This morning, like most every morning, I will start the day by getting down on my knees.
Not in prayer, but to retrieve My Favorite Newspaper from beneath my car in the driveway. Actually, sometimes I do wish to God my arms were a little longer so I could reach the newspaper without having to move the car out of the way.
I cannot help but think my newspaper carrier is having a little fun on his early-morning rounds, like he or she is playing a version of “horseshoes.” A toss that skids to a stop dead-center out of reach is a “ringer” and anywhere else under the car is a “leaner.”
It simply cannot be by accident that roughly five newspapers a week are leaners and at least one is a ringer. Tom Brady wishes he had such an accurate arm.
Before we had our front lawn replaced with drought resistant landscaping, having the paper wind up shaded by the car was actually welcomed because it kept the newsprint safe and dry from the morning sprinklers. Truth be told, I still look forward to seeing if our carrier has hit the horseshoe stake each morning.
Tossing a newspaper from a moving car or pickup truck and hitting a driveway, much less a bull’s-eye under a car, is no small feat. But one of my great boyhood friends could top that by landing a newspaper on a front porch, and even on the “Welcome” doormat, while pedaling a stingray bicycle at full speed.
Indeed, Don could make perfect throws overhanded, backhanded, side-armed and I think even behind-the-back. He was like Pete Maravich on a fastbreak, but on a bike. This was way back when My Favorite Newspaper was still called The Star-Free Press and was an evening paper, except for Sunday mornings.
One of the casualties of most newspapers switching to morning publication seven days a week was the necessity of replacing paperboys and papergirls with adult carriers. I say this because kids with paper routes, thanks to the dedication and responsibility instilled, always seemed to grow up to be standout adults. Don, for example, became Ventura City Fire Chief.
On occasion I would help Don fold and rubber-band his 100 or so newspapers, me doing one for every four or five he did, before loading them into a huge double-pocketed canvas bag he strapped to the handlebars of his stingray.
I will never forget the first time Don asked me to sub for him. He gave me the list of addresses, including certain houses that had to be “porched” meaning the newspaper couldn’t simply be tossed onto the driveway, and a couple homes where it needed to be tucked inside the front screen door.
It took me ten times longer than Don would have needed, but eventually I got all the newspapers folded and rubber-banded and loaded into the canvas bag. I excitedly rode off, tossing newspapers like Frisbees, and everything was going fine until Don’s stingray became squirrelly and …
… a house or three later, my throw threw me off balance and bike and rider crashed and fell.
Don laughed his great laugh the next day when I told him about my mishap. I had learned the hard way something he forgot to mention: be sure to take the papers alternately out of the left and right sides of the canvas bag or else it will slowly grow imbalanced in weight.
In other words, like the straw that breaks the camel’s back, one too many extracted newspapers topples the bike.
* * *
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