A little OT but... I've done something in my past that I doubt will ever be done again.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Last edited Sat Jul 9, 2022, 04:56 AM - Edit history (1)

Every day I would pick up a large bundle of printed pages and take them home where I would sit beside them, roll up the pages into bundles, wrap a rubber band about the bundle, shove them into a canvas bag and mount my bicycle with the bag slung over my shoulder.

I would the ride through three different neighborhoods doing my best to throw these rolled up pages on to the porches of those who had payed a fee to have this occur.

If I were lucky I would not get a call later in the evening telling me that the people at xyz road didn't get their paper and I needed to run one out there to them.

The news will never be quite the same as when folks waited for a fourteen year old to deliver it to them.

[Thtwudbeme]

1. You might be surprised. We very well might need to fire up the printing presses again

to get news to our once fellow Americans living in Texastan or Alabamastan.

[Lil Liberal Laura]

2. And you weren't arrested for littering or vandalism?

Psycho!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. LOL!

Those things would come later.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

3. Thanks for that memory. Do you remember Grit newspaper?

Stretching my recall but I think Grit was a weekly. Where I was raised, for regular newspapers The Tennessean and Nashville Banner were our choice of papers along with a county local out of our county seat. My family could only afford the Sunday Tennessean and Sunday comics always made my week.

You're probably like me and watched either Huntley-Brinkley or Walter Cronkite for 6pm news....

You were doing a tireless service to your community for little pay and probably very little thanks....

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

5. Oh God, yes! Advertised in the back pages of so many comic books.

And Sundays were always a bigger delivery day for me... And much heavier as it seemed each paper included an extra three pounds of advertisements and coupons.

[hauckeye]

15. Oh my - Grit- I remember it!

I’m 68 and my Grandma in Iowa always subscribed to Grit. I loved reading it as a kid

[RickHworth]

6. I did the same

As a fifteen year old for my surrounding neighborhood. For the next three years, seven days a week and sometimes Saturday afternoons with the coupons and comics.
I felt the awesome responsibility for giving my customers the access to the news.
And had complete dread of a call that someone didn't get their paper.

[calimary]

8. Those were the days...

[MyOwnPeace]

11. my friend, we thought they'd never end!

[multigraincracker]

9. That was my start as a working person.

Always ended up with snow shoveling and lawn mowing jobs from my customers too.

[DEbluedude]

10. My first job.

Daily after school. I could nail a porch from 50 feet with no problem. And Sundays & Thanksgiving, phew! - five bags, one on each shoulder and three in a wagon. Lots of rubber bands.

[Crazyleftie]

12. We would visit my friends uncle in the corner tavern

he would give us a quarter to run over to the newstand to get him the racing form

[The Jungle 1]

13. I still have one of those bags

It says Bulletin. Philly Bulletin.

[Joinfortmill]

14. Yup.

[myohmy2]

16. I had...

...a route myself delivering the local paper instead of the big Chicago paper...

...the Chicago paper was early morning, mine was afternoon...

...but with the local paper I had to 'collect'...shaking quarters out of people once a month was challenging...

...but then again there was that rare $5 tip at Christmas...

...I always hit the porch...

[3Hotdogs]

17. I was 12. Newark (NJ) Evening News. Large circulation with many advertisers.

Those fuckers were heavy. Sundays, required two trips back to the house because the issue was so large, it wouldn't fit into the bag.

Saturdays and Mondays were good.

[SouthernDem4ever]

18. Delivered the Atlanta Consitution

back when news was required to adhere to journalistic standards. Now some like Fux Nooze don't do that.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

19. "The paper holds their folded faces to the floor, and every day, the paperboy

brings more" Roger Waters

Dark Side of The Moon will be 50 years old next year.

[Skittles]

20. I remember reading about an elderly Texas couple

who marveled at how that little Nolan Ryan nailed the porch target every time.......Nolan's dad operated a newspaper delivery service

also, an ex boyfriend of mine moved from rural to suburbs, and said the first day he woke up there was a couple dozen newspapers on his lawn, his dog had gotten out and retrieved them all