The Worst Job (1965- 1970)

To be truthful, being a paperboy is not the worst job in the world. But it was certainly the worst job I ever had.

Worse than weighing lampblack for Firestone.

Worse than bussing tables in New Jersey.

And, yes, worse than washing dishes and scrapping pizza pans in Cape Canaveral.

For five years I was forced to lugged a fifty pound bag full of pressed wood pulp around the neighborhood for three dollars a day.

My dad encouraged me to take the job. He had a romanticized notion of what it meant to be a paperboy, or, as he called the profession- a newsboy. He had been a paperboy himself. Of course back then the news was a bit weightier with Roosevelt, Hitler, World War II and the Depression.

When my turn came, I got stuck passing out a sack full of Nixon headlines. Trust me, no one was excited about that.

Life is unfair.

Think about it. When you’re a paperboy there are no days off. No sick days. No personal days. No excuses. God may have rested on the seventh day, but the paperboy who delivered the news to the rest of creation didn’t.

Here’s the list of some of the more hateful duties of a paperboy:

Dealing with neighborhood wildlife. Mostly dogs. This was way before mace became available to the general public. I had to deal with everything from menacing german shepards to yappy wienner dogs with only my wits to protect me.

I was lucky I survived.

Folding, rolling and delivering the papers. Not as easy as it sounds. Paper rolling is a learned skill among paperboys. Sure, anyone can roll up a Friday paper, but try a Wednesday paper filled with inserts and advertisements. It didn't help that I couldn't have cared less about how the papers were rolled.

Collecting. Basically, it’s a modified version of begging. You're a kid and an adult owes you money. Who do you think is going win?

Inserts. At least once a week newspapers came with some assembly required. We'd find our stack of newspapers next to an equally tall stack of Sears advertisements. Some paperboys simply chucked them, doing themselves and the consumer a favor. I, however, could never cross that moral threshold.

An Interesting Newspaper Fact

In terms of weight, not all papers were alike. As previously mentioned, Friday’s papers were always thin. Wednesdays could be as thick as your fore arm. Sundays were approaching the bulk of a Christmas catalog. And holidays were the size of a major metropolitan area phone book.

In 1966 December 25th came on a Sunday. In terms of paper size, it was a perfect storm: It was a Sunday and a holiday all rolled into one backbreaking sized paper. For the first time in my life I dreaded waking up on Christmas. To top it off, when I opened my eyes I saw it had snowed over night. Not just snow. But SNOW. Close to eight inches of the white stuff covered the neighborhood.

As I walked out into the kitchen, I was surprised to find that my dad had drafted a very reluctant Allen and cluelss Lowell to help. Then he fired up his VW and drove us around the route. He folded and rolled while the three of us delivered.

What could have been an act of futility matching Sisyphus turned out to be an exercise of familial cooperation.

When we were done, Dad drove home leaving my brothers and me to finish up and walk the final two blocks back to the house. It was around six in the morning on Christmas day. There was no sound except for the gentle hiss of falling snow. When we got back, mom had made up pancakes and bacon.

This is one of my most favorite memories.


Next: My On Going Love Affair With Herman Melville