A Paperboy's Trials

As newspapers shut down or go to Internet editions, another facet of American life fades into history. No, not the printed word, it's the small town paperboy.

I have a lot of paperboy memories since I was a paperboy in a small southern town, Norphlet, Arkansas, population 650. I walked and ran the paper route every day starting at 5:00 o'clock in the morning. Papers had to be on everyone's front porch by 6. I delivered about 45 El Dorado Daily News, 20 Arkansas Gazettes, and 15 Shreveport Times, all stuffed into a paper bag that hung around my neck.---Sunday papers were so heavy I could hardly walk. I worked for Doc Rolinson, who owned the newsstand, and made $3.50 cents a week. Of course, that was 1948 and money went a lot further, but even by those standards it was a pittance.

My job as a paperboy's was usually fairly routine, punctuated by run-ins with mean dogs or what was even worse, the weather. I could take care of the dogs, since I carried my trusty sling-shot and a few well-rounded rocks in my paper bag. After a few licks with those rocks, most of the dogs in town would run when I pulled my slingshot out of my bag. However, there was no escaping bad weather. Rain was okay since I had a slicker suit that covered my paper bag. My only concern was not to let my papers get wet. Every wet paper meant a 5 cent deduction from my weekly check, so I had to make sure every paper made in safely on the front porch and out of the rain.

Weather is and alway has been the worst part of a paperboy's job. The absolute worst weather I had to put up with wasn't the south Arkansas heat, since I was up early. No, not the heat, but those winter days when a wet cold front came roaring through bringing a mist of rain mixed with sleet. Thirty-five degrees, misting rain with the wind blowing a good 20 MPH made that hour of delivering papers one of my most miserable hours on earth.

Naturally, when I started writing The Red Scarf I selected the town paperboy to tell the story. It was an easy first person way to give the reader an insight into small town life in the south during and right after World War II. And yes, as I noted in the novel, there was a big snow one winter where the temperature dropped to 12 degrees. The morning, after that big snowstorm, my friend, John Clayton, my dog, Sniffer, and I started tracking the Chicken-killing Coon---which turned out to be not a coon, but something a whole lot bigger and meaner. A bit of realism here and there mixed with a little---or maybe a lot of fiction. That always makes a story fun to write and read.

So, I'll miss the small town paperboys, but I won't miss some of those cold mornings where I plodded along rolling, folding, and throwing those sorry, stinking papers at my customer's doors.