My high school buddy Doug and I shared a newspaper route when we were freshmen. Actually it was Doug’s route.
So our business arrangement was sort of a mini-version of a trickle-down economy as Doug made the big money while paying me something equivalent to what is minimum wage ($0.03/hour) in Sierra Leone today.
After school, all the kids with paper routes walked to the local station which consisted of a bare cement room with a wooden bench attached to the wall to unload and fold the evening papers.
There is no doubt that folding newspapers is a lost art today. No rubber bands or fancy plastic bags (for inclement weather) back then.
After enough practice at tossing papers, a guy could nail a clean landing on front porches with the accuracy of a major league pitcher. Well, okay, once in a while the paper would bounce off into a bush or amongst the flowers. But folks were pretty understanding back then, as long as it did not become a habit.
Every Friday evening was reserved for fee collection. It was time to “pay the paperboy,” as we used a punch card to record weekly payments.
Doug once made the mistake of conning me into going door-to-door to collect the fees. It was a cold, snowy, miserable night, and Doug conveniently had something else to do.
Just so happened it was also Christmas-tip time. Doug gave me specific instructions: “Save all the tips for me, okay?” By the end of the night I had quite a pile of holiday cards containing money.
The next day I handed over half of the cards and money to Doug and, with a puzzled look, he mumbled, “That’s strange, I usually get more than that.”
The only downside was I ended up with a collection of cards addressed “For Doug” stuffed away in my dresser drawer. I’ve never confessed my crime to Doug – and, hopefully, he does not read this story.
