By CHRIS RIDEOUT
Earlier in this space, I wrote a piece about my boyhood experiences as a paper boy. I left some things out, which I now realize was a mistake.
My paper route memories are so indelible, who knows when I will finish talking about them?
The morning papers were dropped off at 5 a.m. in front of a gas station about two miles from my house. Every morning when I rode down I hoped they would not be there. No papers. No paper boy. What a relief. If that happened, I had to call my manager. There were no phones in those days, so I had to ride my stupid girl-bike to the nearest all-night restaurant and ask to use their phone. There I was, an eight-year-old kid, asking to use the phone at 5:30 in the morning. I’m surprised they didn’t call the police. Or social services, had such an organization existed.
Every customer had a particular way that they wanted the paper delivered. One house wanted the paper inside the screen door, another yelled at me to never open the screen door. Some houses wanted the paper on the front stoop, which is where I faithfully left it, even during freezing rain. I saw a paper that I had left on the porch during freezing rain: it was four times its normal size and weighed 10 pounds. The customer showed it to me days later and asked me what I expected him to do with it. Many years later I had an answer for him.
The problem was that I never had a clear idea of what a newspaper was. I knew the route was important, the money I had to collect was equally so, as was the delivery time. But I failed to see why this little stupid bundle of paper was important. I just wanted to go home and make oatmeal for my Dad’s breakfast. As a kid, I had no idea how necessary the morning paper was to people. For me, then, it was just one more mysterious thing about adults.
The paper had regular circulation drives. They wanted me to increase the number of papers I had by canvassing those houses who didn’t get a paper. This, I thought, was a terrible idea. Who in his right mind would want more heavy hard-to-fold papers? I had too many already. It was a goofy scheme designed to hurt paper boys. The company even offered prizes. No thank you. I was not tempted by prizes like BB guns and stuff like that. Even though I wouldn’t have minded a BB gun.
And then there was the other part of being a paper boy: the collecting. Every Friday I had to collect money for the week’s paper. It was 25 cents. The problem was, customers didn’t know who this kid was at the front door asking for money. They had never seen me because I was at their house at 6 a.m. I would hear people hollering, “There’s a little kid at the door asking for money.” They didn’t seem to connect the paper with money and with me. I had no ID. Kids, as a rule, didn’t carry ID in those days.
One of my customers was the local Legion. When I walked in on Friday after school, I caused an unexpected sensation. The place was full of men and they were all looking at me. The smell of beer and cigarette smoke was so powerful it left an indelible impression on me. And of course they teased me: offering me beer and asking if I was old enough to drink. It was comic relief for them. Not for me. When the bartender finally paid me I made a run for the door with the sounds of laughter following me.
Paper boys had to collect the money because there was no other way to do it. There were no credit cards, no e-transfer, no way for the subscribers to pay except to give it to the little kid who came to their door every Friday just at supper time. It had to be then because the kid was otherwise in school and his manager wanted the week’s money on Saturday. I didn’t wonder why then. At that age I didn’t wonder at much. The whole world was incomprehensible to me then, and still is a little.
The absolutely best part of collecting was sorting the money on the dining-room table on Saturday morning. It was exciting because at my age, not much real money ever came my way. My grandmother gave me a dollar bill on my birthday and I spent hours just holding it.
In a week I would collect around seven dollars. Mostly in quarters. I got to keep three dollars. These numbers sound ridiculously small today — it amounted to around $150 a year – but keep in mind you could buy a pretty good used car for a hundred bucks. I bought a real bicycle with three speeds and finally got rid of the stupid blue girl-bike.
When my mother got me the paper route she said it would make a man of me and also teach me the value of money. It did neither of those things. You can’t make a man out of an eight-year-old boy. And as for the value of money, it taught me that money is hard to come by and you have to make it in all kinds of weather at all times of the day and night. And most people don’t really like to part with money unless they have to.
But it gave me things that surprised me then and things that still do. The smell of a fine morning in June when the sun was up with me and my papers. The smell of the neighbourhood’s coal-burning furnaces on the crisp December mornings, pitch-dark and wonderfully silent. The thrill of being up and out when everyone was asleep, riding through the dark streets like being on a secret mission. Even the early morning smell of fresh newsprint was special to me. And even at that age, the absolutely clear delight of solitude, of being in charge of myself with a real responsibility, has stayed with me and in some ways, consoled me for a childhood that few would envy.
And some mornings, like Mondays, when the papers were thin, I finished the route fast and got home early enough to make breakfast for me and my Dad.
Chris Rideout is a Salt Spring Island resident.