Through blizzards, dog bites and every holiday for the past 20 years, Rosemary Marchant and her six sons have always come through.
Now, for the first time since 1983, Rosemary can sleep in on the weekends and her youngest boys won't have to give up football games, tennis matches and birthday parties to deliver the Deseret News.
On Christmas Day, 16-year-old Bryan Marchant flung a final paper onto a neighbor's front porch and let out a whoop heard for blocks. Not that he had anything against the part-time job he's had since age 4.
"It's just that it's not something you go bragging about in high school," he says. "You tell people you have a paper route and they're like, 'Wow, there's a guy who's going somewhere. What are you, 11?' "
Hoping to share a few memories, Rosemary, her husband, Dwight, and their six sons (four of whom are now on their own), joined me for a celebratory Free Lunch of pepperoni pizza and tossed salad at the Marchants' Salt Lake home.
Although all of Rosemary's boys have pestered her for years to give up the paper route, they now admit they're happy they had the experience of cruising the neighborhood every afternoon with mom.
"I had a friend once ask, 'Why is it that your parents never let you sit in the front seat?' " says Greg Marchant, now 30. " 'Is it some sort of sign of respect?' I guess they didn't notice my mom tossing papers over her shoulder into the back seat. She'd fold and drive, while we'd run and deliver. Looking back, it was quality time."
When Greg, the oldest, started the route at age 10, he had to deliver only 20 newspapers. By the time it was Bryan's turn in the back seat, there were more than 100. "My mom made us 'porch' every paper," recalls Sean, 23, with a grimace. "If the paper ended up in the rose bushes, you had to go fish it out."
Rosemary started the route as a way for her sons to save a little money, pay for Little League and learn a thing or two about responsibility.
"I told them I would never make them do anything I wouldn't do myself," she says, "so I've always gone with them to deliver the papers. Because of all the stopping and starting, we've gone through about 10 cars. But it's been worth it because of the bonding time. In the car, I had a captive audience."
Adam was once bitten by three dogs, and Russ disliked flinging papers so much that at age 13 he found a job in a greenhouse to escape five more years of ink-stained hands.
"I remember being in bed on the weekend and waking up to the sound of elastics snapping at 5 in the morning," says Sean, now 23. "My mom folding papers was our alarm clock."
Now that the Deseret News is planning to switch to morning delivery, the younger Marchant boys say their mom is taking pity on them just in time. "Getting up early two mornings a week was more than enough," says Bryan, who claims he was the most efficient of the carriers, even though he "nearly broke a customer's new screen door four days in a row."
"My mom will miss the paper route more than we do," adds Spencer, 18. "We're glad she's quitting now, or she'd probably get her grandkids in on the act."
Rosemary smiles as she recalls how her sons' eyes brightened whenever they'd pick up their carrier paychecks. "When we first started," she says, "they only earned four cents a paper."
What was the rate when they quit? Rosemary laughs. "Five cents a paper," she says. "Inflation, you know."
Have a story? Let's hear it over lunch. E-mail your name, phone number and what's on your mind to freelunch@desnews.com or send a fax to 801-466-2851. You can also write me at the Deseret News, P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110.