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  #11  
Old 10-17-2003, 01:16 PM
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MORTARDUDE MORTARDUDE is offline
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great stories..I wonder if there is a national support group for former paper boys... LOL

My mother's brother, Uncle Frank is 84 and has had a paper route for almost 20 years. He lives in Toone, TN., where all my relatives on both sideds are from. I bellieve he delivers 300 copies of the Jackson Sun every day. Sometimes he can barely walk because of a bad hip. His wife died about 10 years ago. They were married in 1945. He has raised a retarded daughter all these years at home she is about 52 years old and has about a 9 year old mind. He is an inspiration to me. He fought with Gen Patton's units from North Africa thru Italy. He tells me about what it was like to liberate Rome. He drove an ambulance and Picked up the wounded. He dodged a lot of german .88 shells. He saw many dead and wounded and many of his friends were killed or badly wounded. Our country will not be the same when all the WW2 and Koreann War vets are gone. I hope the Vietnam and Persian Gulf Vets can fill the void. It will be very hard.

Larry
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  #12  
Old 10-17-2003, 03:09 PM
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Yep,

When I was a youngster, I had one.

It was the Dayton Daily News, and it was full of "big City " news, but I delivered in a small town along with three other boys.

Got the Schwinn out every morning and for 7 days a weeks delivered them things that seemed as if they weigh more than I did. I think I had around 55 papers every morn.

Worse thing is that when you are carrying them papers and go across a railroad track with the Cloth Saddle Bags on the rear fender, DONT CROSS IT AT AN ANGLE, the bike will flip you in a heart beat and then your shins are are all tore up and have to pick the bike up ( like picking up a big Harley ) naowdays compared when you were young.

Even got hit by a car, and there I was coming out of a bussiness alley and WHAM right in front of it. SCARED THIS PISS out of me, litterally, stood there with wet pants while the driver was seeing if I was alright.

XMAS time was the best, tips were pretty good.

Collecting was terrible, but we had a contest each yea and I did win a Change thing you wore on your belt that held pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters. Thought that was the neastest thing I ever had.

BTW, my Brother who is 54 now got him a paper route about 6 years ago, and he stills brags about it. Delivers the USA News Today for two hours every morning in the same town that I grew up, and he loves it. Only a two beer route.........

enough.........
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  #13  
Old 10-18-2003, 12:38 AM
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5:00 a.m. Up to get 50 something Cleveland Plain Dealer newspapers at the corner during the week. Thursday was the worse day during the week. If I didn't put each in the very same spot for each delivery I would hear a complaint that it wasn't delivered. Sunday was 76 papers at the height of that paper route and I hated them. Inserts for the Sunday morning paper started to arrive at the corner on Thursday morning and had to be picked up at the end of the route. Collections every Friday and Saturday evening but had to be through with them NO LATER than 8 o'clock. Miss three weeks collection and you damn well didn't get your Sunday paper. Christmas tips were great.
Delivered that paper all the way through high school, every morning. Helped me grow up and learn to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
Mom took a percentage of the profits to help pay the bills and keep me in clothes, school books and whatever else I needed. She called it "room and board."
Oh! That paper route also payed for a few dates on the way. It's how I met my first puppy love but Joanne won out in the end and I'm sure that that paper route helped pay for my first date with her too.
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Old 10-18-2003, 08:28 AM
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While I never had a paper route, I did deliver the mail for the USPS for 13 months as an "associate rural delivery carrier", which is a fancy term for grunt fill-in who doesn't get any benefits. Since I was a fill-in I had to use whatever conveance (sp) the regular carrier used. I filled in for 5 people who had refused the postal trucks when they became available, opting instead for extra pay and using their own cars. I thought that was so stupid. All that extra cash was just going back into the car to pay for the numerous oil changes, brake and transmission work, tires, etc. At the time I had a '95 Ford Taurus wagon and, after just 13 months of delivering the mail, it became an '85 Ford Taurus wagon. Then there were the dogs! I have more "canines from hell" stories than you can shake a stick at and that's just from a little over a year! What the hell is it about dogs?! I've been bitten 5 times in my life and had several near misses, all for doing nothing more than being there! One dog made the fatal mistake of biting me in the butt when I had my Ruger 10-20 on me. The clip was loaded with .22 Mini-Mag hollow points and I emptied the whole thing into that mangy beast. Later that afternoon, when I got back from the base dispensary (I was living in an off-base house), several neighbors thanked me for getting rid of "Cujo". The last time I was bitten was about 18 years ago at 7AM on a Sunday morning while walking to get the papers. This one, a big mongrel bitch (No, not my ex-wife!), attacked me from behind causing a 5 stitch wound in my left thigh. Unfortunately for her I got my knife out and slashed her across the face, twice. She got a hell of a lot more stitches than I did. And the owner wanted me to pay for it and threatened to sue me! Another neighbor saw the whole incident and agreed to be a witness for me should it go to court but, after a mutual sit-down with the cops, he agreed to pay for my hospital bill, mainly because of my witness and the fact that there's a leash law in town and he admitted he just let the dog out alone to do its "duty" because it was too cold to walk her himself. Give me a nice warm pussy...cat any day.
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Old 10-18-2003, 02:01 PM
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Doc,

Glad you went POSTAL on a dog instead of a human........

enough.......
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Old 10-18-2003, 03:11 PM
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Default Paper route

I guess I was either luckier or smarter than the average kid. I took over a paper route that was for the Houston Press, now defunct. The good thing was that it was an afternoon route. The bad thiong was that I had to start rolling the papers immediately after school let out and didn't get done until after dark. I had 150 papers to deliver, all by bike. It took me two trips because my racksacks could only hold a total of 125 papers.
The route was hard, but the worse part was the collecting and the folks that couldn't or wouldn't pay.

Anyway, I gave up the route after about 8 months and started selling Sunday papers (Houston Chronicle) outside a neighborhood store on Saturday evenings. I sold the papers for 15 cents and got to keep a nickle each. The two biggest headlines I remember hawking were when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon and when President Kennedy was assasinated. All the others paled by comparison to those. I've still got a copy of each in a sealed plastic bag.
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  #17  
Old 10-18-2003, 04:06 PM
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Yes, collecting was the shits. I guess it cost maybe $ 3 or $ 4 a month tops. Not sure. Some people just wouldn't pay and would stiff you every time, or would move and you couldn't locate them..or claim they didn't get the paper or somebody stole it...I heard it all... It was bad enough when it was your route, but when filling in for somebody and not knowing the route that well, it was a major pain....Oh well..

Larry
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