Today’s column is being delivered the old-fashioned way, by paperboys – rather, former ones – who flooded my email inbox with their own memories in response to my newspaper-throwing tale last week.
“On days when the paper was thin,” Bob Escobedo shared, “I would fold each copy of The Star-Free Press one extra time, making it skinny like a hammer handle. This added velocity and accuracy to my throws. I busted many a screen door in my time.”
Bart Bleuel had a similar confession: “Your column brought back memories of my paper route days. As I remember, my target was the milk bottles on the porch rather than the doormat. Yeah, I didn’t get all that many tips.”
“Tossing accuracy shows up in tips at collection time,” Dick Baldwin echoed, “but sometimes the wind does bad things to a toss and off it goes to who knows where?”
“Substitute Don for my older brother, and you for me,” wrote Brian Ford, “and I lived your story. You only forgot to mention the extra hassle with inserts!”
“I, too, was a paperboy back in the days of The Star-Free Press,” Larry Alamillo recalled fondly. “If memory serves me right, I had around 110 customers. I divided my route with my brothers. We would end at a certain intersection and ride home together. That job taught me responsibility, dependability, perseverance and many business lessons to boot.”
“I had a paper route when I was 12 and living in Nebraska,” John Acevedo wrote. “I recall being delayed on my route once because of a dog pack. It was a standoff – them at one end of the street, me on the other! I finally won when they dispersed.”
Dick Pillow’s paperboy days started out going to the dogs before he was rescued. He shared: “Being a lower middle class boy in a windy, dusty little town in the south plains of the panhandle in Texas, I was in the middle part of the seventh grade when I got my first regular-paying job.
“It was great getting up in the morning, going to the front of the Post Office, getting my papers, preparing them for delivery and walking to deliver them. Yes, I had no bike and no means of getting one.
“After a month or so of this, my supervisor found out I had no bike and was delivering the papers on foot. He felt sorry for me, I guess, so a few days later when I went to get papers – guess what? The most beautiful old, used bike was there with the papers! It was one of the happiest days of my life at that time. He left a note saying the bike was $8 and he would deduct $1 from my pay until it was paid off. I can tell you I took the best care of that bike that anyone could.”
Lastly, from the star of last week’s column, Don McPherson: “Boy, you nailed it for me and anyone who had a paper route. You took me right back to that Stingray and zig-zaggin’ the streets.
“The timing was perfect – I was going through a stack of old saved newspapers the day before. They were the old wide format and were a heavier paper from the ’80s and ’90s. I showed Patricia how these were good folding papers and tried to show her what a pro I was at folding them. I started to go into the tri-fold vs. the double-fold, but she has heard it before.
“Here’s to our youth experiences and the Ventura of old. Cheers.”
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com