I know I find this sad because of my job, but I can't help feeling that others might also read it with a twinge of regret:
A young teen riding his bike at dawn reaches into his shoulder bag, grabs a tightly folded newspaper and deftly throws it to the front steps.
It's an image as American as apple pie, but the paperboy has gone the way of the milkman.
Today's papers usually arrive by anonymous drive-and-toss. For reasons including the demise of afternoon papers, a shift to centralized distribution and earlier delivery deadlines, adults in cars now make up 81 percent of the country's newspaper carriers.
That's something I have in common with the people mentioned in the story -- President Truman, John Wayne and Bob Hope, Willie Mays,Tom Brokaw and Warren Buffett -- I had a paper route as a kid, for the same newspaper I now write for. It was the first year our family moved to Fort Wayne. I had lived only in the country, and the newspaper route helped me learn what a city was like and how people lived here. The joke about newspapers used to be that it was the only multillion-dollar enterprise that rested on the shoulders of 12-year-olds. They did a good job for a long time, and their passing, I think, is a larger signal of societal change than the disappearance of the milkman.
Comments
That's sad. I had a paper route myself. It was for a paper that only came out twice per week, but it was a good gig for a 12 year old.
What a great time in my life that was. I had the morning JG route and the afternoon NS route. Back in 1970 it was a whole different world. I knew and trusted my neighbors, I wasn't afraid to deliver papers at 5 a.m. or collect after dark. I learned the value of a dollar and how to be responsible. With a little "walkin' around money" and an old schwynn it was a great time to just be a kid! Too bad those days are over.
I got my first paper route when I was nine, delivering a neighborhood weekly that came out in the afternoons. I was so excited when my parents let me graduate to an AM daily when I was 12, so I guess I helped to uphold the joke!
It was a great learning experience. It taught me to show up on time every day, to manage money and to please my customers. It is a shame that it's a job that went by the wayside.
I too delivered newspapers and what it taught me was; That if it rains you still have to go to work and people will ask you to come back next week because they don't have 40 cents.
My five kids deliver the News Sentinel. They have been doing this for three to four years. The two youngest fold the papers and stuff them in plastic bags or just rubber bands while the older one deliver them on bikes.
However, for the most part they do not toss them on the porch anymore. Many want them inside a door or on a bench while others on vacation want them to hold them until they get back.
Me and 2 of my siblings shared a paper route in lowell, IN as kids. Man those were the days!!! I always had extra money and no bills! LOL!