SpeedofLite 

September 4 is National Newspaper Carrier Day!
Just want to shout out to all the hard-working paperboys and papergirls of yesteryear!
We have our own thread on life support in the Fifty Plus (50+) forum (https://www.bikeforums.net/fifty-plu...-paperboy.html), but thought C & V might have a few stragglers who weren't aware of it.
Lots of good vintage stories and photos over there.



SoL
Battle Creek (MI) Enquirer & News, 1968-1970

SpeedofLite 

A partner on a paper route?
How was that designed to function?

Erzulis Boat 

I have some stories..........

I did it for a few years. I would deliver "The Santa Barbara News Press" on a black Diamondback BMX bike rain or shine.

gugie 

I celebrated early at Cino, did a lot of paperboy on them hills.

52telecaster

I delivered on a western flyer sort of stingray. Huge Wald basket in front. I remember one morning staring at the ground as I rode empty streets. My ride was interrupted by colliding with the trunk of a parked car. The basket needed straightening. I haven't gotten much smarter.

SurferRosa

Mom bought me an Italian moped before I had a driver's license just so I could throw a paper route. Had a really hard time waking up at 6am, so I got fired from that job. I later killed the moped and used my sister's wonderful Free Spirit 10-speed to throw a much smaller afternoon paper. But I got fired from that job too. I blame a dog and one angry neighbor. It was almost time to start bagging groceries anyway.

3speedslow

Me and my Bridgestone bicycle at 4 AM for a few years early 70’s ! Delivered the Stars an Stripes Pacific edition on Okinawa through my large housing area. Lots of rain but I enjoyed it. I always thought the desk manager took too big of a cut of my pay. That job ended when I started caddie work at Awase Meadows golf course. Big money! Bike got me there at least.

CroMo Mike 

My brother and I shared a 6-day a week afternoon paper route for a while. 80 papers in the suburbs. Subscription rate was 30 cents per week and the paperboy had to go door to door to collect it. Still surprised how many people didn't have 30 cents and told us to come back later. We used an old 20-inch Roadmaster bike with a big huge basket on the front. We would clear less than $15 per week. Seems like every customer wanted something special - paper inside their storm door, paper on the porch, something else. The subscription rate for that same paper is something like $60 a month now, prepaid to the paper company, and the "paperboy" drives his route in a car. The paper's gotten a whole lot thinner, too. No news is good news, I guess.

rccardr 

Delivered the weekly Parma News in the late 50’s on foot. Community newspaper that asked for a voluntary dime a week, collected monthly. Needless to say, not many paid. On the other hand the publisher paid me a penny a paper, so overall good training for The Big Time.

Which was when my brother and I split a 100 paper Cleveland Press route. He did his half on his Raleigh 3 speed while I did mine on foot with a huge shoulder bag. Took about the same amount of time for each of us, as I recall since pretty much every customer wanted their paper between the storm and front door or some such. In our neighborhood, tossing a rolled or banded paper up onto a porch or lawn would get you fired.

1 Lugnut

First paper delivery for was helping my neighbor with a weekly Ad paper in the neighborhood. Only we’d sneak his dad’s early 50’s Plymouth out before dawn & fly through the route. It had a stick shift on the column 😱

I later had my own paper route with SF’s News Call Bulletin. Easy route but I had to contend with steep hills. Delivery was on a Schwinn 3-sp (my 1st big bike) w/ a headlight & speedo.

The newspaper had a subscription contest & if you sold enough of them, you’d win a trip to Disneyland. Two of my good friends also had Call Bulletin routes & all 3 of us won & went to Disneyland. We got to fly down to LAX & back to SFO on the same day. We had a lots of fun. This was around 1957. 2 yrs after D-land 1st opened.

There’s the Schwinn behind 49’er halfback Hugh McElhenny & I on a photo shoot one day…

Kabuki12

Yea , I did it on a cobbled together Murray set up with 20" wheels and a banana seat and butterfly handle bars. Got real good at planting the paper on the porch. In North Oxnard where my route was the front yards were rather large so technique was everything. I only had thirty five but it was work. I guess that's where I got the "get up early " thing. We were poor and had no car but a friend's Dad would take me when it rained.... sometimes. We folded at the local hospital lobby. I actually got my first pair of new Levi's that way . The $$ was great! Mom was stoked cause I would bring home a paper , always one or two extra's .

Kabuki12

My brother was the Chief City Editor there in the seventies, when it was a local paper .

T-Mar

I had a paper route but it was done on foot, without a bicycle. Client number ranged from about 65-75 and the farthest from home was only three blocks. Delivering the papers was never an issue for me, even in rain or snow. The problem was collecting. You spent more time trying to collect than delivering papers. The customers didn't care that each week I had to pay for the papers and if they didn't pay me, then it came out of my own pocket. Yet, when you tried to drop a dead-beat customer, the newspaper's circulation department would put them right back on your route and threaten to take the route away from you if you refused to deliever to the dead-beats. When they added advertising circulars to the papers but didn't increase my pay, I quit. To this day, I don't buy newspapers.

52telecaster

collecting used to suck. The first time I saw mortality up close was one of my subscribers dealing with a stroke. 12 years old is a tender age to see that stuff.

cdoud

My family and another family split this huge mobile home park. They had one half, we had the other. The route was passed down from big brother to little brother in their family. In my family it went from me to my kid sister, and then to my little brother after that. My sister and I split our half and we rode out every morning, me on my bare bones huffy 20" and her on some beautiful green banana-seat 20" bike made by Murray maybe or something called the "Dill Pickle". The best part about this route was the porches were all just a few feet from the curb and the double-wides were stacked so close together that you could barely get the next paper out of the bag fast enough. Had to actually pedal a little slower than normal to get the throws paced correctly. Good times.