My career as a journalist started at age eleven.  I had been tormenting the local Area Distribution Manager for the Sacramento Bee since I was nine.  Technically, you had to be twelve to be old enough.  If you waited until you were twelve to ask for a route you failed to show enough initiative and started out at a disadvantage to us nine year olds who had been hustling substitute jobs from the local paperboys.

 

Doug, the local paperboy, lived up the street.  He had been our paperboy for several years and was reaching the age where the ‘fumes were interfering with his career.  It was getting difficult for him to meet the bell on Sunday Morning.

 

My Dad was the one who clued me in.  The fumes?  Perfume and gasoline.  They start affecting teenage boys at different ages, but in my era it was around age sixteen.  That’s when you were old enough to get your driver’s license.

 

Patsy, Doug’s sister, had been delivering his papers since he got his license.  She was a year younger than me but was losing interest.  I was their substitute, had been since I was nine.  The Area Manager was skeptical of me because of my age.  I kept reminding him that I was a year older than Patsy.  He said he couldn’t buy that one since the route was actually Doug’s.  I think he was just testing my resolve.

 

When I was substituting I always got all the papers to the right customers, pretty much on time.  In those days you could make about twenty-five bucks a month as a paperboy.   A virtual fortune.  Sure beat the hell out of selling the Saturday Evening Post for a quarter; or Grit, for a nickel a copy.  Don’t even mention selling Christmas Cards.

 

One day when I was eleven, Patsy told me that she was quitting.  I don’t really remember why but I think she had finally saved up enough for a horse.  Doug called Mr. Lovell and formally resigned.  I was hovering around when he came by to pick up the canvas bags and receipt books.  The interview was grueling, but since I knew the route I was a shoe-in.  Patsy even vouched for me.

 

I always read the front page, the funnies and the editorials.  I learned about people, about economics, journalistic integrity and bureaucracy.  The most important survival skill was handling mean dogs.

 

Particularly Sophie’s dog.  She was the smartest kid in my class at school.  She lived about half-way through the route.  Her mother could not hear so they had a big Lab that guarded the place.  Particularly from the paperboy.  I always kept a few choice rocks in my canvas newspaper bag for emergencies, but I preferred to use detente.  I hated to use the rocks because I had to answer to Sophie.  Not only was she smart, she was as tough as most of the boys.  I wasn’t afraid of her but I didn’t want to tangle with her either.  That dog chewed a hole in more than one set of my canvas bags while I was in full retreat.

 

The best thing, after the money, was you could win trips to the State Fair, Disneyland, the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and other places if you got enough new customers.  There were regular contests at the same time each year.  They regularly sent solicitors out to walk your route with you and sign up new customers.  I learned that customers who stopped their paper while they were out of town were actually new customers when they resumed service.  That was how you really got good stats.  I wasn’t too sure about the practice at first.  The solicitors were eager to write them up since we both got credit for a new customer.  The more new customers we got, the happier everybody was.  It was all in how you wrote the story.  I sure enjoyed the trips and got to know a lot of my fellow journalists from around the state while we were traveling. I was never challenged with the fact that the overall customer count on my route did not seem to reflect all of the new customers I got every year.  It was journalistic integrity.  There was more truth in our stats than in a lot of the editorials.

 

I learned to deal with customers who didn’t have enough money on hand to pay.  There were also a few customers who complained about everything.  I ultimately refused to deliver to some of them.  It was an enlightening, empowering and enriching experience.   It was all business.  We paid for all of our papers whether or not our customers did.  We were expected to deliver seven days a week 365 days a year; regardless of weather.

 

When I was fifteen, I actually had two routes for about a year.  The money was good but  I was burning out.  About the time I got my driver’s license I learned that I could make a lot more money washing dishes at a local restaurant and my early life as a journalist was over.

 

Writing a blog should be a piece of cake.