The Paper Route
From ‘The Adventures of The McGaffin’s As We Remember Them’ — a family memoir begun July 17, 2003.
Paper Route. I began life in business as a paperboy. I would buy my papers from the Plainfield Courier News. There was a route manager who would deliver the papers to my house and once a week he would collect the money from me. The papers cost 4 cents per paper and I would buy them for 3 cents and then it was up to me to collect the 4 cents from the customer. We were issued a book that had a sheet of tickets. When we were paid, we would tear off a ticket and give that to the customer as the receipt. The normal plan was to deliver during the week and to collect on Saturday. The paper was published on Monday through Saturday so the weekly amount was $.24 per week. I would try to carry some pennies when I was collecting because many people had a quarter available. Sometimes when they felt generous, they would tell me to keep the change. That one penny was pure profit. I had about 50 customers which gave me an income of $.50 per day if I was able to collect from everyone. The paper company was not concerned if I was not able to collect. They had their money and it was up to me to make my money.
I enjoyed the job and I did it for 3 or 4 years. Most of the customers were very nice and were generous at Christmas time. The company would give us calendars that we would deliver during the holidays. I would make sure that these were hand delivered because they would often give me a dollar or two. I would usually make $45 to $50 each Christmas. At that time this was a lot of money to have at one time. The challenge to this job was that it had to be done every day regardless of the weather. You have heard about the mail being delivered in all kinds of weather, well that applied to the newspaper also. There was no TV and the radio news was limited. People depended on the paper for most of the local and worldwide news. This was especially important during the war.
The papers would be dropped at our side door in the afternoon in a single bundle. It was up to me to decide how I would deliver them. Most of the time I would ride my bike to make the deliveries. The papers were delivered to the customers' front steps or on the porches of most homes. The best way to do that was to fold the papers so they could be thrown from the bike as I rode past the house. The paper came folded in half, as they do today, but I would fold them again in half and then turn them lengthwise and fold it by thirds. Then it would be a square about 5" on each side. I would tuck one side into the other and fold in the loose piece. This would give me a compact paper that could be thrown easily and accurately (much like a Frisbee is thrown today). This was time consuming and boring so I would put the papers on the kitchen counter and put the record "The Beer Barrel Polka" on the old upright windup (now motorized) phonograph and try to get the papers all folded before the song ended. This was a 78-rpm record with one song, so I had 3 minutes to get it done. I usually was able to win.
