The Buffalo Evening News, suburban /country had 30 customers, about 5 miles start to finish
An hour to get home from H.S then load up and try to get finished before dark. Had a junker bike my father paid 5$ for it, I saved 54.50$ for RED Monarch with tank and horn, knuckle guards.mud flaps, fox tails, speedometer and a siren , the local ploice officer told me to remove it
Customers were the greatest,Saturday which was collection day took hours but ARMY football was my thing back then, a neighbors son played 1/4back then, and they all would have the game on so I could sort of listen as I delivered and collected.NEVER got stuck by a non payer. Christmas was manna from heaven. I'd get money gifts, cookies and one old German farm lady in her 80s always made me something called Lepkuchen(sp.), a hard molassaes flat cookie.
Got bit by a German Shepard one time, but the HUGE geese on a Catholic nuns farm were the worse. Those devils would see me coming closer, I had to pedal up an incline drive to the door and then they would attack in a flock. A dog bite was minor compared to those critters, they would open the beak close it then twist and pinch, but the food they always gave me was great
Had my first H.S. date with the daughter of one customer
Some blizzardy wintry days my father would drive me in his car
My younger bro got the route when I left for boarding school, my bike too,trashed it