The Paperboy

Bobby was our Paper Boy in the 1960s. He wasn't made out of paper, he delivered the Daily Record newspaper every day. Bobby was not from our neighborhood. I don't remember where he lived. I'm sure it was not that far away. I think he had a very large route or maybe even a couple of routes. The basket on his bike was always very full as was the canvas bag that he slung around his shoulder.

I'm not certain but I seem to recall that Bobby had some kind of disability. We didn't call it that back then. We said he was retarded. It was not politically incorrect or demeaning, or derogatory to refer to him or others who were disabled as retarded. Most everyone liked him. He was a good Paper Boy and performed up to his task. Besides, well into the '70s, I remember having to 'retard' the timing on car engine ignition systems so that they would perform better as they got older or after market performance parts were installed. Not to leave it out but sometimes we would have to 'advance' the timing to achieve optimum results. No one ever complained when it was noticed that they were promoted to the 'advanced' class or were given a boost in their career. Advanced or Retarded meant the same to me. Adjust the distributor cap so that the car would perform at its optimum. Its not that complicated. Its just a word.

Sometimes I followed Bobby around on his route. I don't remember how old I was but I remember learning the delivery ropes from Bobby. The one thing I would never be as good as he was at was keeping the customer satisfied. Bobby was really good at this. He, like everyone else, would make mistakes sometimes but he was a master at comminicating with the customers in a favorable way. It would be hard to tell if the customers let things slide because he was 'retarded' or if he actually shined them on enough to make them happy. After a few years I asked Bobby if I could take over his route when he was ready to move on. He kept telling me 'not yet, but I'll let you know when I'm ready'.

I have no idea how much time went by. Bobby was getting older faster than me. Maybe it was just our age. You know, you grow alot from say 13 to 17 while you don't really grow at a noticeable rate between 8 and 12. One day he said he was ready and introduced me to the guy whom I guess was like the distributor or something. I only remember him as my first 'Boss'. I didn't like him very much. Not because he was my boss but more because he was like some sports team coach wannabe or something. Basically, the guy was a douche. He took this stuff too seriously. Maybe he had to because the majority of kids were fuck ups and couldn't follow directions. I wasn't one of them. I had no problem following directions if they were good directions. He was a douche and his direction seemed ludacrous. Sometimes I thought he told us to do stupid things just to annoy us or make us fuck things up. Then he could yell at us for not following his directions. You encounter people like that throughout life. One of the first things I learned with people that are petty or stupid was to pretend that you followed their direction then go about things however you saw fit. If the end product was good or the customer was satisfied then the idiot would never know you did things your own way. The smart way. Not the way of some ignorant asshole.

Anyway, I wasn't sure if Bobby stopped being a Paper Boy or took on another route or what. I don't remember seeing him around my distributors garage. What would happen went like this; a new kid was given a route that got so big it had to be split into two routes. This was the measure of a good Paper Boy. The more you grew your route the better you were. The only problem there was that if you started with twenty people on your route and grew it to forty, they would split your route and give half to a new kid. That meant you would lose half your customers and thereby half the money you made. Seeing as there are only so many people in a given neighborhood there would eventually be no one left to try and sell to. This is when you would have to leave your neighborhood and sell somewhere else. Of course this would be in some other Paper Boy's neighborhood which was bad for them as they would not be able to grow their route. The company couldn't care less, no territory or route was protected. I think Bobby had two very big routes with over forty customers on each. He either gave up the route in my neighborhood or moved on to something else all together. I can only hope he didn't get drafted to Vietnam.

So, I took over Bobby's route in my neighborhood. I had around thirty customers. By the time I was done I built it to somewhere between forty and forty five. Soon I would be threatened into splitting my route leaving me with only twenty customers. I also didn't want to grow it more because then I would be moving outside of my own neighborhood and that presented all kinds of hassles. First, I was happy with the money I was making. Second, the time invested to grow the route in another area would cut into my schooling as well as play time time and I would not return a profit until I had at least fifteen new customers. Third, I could not just move into any adjacent territory, I would have to sell in the area where the company told me to go. These areas were typically in palces where the existing Paper Boy lacked ambition or the customer base had already been exhausted. All this would result in too much running around. After all, life is for living. There is barely a moment to spare.

I have no idea how long I delivered the Daily Record. I remember that my bike got so unbalanced by the weight of the papers that I fell over a couple of times. The papers spilled everywhere and I scrambled to pick them up before they got blown away or dirty. I had two shoulder bags full of papers because I did not want to have to go all the way back to the distribution garage to fill up. My route was in my own neighborhood and the garage was four neighborhoods away. There was one day of the week where there would be sales inserts which made the papers that much heavier and bulkier. Thats what tipped my bike those couple of times. The company wanted us to show up at the distribution garage a little earlier and stuff the papers with the inserts there where we could be watched by the boss. They did this because some people complained that they were not getting the inserts. After a while we were allowed to take the inserts with us and put them inside the papers as we delivered them. Everything was ok as long as everyone got their inserts and no one complained. I hated dealing with the inserts. They weighed a ton. By the end of my route I had to make two trips on insert day. So, I asked all of my customers if they wanted the inserts and I only put the inserts into the papers of the people who wanted them. I tossed the rest down the drainpipe. Every week during collection I would remind the people that they could get the inserts if they wanted them.

I was good at it. My customers liked me. I was pulling in twelve to fifteen bucks a week depending on how heavy the tips were. Thats where the money was. Keeping the customers happy. The company didn't have a clue when it came to how I managed my route. They only heard complaints from the customers when things went wrong. I never got complaints and if I did my customers spoke directly to me. They were my neighbors and I treated them right and made sure they were happy. The worst customers were the ones who did not want to pay their bill. Thankfully this was a rare occasion. They would complain to the company about some bullshit saying thats why they didn't pay. The company would blame me and I would have to make things right. I had all kinds of ways to deal with these people. I usually delivered their papers in a manner that fell on the very edge of the delivery parameters. For instance, if the paper would have to be within fifteen feet of the front door, I would get it fourteen feet ten inches. They would have to walk to get it. If they had a dog I would make it look like the dog chewed it. I would use all of the proper channels to report their unpaid bill. I would get a new customer to replace the deadbeat. I did all I could to make sure that the assholes would not get over on me. Assholes are typically short sighted idiots and they are easy to fool.

I quickly learned that life was too short to deal with assholes other than on my own terms so I gave up my paper route to the next ambitious kid who came along. I was about twelve or thirteen when my next door neighbor and I started our own business shoveling snow, raking leaves, and mowing lawns. Keep it in the neighborhood. Close to home.