This excess food was why I was never svelte in junior high s

This excess food was why I was never svelte in junior high school, despite a couple of 7 mile bike rides twice a day. I was pretty good at riding my bike, throwing papers and pounding down a hamburger.

The delivery part of the job was ok except in rain or cold – I guess about half of the time. I recall wearing a pancho and trying to keep the papers dry. The collecting was always hard with some people who would not pay promptly.

I have a recurrent nightmare of oversleeping and awakening to phone calls from irate customer wondering where their papers were.

The newspaper company made me pay $10/month into a ‘bond’ account. This was to make sure that they would get paid if I overspent my collections. It was forced savings and turned out to be a good idea for me.

My bike was my essential transportation for the paper route. I typically had sturdy American made bike with no gears and a coaster brake. I could hang the canvas bags full of folded newspapers on the handle bars. I almost always rode hands off and threw the papers to both sides of the streets. I made a game of trying to hit the porch or the sidewalk.