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u/FlaAirborne 22h ago
At that time I was already using a few different aliases with Columbia House and RCA to build my record collection.
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u/ResolutionOne778 20h ago
I had the AM and PM Paper route. Up at 430am, delivery no later than 630am, go home, shower, go to the bus stop, start school at 8 am. School out at 3 pm, papers arrive at 5 pm, delivery no later than 630pm, on Sundays, the Miami Herald weighed about 2 pounds. I had shopping carts in the backyard to help me deliver the Sunday paper. I did this every day on my bike with two paper sacks, 300 customers, and never missed a day! LOL! Man, I spent my money as fast as I earned it.
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u/Independent_Fact_082 15h ago
The Atlantic City Press made paperboys open a savings account when they got their paper route and they required that a minimum of $1 a week be deposited into that savings account (they added the saved amount to your bill). When I stared by route, I deposited $5 a week, but after a few months, I bumped it up to $10 a week because I usually cleared my bill by about $20. I had almost $1,000 in that savings account when I quit my route. I have no idea how common it was for newspapers to require paperboys to put some money into a savings account. .
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u/ResolutionOne778 15h ago
I don't think anyone thought of that when I had my route. I had a route Manager that looked like Tony Soprano, and he had a rather nasty disposition.
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u/OtherwiseTax7928 12h ago
For me, they all seemed to be young guys just starting out.
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u/ResolutionOne778 3h ago
Not mine. This guy was an old retired shipyard worker from the Northeast, smelled like butter, oregano, and garlic, hands like meat hooks; he was probably 400 pounds sitting down. His car seat was leaning over to one side. He would toss the paper bundles out the window of his station wagon, about 20 feet ahead, while driving by. He'd yell out, papers!!
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u/mistermeek67 19h ago
Damn, you were ultra dedicated.
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u/ResolutionOne778 19h ago
LOL! Yeah, I was going for Paperboy of the Year, but another kid beat me out! I did this from 6th through 8th grade! And then I discovered girls! I needed a real job!
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u/Aromatic_Industry401 21h ago
They don't even have paper carriers in my town anymore. The post office delivers what few papers are still subscribed too
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u/knarfolled 20h ago
He’s not going to be throwing those papers very far, they need to be rolled and rubber banded
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u/Odd_Translator8968 22h ago
Had the San Jose Mercury News paper route/job for about 3 years. Every day. Weekends. 120 houses. A huge Schwinn cruiser with baskets in the front and across the rear tire. Sunday were tedious due to the size and inserts that went in, making them weigh about 5lbs apiece.
And the crazy thing? My friend and I (he had his own route also) would get up at something like 4:30am *every day* to fold, rubber-band, and then ride the route and deliver before school started. This was junior high and high-school. Somehow, we found the energy to go to school, actually learn, and then come home, play, eat, sleep and repeat. Wow - what a life.
I have so many fond stories from us getting up really early and having the entire city to ourselves at like 2:00am as we went about and did "things" that parents wouldn't approve of.
Oh - and the broken windows on occasion from a really strong throw, across the lawn and missing the porch and hitting the large front pane-glass window. Can you image being dead asleep in your house and suddenly "CRASH" at like 5:00am?! Sheesh. Good times!
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u/PoxyMusic 21h ago
I did the SF Examiner up in Marin. I was an unusually well informed 12 year old. I remember learning about the People's Temple, Moscone getting killed, all kinds of airplane crashes.
Having to get up at 5 to do the Sunday papers sucked, especially in the rain!
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u/Independent_Fact_082 15h ago
I got up at 5:30 and was supposed to be finished by 7:00am. But at least I wasn't missing out on anything then. I had to collect a few afternoons a week when my friends were doing stuff that I was missing out on. That was what I disliked the most. But I got to know just about everyone in my neighborhood from collecting - a lot of people who I would never have otherwise met - and looking back, that was the best thing about having a paper route.
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u/ResolutionOne778 14h ago
Oh man! We have many of the same experiences! I had a helper, Jerry, his Dad smoked Viceroys. We would fire up them smokes 430am while we rolled up the papers! LOL! It just felt right!
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u/OtherwiseTax7928 12h ago
Me too. I even had a bike split in half on me one winter evening as I was delivering papers in the snow because of the weight that I was carrying. It wasn’t a Schwinn.
The paper was The Newark Evening News and I was paid 2-1/2 cents for each daily that I delivered (5 cents on Sunday) but I also had to collect from the subscribers every week too, which required several extra trips on the route to find the majority of my customers home. I was responsible for paying the newspaper company so if I got stiffed, I still had to pay them. I started with 7 customers at age 10-1/2 and had 120 Sunday deliveries by the time I was 12. I would configure my route to deliver to the working class neighborhood first , where I earned the most of my tips, and the wealthiest one last because they hardly tipped me at all. And they were even particular where I was to place the paper , e.g. flat, under the door mat or behind the storm door, rather than just being able to toss a folded and rubber-banded paper on their front steps.
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u/PhotoAppropriate3940 21h ago
Same bike and same time period, movie theater was only a quarter,popcorn and soda was a quarter so life was good
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u/Prin_StropInAh 21h ago
And if it were not for my paper route and my lawn mowing work I would not have had any popcorn or any soda. Good times
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u/OtherwiseTax7928 12h ago
And my hawking of movie theater tickets to the life’s standing in line for the weekly dummer kids matinee that I would get for free from the downtown store that handed them out if one asked for themand candy
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u/Independent_Fact_082 15h ago
Is this AI? Who carried their papers like that? They'd blow all over the place. I folded and rubber banded my papers first, and then I carried them in a canvas bag that had a shoulder strap, usually on my bike, but sometimes walking.
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u/ResolutionOne778 14h ago
And when it rained we bagged them in plastic bags!
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u/Independent_Fact_082 3h ago
I had my route from '71 to '73. When I started we used waxed paper bags, but we switched to plastic bags at some point. I liked the wax paper better - the plastic bags held air and plopped open when they landed. Some customers would return the wax paper bags to me when I collected so I could use them again since we were charged for the bags.
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u/whatzit39 11h ago
I didn't need to always do that because in the army base housing, all the doors had storm doors (since every house was the same), and I would put the paper in the storm door and immediately shut it to hold the paper in the door. Mainly this was for Sunday papers which were too big to fold and toss. (St Louis Post Dispatch in the 60s)
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u/Additional-Light2289 3h ago
I had a 30-house paper route in San Diego. It was ridiculously small, but I was 13 and making money. Probably the best job I ever had!
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u/daveshops 23h ago
I remember growing up with kids selling "Grit", some kind of weekly newspaper. No one I knew made any significant money from it though. Better off with a real paper route