In the mid- and late 1960s in our section of east Dallas, there were a limited number of ways for an energetic boy—girls just did not do this stuff, sticking to baby-sitting chores—to earn money. I washed cars, but that was intermittent and there was no easy way to advertise my services. Relatively few neighbors took pity on me and my friends, and agreed to let us scrub their Ford Galaxies, Chevy Impalas or Plymouth Furies (no foreign cars back then) for two bucks or so. Maybe if we had come up with a special angle, like a wax job or something to make the tires shine, we could have made it fly. The second option was mowing yards. I did a lot of this, especially in summers. Using my family’s three-horsepower mower, I cut a ton of grass. People on several adjoining streets knew of my availability to come and do their front and back yards, then rake the grass and shove it into bags which were later taken away with other trash. I did some edging and pruned bushes, if asked, but mostly it was basic lawn-mowing. The price was $3 and sometimes more.
The third method of earning money in that time and place was by delivering newspapers. The Dallas Times Herald was still in existence then, and some of my friends had paper routes in which they threw it onto local porches in the afternoon. The alternative was the Dallas Morning News. As the name indicates, it came out in the A.M., not the P.M. The two years I was a student at Robert T. Hill Junior High and my senior year at Bryan Adams High School (despite having undergone back surgery in the summer of 1970), I was a carrier.
I recall those days with a mixture of fondness and horror. I was pleased to have a job of sorts and the responsibility that went with it. My work ethic was strengthened, I will tell you that. I set the alarm for 4 in the morning and walked outside to await a truck driven by our local manager. I have forgotten his name, but I will now call him Mr. Jones. I remember he walked with a limp. He would drop off a few bundles and a fraction, and if there was bad news he would deliver it. These little pieces of paper were known as “kicks”—that is, a kick in the backside. If the house at 9844 Van Dyke Road, 507 Hambrick Drive or 814 Bondstone Drive had not received a copy of the Morning News the day before (or it was wet, or it was only on the lawn and not the porch or a similar calamity), he had to make a special trip there. This was an unhappy occurrence for the customer, for Mr. Jones and for me. It was not unheard of for a carrier with too many kicks to be fired; there were more boys wanting to throw papers than there were such jobs.
Although many years have passed, I can recall what had to be done on those mornings. I folded the papers, put a rubber band around them, jammed as many as would fit into two canvas bags that went over my shoulders and went out on my bicycle. This was a difficult and laborious task. I recall many mornings when I worked in the rain. As mentioned earlier, the papers had to get on the porch and not just somewhere on the lawn. If I took dead aim from the sidewalk and missed, I had to remove both bags, get off my bicycle and walk up there. I tossed the paper on the customer’s porch then headed back to my bike and on to the next house.
Depending on the size of that day’s Morning News, I would have to do two, three or even four rounds before all my 75 papers were gone. If there were no problems—if Mr. Jones had brought the papers on time (by no means did that always happen), if the papers were small and no mishaps took place—I was able to go home and sleep for an hour before getting up for school or church on Sunday. Remember, this was seven days a week.
On Sundays, the papers were big, hard to fold and hard to throw. My parents could sometimes be persuaded to get up and help me in our station wagon, and what a difference that was. My mother, in keeping with her nature, made it a positive experience. She smiled, encouraged and even laughed—even at 5:30 on freezing winter mornings. My father was quite the opposite. He never let me forget that he would rather be at home in bed. They had wholly different attitudes, and I was determined to learn a lesson from that contrast.
There was more to it than throwing the newspaper onto the right porches each morning. At the end of the month, my fellow carriers and I had to go around to our customers’ homes, knock on their doors and say the words “collect for the Morning News!” (Do I remember accurately? It seems that getting the paper for an entire month cost less than $5.) Even then, I knew the burdens placed on us were unfair. Still, we had no choice. Some of those people were kind and expressed gratitude, but others were rude. Worse yet, some of them refused to come to the door. I was forced to go back the next day and try again. The Morning News, Mr. Jones and his colleagues had a system that encouraged us to seek new subscribers, although I have forgotten what the incentive was.
After I had collected from all the customers and given the lion’s share to Mr. Jones, how much was left? Perhaps less than I would have liked. Things have changed in that business. No longer is the newspaper delivered by kids on bicycles but adults in cars. And they sure do not have to go knocking on doors to ask for payment.
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