the advertiser wanted to sell a 1931 or a 1913 coin.  Oliver had to rerun many ads for free.  Both his advertisers and readers were annoyed and Oliver lost money.  He ran a help-wanted ad for a proofreader who was knowledgeable about collecting.       Somehow, my father saw it and applied.  It turned out to be a perfect match.  Dad knew coin collecting and did not need hearing to proofread.  He proofed for Oliver for the rest of his working career, wrote columns for the paper, published a book of his columns, and for the first time, bought a house, in the country near Sidney.

Becoming a paper boy created rewards I never dreamed of.