My parents thought it was a great idea to get their ten year old son a paper route. Unfortunately the only one available was a “Chicago Daily News” route on the blocks south of where I lived. The ideal route is around your house delivering to the neighbors that you know.
My dad put the paper bag horns on my handle bars and a basket on the back of my bike. I wanted a banana seat, but now my bike looked like something a gramma rode to the grocery.
The “Chicago Daily News” was an afternoon newspaper. My stack was usually dropped off in front around 3:50pm. Just enough time to change out of my school uniform and grab a snack.
Most of my route was bungalows and flats, so it only took about an hour to deliver fifty to sixty newspapers around the neighborhood.
The only time it ever cramped my style was on Thanksgiving. The dreaded holiday edition with all the sales pages ready for the first weekend of Christmas shopping.
The normal “daily news” was about a half inch thick. Easy to fit in the paper bag tied to the front of my bike.
Not the Thanksgiving paper… it was at least two inches thick. It filled both my canvas bag and my gramma basket. Adds for Marshall Fields, JC Penney, Carson’s, Venture, toy stores, sport stores, fur coat stores and furniture stores.
That Thanksgiving I had to leave my Uncle Charlie’s house early and deliver the news to my devoted customers. When we got back to the house there were five bundles stacked on our stoop. Usually there was one sometimes two.
My mom helped me stuff all the sale adds into every single one of the newspapers. She then put them in the trunk of her 1969 Chevy Vega and drove along my route with her hazards flashing.
A couple neighbors were waiting at the door for the afternoon news. They were actually on their stoop to hand me a Thanksgiving card or package. By the time my mom and I were done delivering the papers.... her backseat was full of plates of cookies, pie, slices of turkey and envelopes.
Each envelope had a fin or a two dollar bill in it. It was 1976 and two dollar bills were being reissued for the first time in years. I think it was because of the Bicentennial. They became popular currency to tip the paperboy.
Mom and I parked the car and brought our bounty into the house. We had a second feast courtesy of the neighbors dedicated to the last afternoon newspaper in Chicago.
I ended up getting duked close to forty bucks that day. Mom and I ended up watching movies on the couch that night. It might have been the last time I fell asleep with my head on my mommy’s hip.
The “Chicago Daily News” went out of business a year or two later. My dad joked that the paper was around for over a hundred years. Moose gets a job with them and they shutdown the presses soon afterwards.
Happy Thanksgiving Chalkheads.
