By the end of the week, however, I had changed my mind. The sun was shining, the paper had shrunk, and I finally knew the route by heart. Not to mention that, to a 12-year-old, there was something intoxicating about $1.20 a day.
So when the regular paperboy gave up that route a few months later, I snapped it up. And I've never regretted it. Today, much of what I know about responsibility, resourcefulness and money management -- not to mention arctic survival -- I learned during my 1,000 days as a paperboy.
Sadly, most of today's teens will never have the chance I did. For reasons of liability and reliability, U.S. publishing executives are tossing away youth paper carriers like yesterday's news, replacing them with adults by the tens of thousands.
This shift may save a few bucks. Adults, supposedly, are easier to manage and insure than kids. But at a time when young teens are tempted every day by drugs and delinquency, the loss of this unique learning opportunity is a substantial blow.
And it's an opportunity a kid can't get elsewhere. Unlike selling popcorn or flipping hamburgers, delivering papers was always available to the very young. I was 12 years old when I started my route, a typically lazy kid with one incentive: money.
I soon learned that money doesn't come easily when you're running a business. And that's basically what I was doing. Each day, I ordered 60 newspapers at 8 cents apiece from the newspaper company, and delivered each one with the promise of a dime. Each month, I collected from my customers and paid my supplier what I owed.
With so slim a profit margin, I could afford no mistakes. If I didn't collect my money, my supplier still got his cut. If I ordered too many papers, I was charged for every one. I was so inefficient that first month, I recall, that I virtually worked for free.
But I soon got the concept of the bottom line. And then it was on to service. I found that if I satisfied my customers, I could double my profit on tips. So I did what any businessboy must: I did what the customer said.
If they wanted their paper in the garage, I put it there. If they wanted it on the porch, that's where it went. And if they wanted it in the milk crate down the walkway in the backyard under the Sycamore tree near the chained-link fence -- that's where it ended up.
And the rewards came, although not all were financial. Out delivering one day, I was called into a customer's home by an elderly woman who said her husband had something to tell me. I met him in the hallway, a man in a wheelchair, in his pajamas, his eyes ringed in black, in his last weeks of life.
"I want to thank you for always being on time," he rasped, "and for putting the paper through the mail slot, where I can get it." Then, with a nod of respect: "You're the best paperboy we've ever had."
Those words felt good. They taught me that even the smallest acts can make a positive difference in someone else's life. That's a lesson that every teenager should have a chance to learn.
If you had a paper route as a kid, what did you get from it? Send responses to VoiceMale, or mail to POB 8071, Lexington KY 40533-8071.
| Home | January | Features | Columns | OrgNews | Boutique | Directory | Links | Definitions |
The Backlash! is a feature of New Chivalry Press
Email to the Editor -- If you don't want it published in the "Email to the Editor" column, say so. Otherwise, it may be published.