It was 1959 and I was thirteen years old, and in junior high school. I had a very spiffy green bike that I rode to school every day. More than anything, I wanted to have a paper route. The money was important, but it was what all the cool guys did so . . .
My parents were not as excited as I was, but they allowed it. My father told me in his big decisive voice, “Don’t think I’m going to be one of those parents who drives you around to deliver papers whenever it rains. You are on your own.”
So, I went down to the paper office and the grumpy guy who ran the show gave me a route and a fifteen second orientation which was pretty much, “Don’t fuck it up.”
Being a dumb but thrilled thirteen-year-old, it took me a while to figure out that I had been given the most difficult and poorest paying paper route ever. It consisted of massive hills, so my bike was worthless, and most of the customers paid through the office so I didn’t collect from them, therefore vey few tips, which is how you made the real money. I did get a Three Musketeers bar once.
But I got up early every morning, rain or shine, and delivered fifty papers, up and down the hills. I could be wrong, but I think I made two dollars a week. That was enough to afford a Devil Dog and a hot chocolate at Cotters Spa on Saturday morning.
So, I was not only a free man with money in my pocket, I was also one of the cool guys . . .sort of.
