Paperboy

With a thump, the twine-bound papers landed on our front porch reminding me that it was time to get moving. People were waiting for the news and I had to get it to them.

I long had wanted to be a paperboy. That was a cool label to have as a kid. You could brag about having a job and a regular income – much better than the inconsistent seasonal mowing, raking, and shoveling jobs. And you were doing something important. Back then, newspapers were the main source of news. TV news was minimal, AM radio was crackly static, and the few FM stations just played music. People were also more willing to take the time to read the news instead of having it read to them.

My first taste of delivering papers was when I was nine or 10.  A neighbor kid needed someone to cover his Minneapolis Tribune route while he and his family went on a summer vacation for a couple of weeks.  My older brother Dave and I agreed to do it. It covered East End Red Wing from the Colvill School area to the Sterling Motel (Days Inn now) near Colvill Park. It was an experience that addicted me to the smell of twine and ink. 

But when I got old enough to have a route, there were none available in our part of town, especially the coveted Daily Republican Eagle. Getting a route was not easy in the mid to late 1960s. First you had to be a certain age. The minimum might have been 10 but most routes went to kids at least 11 or older. You had to pay attention for route openings and ask for it right away. They were often kept in a family, handed down to younger siblings.

Eventually I found a route that was a combination of the Minneapolis Star (afternoon) and the Minneapolis Tribune Sunday (morning). It was a downtown route, presenting a distance challenge to a kid living on the East End. The route started near the Coca-Cola bottling plant on Bluff St. and on Sundays ended on Dakota St. near United Lutheran Church.

It had stops at the Driftwood bar, American Legion, Nybo’s restaurant (all three were in the block that is now home to Red Wing Shoe offices). I also delivered to a beauty shop, a couple of barber shops, and a number of apartments. A couple of stops were to employees who needed the paper by 5 p.m. when they went home and, of course, I was blamed when the truckers went on strike and I didn’t even receive them before 5. My last weekday stop was to gregarious Harold Rigg, organist at Christ Episcopal Church, who was always chewing on an unlit cigar. One Sunday I delivered to a house that looked oddly empty. I stopped later that week to collect and the house was gone. No one had told me that it was being demolished.

It was basically a business. You delivered a product (newspapers) and collected monthly payment. You turned in the money and received a check. Collecting was not easy and your only records were your collection book with the tiny dated receipt you tore off and gave to the customer. You knew they had paid when the receipt was gone. People often weren’t home, were short of funds at the moment, or just didn’t answer the door even though you could see them through windows. But I did get a large Snickers bar at the American Legion.

The Sunday paper cost a quarter and one guy always paid me in pennies. Seriously. He would count 100 of them out for me, laughing the whole time. He lived in an apartment above the Sears store, which was about a 50-step climb. When I eventually turned my route over to someone else, I was still owed about $50 in collections. Although promised, I never saw a dime of it.

We didn’t have plastic sleeves to put the papers in back then. The only way to be sure they stayed dry was to slam them inside a storm door. I also learned that a parked Schwinn three-speed bike doesn’t balance well with 25 Sunday papers in the oversized baskets, resulting in wet papers when it tips overs into melting snow.

After my experience, my younger brother Warren got an R-E route on the East End. By then many customers paid in advance which lessened the collection work. But he too was owed a lot of money when he gave the route up. My daughter and son together shared an R-E route in the Central Ave. area. By then all customers paid in advance and they could use sleeves as needed.

I’m not aware of any paperboys anymore. That environment has all changed. The R-E is mailed. The Twin Cities papers are delivered by “paper carriers”, who are adults driving cars covering large areas. And, of course, newspapers are now available online.

The route really opened my 12-year-old eyes and taught me a lot more than how to cross the street safely. Lots of stuff happens downtown. You learned what people ate, who smoked and drank, and which ones were lonely. But for all the rough spots, I’m glad I did it, knowing that I played an important part in spreadin’ the news.