A Newspaper Boy Comes Home Again

One of my first paying jobs, after helping neighbors with gardening work, digging in the dirt, planting trees and things, was as a newspaper delivery boy. And to this day, having a paper route was the best hustle I’ve ever had.

It started when a friend decided to turn over his LI Press route over to me one spring, since he was also delivering the Newsday (back in its prime). The original Press was an everyday person’s kind a rag, but it had a great sports section (still the best writing in most print newspapers imho).

Sadly, the paper folded 6 months or so later at which time the New York Daily News swooped in and took over the Press’ preexisting customer base. For all intents and purposes, I became a Daily News deliverer by default, my first taste of a corporate takeover (didn’t know it then), and certainly not my last.

Then the Newsday route was offered to me, and my paper delivering career took flight. I was able to add on a bunch of new homes and had a decent-sized route.

Sundays would find me rolling up the road with a shopping cart absconded from the nearby grocery store stacked high with the Sunday edition listening to WPLJ 95.5 (also in its prime). If nothing else having a paper route made me an early riser and taught me about responsibility and money as well.

Friday was collection day of course, and I would often be invited in to customers’ homes to witness the strangest of things – the father of a friend who preferred to walk around in the nude, or the old woman who was routinely bombed on beers and chasers by the time I rang at 6:30 pm or so. She would stammer away, frequently pay in coins, and I would ramble out of her house clanging away – very strange days indeed.

But when the collections were done by the next afternoon, I would count my earnings and portion off some tip money to treat myself to a Dr. Pepper and some chips at the deli up the road, now long gone, like lots of other things in my hometown...sigh.

The best part about delivering papers was that I was totally independent, my first taste of freelancing (also did not know that then). I got up in the morning, collated all the inserts and such, delivered the papers, and that was that. End of the week, I picked up the loot, like a Soprano collecting a “vig” or not…lol.

Anyway, being a newspaper boy certainly was better for my head than working on Wall Street, or anywhere else for that matter.

Don’t know what it is about Office Space, but people in these settings – and everywhere else – are fucking incomprehensible. All the hypocrites, liars and backbiters, like in a Bob Marley song, they try to drag you down like crabs in a pail.

I have no time for malcontents…how about you?

Fast forward to today where it was with some karmic satisfaction that an essay written by yours truly looking back on the superstorm was recently run in the Newsday. Not quite a homecoming, but a byline just the same, which is hard to come by when spend your days writing anonymously.

Though the Google bots know my work quite well, or so it seems. Then again, they know everything…about everyone…scary, huh?

The coolest thing about this Newsday feature was working with the crack editorial team who spent quite a bit of time on the phone with me to flesh out my story and add details and specifics to my original draft. The lead opinion editor, who’s retiring soon or so I’ve learned, took my comments and seamlessly sewed them into my story, making for a much better piece.

The collaborative process in which we engaged was extraordinary, actually; I was not expecting so much editorial input. Editors truly are the unsung heroes of the media/publishing game, and writers would be nowhere without them.

Given my personality type (more on that later), it's best not to rest on my laurels as it were, on to the next thing, a new beginning. Or is that begin the beguine (which by the way is a hasty tango)?

With the Newsday story behind me, I’ve come full circle and can see clearly my younger self pushing that cartful of Sunday papers up the road. These days, however, I’m pushing papers on a whole other level. In any event, who was it that said you can’t go home again?

Until next time, be blessed.