AL TURNER'S RUBBER WINDOW
In 1926 you could subscribe to the 6-day per week Evening News in our small town for 65 cents a month or 15 cents per week and have it delivered to your door.
I was an eager 9-year-old launching my business career as a paperboy by taking over an established 4-mile route of 75 subscribers.
The circulation manager-recruiter combined his charm and an appeal to my fourth-grade arithmetic to convince me how wealthy I soon would be.
"Look," he said; "there are 30 days in a month and four of those days are Sundays. What's four from 30?" I agreed that it was 26. "OK," he said, "the papers will cost you only a penny each. That's 26 cents a month for each subscriber. How many subscribers? Seventy-five, right? So back to the figures. Seventy-five times 26. Every month you'll pay the Evening News $19.50. That's all."
He paused to let me digest all of this information.
"But the customers will pay you 65 cents a month for papers that will cost you only 26 cents. He flipped over a new leaf in his yellow scratch pad, jotted down some numbers and subtracted. "You'll make 39 cents every month on each subscriber. Now (and he passed the scratch pad to me) let's see how good you are at arithmetic. Multiply 39 cents, the money you'll make from each customer, by 75, the number of customers. Can you do that?"
Laboriously, I did the calculation, hesitated for a moment over the placement of the decimal. "Wow!" I said, "Twenty-nine dollars and 25 cents. Wow!"
He extended his arms as if giving a blessing, "Right!" he pronounced. "Not bad for a little time after school, huh? You'll be the richest kid in your class."
I was hooked.
Unfortunately, reality was not as bright as the circulation manager's smile. There were many pitfalls. Some customers moved without paying; some consistently complained of non-delivery when I came to collect, demanding a reduction for alleged missed days; I missed my free time after school; I dreaded trudging through deep snow along unplowed walks. I heard almost every possible excuse for inability to pay; and sometimes it was necessary to make many calls to collect at all.
But I did have a little spending money; and during the Depression years soon to follow, I even was able to provide a little help when finances were stressed at home.
From the perspective of well over half a century, I now see this period as one of the most memorable of my life. And, frequently, I recall with a chuckle some of the experiences of my nine-year tenure as paperboy, an employment that lasted till high school graduation.
AL TURNER'S RUBBER WINDOW
Al Turner's place on the east side of Main Street was built on a natural rise of the land. A series of steps progressed from the street level to the walk, from the walk to the yard, and again to the porch. The considerable elevation change from the middle of the street presented a formidable challenge to my aerial delivery method. It was necessary to throw the paper in a high, arcing trajectory to account for the vertical distance. This I learned to do with marginal success. Some challenges are meant to be perpetual.
Time is not likely to erase my memory of Al's house - or of Al. He was a likable old guy, a frequently unemployed carpenter with a continuous cash flow problem. With him, my collection day was a losing proposition. Bit by bit his paper bill, at 65 cents per month, mounted to several dollars. Still I continued his delivery. His excuses for not being able to pay always seemed so plausible and his intentions so noble.
Al's place, a large frame home, had two features that were important to me in my delivery. One was a full house-wide porch that eliminated the need for lateral accuracy in throwing the paper, the other was a large plate glass window that all too frequently seemed to be in the paper's descending path. As the paper reached its apogee, I usually could tell whether it would fall short, skid to a stop on the porch, or, heaven forbid, strike that big window.
When I could see the window was threatened, my breath would stop, I'd try, like a championship bowler, to will the paper to the left or right by flinging my arm in the proper direction; and I would half plead, half pray under my breath: "No! No! No!"
But Al's window was amazingly strong and resilient. In horror I'd watch as the paper in its downward plunge glanced across the pane. For me, time would stop. The glass seemed to brace itself for the impact, sway inward to absorb the shock and rebound miraculously, sometimes flipping the paper entirely off the porch.
Through the years, I gained a great deal of respect for Al's window as occasionally my wild throws were repeated. I even began to think of it as indestructible and conjectured that in some manner, rubber fibers must have gotten into the glass mix at the factory.
But my luck and Al's window both ended at the same instant, just as my complacency had reached an all time high. (I've heard of metal fatigue; maybe there is such a condition as glass fatigue as well.) The paper sent glass crashing across the porch; the paper itself disappeared inside the house. I felt lucky that no one was home at the time.
I called Al later to explain what had happened. I'm sure he knew anyway, all the evidence was there.
When settlement time came, the cost of the window and the amount Al owed on his paper bill were pretty close to the same. I wrote "paid" on his account. He put in his own window. For some reason, after that he paid his bill much more punctually.
WHISTLING IN THE DARK
I learned to whistle shortly after I signed Ernie Gordon as a subscriber for the Evening News. He was the first new customer I'd added to my route through my own effort. I was proud to have signed him. The circulation manager cannily had pointed out the growth potential of my income for each new subscriber that I signed, and I was eager to increase my income.
If I'd been less eager and more wise, I would have known my first success had been too easy. I would have known that Ernie had tried with each previous paperboy to get delivery. The previous paperboy could have told me that Ernie, a tobacco chewing bachelor farmer of indeterminate age, was seldom home, so making collections would be difficult. He spent most of his time working at his dry farm 6 miles below town. But worse, Ernie lived in a deteriorating adobe house a half mile into a field and that far beyond the limits of my route.
I soon learned. It added a half hour to my route time to deliver Ernie's paper, even in good weather. Something had to be done to compensate for this extended route.
That is when I began taking a cutoff through the cemetery to get to Ernie's field. The cemetery shortcut seemed like a great idea in the summer. During the long days, sunlight flooded pleasantly over the trees and headstones. But this 9-year-old wasn't too comfortable in the fall and winter, when much of my route was delivered after dark. The darkness seemed especially ominous settling among the tombstones. Every breeze gave eerie voices to the trees and moving shadow arms of branches seemed to threaten me. When snow mounded the tombstones, the cemetery seemed peopled with ghosts that appeared to move when moonlight dappled the area with flickering light and shadow.
Soon, without knowing it, I was whistling up my courage as I trudged through the cemetery. Something must have helped, because I continued taking the shortcut. The whistling habit became pervasive. I didn't notice how pervasive until at Christmas one customer presented me with a small gift. The card read: "To our whistling paperboy." Even today my wife reminds me that I am whistling at times of stress, and usually I don't even know that I am.
I fretted about the problem of collecting from Ernie, since I could never find him. Ernest solved the problem by finding me. Every six or nine months, in hauling a load of hay from his dry farm, he'd see me in front of my home. He'd loop the horses' reins around a post on his hayrack, spit out a voluminous amount of tobacco juice, and tell me he'd like to "settle up." Then he'd climb down from his seat in the hay, and from a worn coin purse he'd count out the exact number of coins. Never did he question the amount. Over the years, I considered him my most reliable customer - really something to whistle about.
1929
1929 was a rough year for this paperboy. My dad always told me I should save a little every time I got paid. It was good advice, to a point. I was able to buy a second-hand bicycle for $10 out of my savings. My bank balance had climbed to $142.25.
Then the news spread like wildfire through our small town that the local bank had closed. My fortune was gone, just as surely and quickly as the fortunes along Wall Street.
Though the news came as a shock, in some perverse manner, I felt an element of pride in telling how I'd lost everything in the bank failure. But I felt, too, that I'd been betrayed by the adult world. It was many years before I again was willing to place my money in any savings institution other than an M.J.B. coffee can.
I believe, however, the loss of my bicycle hurt me more than the loss of my savings. It came about in this manner: I had begun delivering papers from my bicycle, still throwing the papers, but now riding the sidewalks rather than walking down the middle of the street. I carried a supply of folded papers in the basket on the handlebars. I had two paper satchels with the carrying straps crossed over my chest and the load of papers equally distributed on either side for balance.
Along the lower Main Street part of my route were a number of individual apartments that had been converted from former business buildings where small shops had been housed. The display windows, now well-curtained to insure the privacy of the renters, extended almost to ground level and were only a few feet away from the sidewalk.
One afternoon as I whizzed along this section on my bike, my front wheel dropped off the high edge of the walk. Nowadays an accident description would say I overcorrected. At any rate, my bike and I hurtled through one of those large windows. Glass shattered and crashed about me. I heard a woman gasp. I was catapulted over the handlebars and sprawled ignobly, very startled, but miraculously unharmed, between two women who had been spending a quiet afternoon knitting and visiting. No one said anything for a very long moment. Then we began checking for injuries. There were none. The bicycle and the paper bags crossed over my body must have protected me. The curtain probably contained the glass shards that could have injured the women.
There followed some involved negotiations between my mother and the landlady. In the end, it was arranged for me to pay for the window out of my collection, a payment every week. The bike was a total loss.
Mom told me much later, when I had a greater appreciation for all the ramifications of the accident, that the women had been knitting baby clothes. One of them was expecting her first child. The shock of my crashing arrival between them may have precipitated the blessed event a couple of weeks before it was scheduled.
Today, in our litigious climate, there probably would have been a lawsuit. But in those good old days the woman probably was happy to have her confinement shortened by a few days.
No, 1929 was not a good year. While Wall Street financiers were deliberately leaping from high rise windows when their fortunes fell apart, I accidentally was plunging my bike through a low window at about the same time as my fortunes hit bottom.
So what good came from it all? I like to think that somewhere there is a 60-year-old human whose birthday I helped to determine during that Depression year when I was a 12-year-old paperboy.
THE MERCHANT MENTALITY
Mrs. Lance operated a grocery and notions store one block from her home where I delivered the Evening News. Once a month I called at the store to collect the 65-cent subscription price for the paper.
She shared the characteristic outlook of so many business people: Receipts were wonderful, but disbursements were a pain. And she parted most reluctantly even with the few coins that were paid for her delivery each month.
When it was my day to collect, I came into her store with my route book, in what I assumed was a businesslike manner. For as long as possible, she ignored me. I could see her behind the showcases pretending to be very, very busy. As customers arrived, she surfaced to wait on them, while I waited on her. If half a dozen customers came in after I arrived, she filled the orders for each of them in turn, while I continued to wait.
Finally, when little chance to escape was left, and I had positioned myself directly in front of the counter, she would turn to me reluctantly. "I suppose you've come for money," she challenged.
"Yes, ma'am," I said, trying not to be intimidated by her brusqueness, "It's time to collect for the paper."
"And how much are you wanting this time?"
"Same as last month," I said. "Always the same, 65 cents."
"OK, young man, and are you absolutely sure that's the right amount?" she would challenge, although she knew very well that it was. "Seems like you charge me more every month."
Then very slowly she would open the cash drawer and hesitate for a moment. "Do you have change for a five?" she would ask.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Oh, well, I probably have the right amount. How much was it now?"
She fumbled with the compartments filled with loose coins and carefully laid the proper amount on the counter.
After several labored collection sessions that proceeded in about the same manner, I discovered the shelf in Mrs. Lance's store where notions and pieces of glassware were displayed. One day I set a small bowl on the counter and announced that I would like to buy it for my mother. The price was about 40 cents. (No one at that time had dreamed up the curse of sales tax.) Immediately, her whole attitude seemed to change. She was not so much the reluctant debtor as the dedicated merchant making a sale.
With something of a note of triumph in her voice, she proclaimed, "Now I'll only owe you 25 cents for the paper, won't I?" "Yes, ma'am." I signed her Evening News receipt, made the proper notation in my route book and left the store, mulling over some lesson I had just learned but hadn't quite assimilated.
The next month on collection day, Mrs. Lance no longer avoided me. While she filled an order for the one customer in the store, I inspected the dishes and glassware on the display shelf.
"Would you like to get your mother another gift?" she asked. "I'll bet she would like another bowl or a cup and saucer."
I selected a small relish dish that was marked "hand painted," and Mrs. Lance got her month's paper for a cash outlay of only 15 cents. She seemed very pleased. So did my mother.
So a pattern was established. My mother received a lot of glassware gifts, some that have survived to this day, and whose origin in the "olden days" I point out to my visiting nieces. Mrs. Lance bought her glassware at a wholesale cost and had the retail price of it applied every month toward the monthly paper bill. It was amazing how much satisfaction she seemed to get from this transaction.
But the true merchant mentality surfaced fully one time when I selected an item that cost $1.35. She really beamed. "That pays the paper bill for two months," she gloated. "I don't owe you anything, but you owe me a nickel!"
I set the nickel on the counter and she reached into a jar back of the counter and gave me a cookie.