This picture was captured during the summer of 1963, on one of our weekends off, while my brother (on the left in the picture) and I still lived in the orphanage. After adding large saddle baskets, I used this same bike for my paper route a few years later. My brother received a new, larger bike like mine for Christmas, before he joined me on the paper route a year later.
The 12th Short Story
Seven Miles of Paper -- Part 1
"Seven Miles of Paper -- Part 1"
ANDY JUNIOR'S CHILDHOOD STORIES
Life After the St. Joseph Home for Boys
My 12th Short Story
This is the first short story focused on life, after the orphanage. When my dad remarried in 1965, he brought us three kids back to live at home on Sandstone Road in Spring Arbor, Michigan. I kicked off another new schoolyear that September at Western Junior High School in Parma, Michigan. My brother and sister went to elementary school in Woodville.
"Seven Miles of Paper -- Part 1"
“Even during some of the nastiest weather, you just have to learn to tough it out.”
--Andy Skrzynski
When I was young, most offers to do something more grownup enticed me to no end, until I found out what I actually got myself into. An opportunity to take over a paper route in the surrounding neighborhoods arose during the summer before my sophomore year at Western High School.
I didn’t really know much about the Jackson Citizen Patriot, other than my dad always took the sports section with him whenever he headed to the bathroom, after a couple cups of coffee each morning. This was a prominent warning that I had better get myself outdoors and nowhere near that location, whenever he opened the door after doing his business.
To be sure, “my” business didn’t smell like a bed of roses, but it didn’t seem to bother me as much as being around the unpleasant aroma of “someone else’s” business. If I had already completed my regular tasks, I’d keep active doing farm chores outside for more than a half hour, before venturing back inside.
Later that morning, a gentleman from the Citizen Patriot stopped by the house to discuss the available job opening. I wasn’t sure what owning a paper route really entailed, but he made it sound fairly easy. Better yet, the part where he explained I’d be making some money of my own sounded absolutely wonderful. Hmmm, I can think of a lot of cool things I’d like to buy!
The middle-aged man, neatly dressed in a sharp looking suit one might wear to church on Sundays, looked me in the eye as he continued his pitch. “You’ll need a reliable bicycle with front and saddle baskets to hold all the newspapers you’ll be delivering.”
I looked at my stepmother and she nodded. “That shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll buy those for you now, and you can pay us back from your collections.”
I wasn’t sure how much that was all going to cost, but my newfound money already appeared to be slipping through my fingers before I even delivered a single paper and earned my first dollar. How is that even possible? This doesn’t sound quite as cool as I thought.
While I was rethinking the whole ordeal, the friendly sounding gentleman proceeded. “On weekdays, we’ll drop the newspapers off at the Marathon gas station at King’s point around 3 p.m. When you pick up the papers, you will proceed with your bike and deliver papers to the houses along King Rd. to the west, all the way down to the first subdivision, where you will deliver papers to those homes as well.”
As he paused for a second, I nodded with a smile. “I know where that is. That’s not too far.”
“You’re right, it’s really not that long of a route. When you’re done with that subdivision, you’ll head back home and deliver papers to the houses along Sandstone. Your place will be the last one on the route. See, that’s not too bad, is it?”
As he was talking, I followed the route he described in my head as best I could from what I remembered when riding past those areas in the Chevy truck with my dad. I was fairly confident it wouldn’t be too bad. I smiled. “Sounds pretty reasonable. How do I know which houses to deliver to or not?”
“I’m going to give you this list of addresses, and we’ll send someone out with you on Friday, which will be your first day if you accept the job. You’ll collect money from your customers on Fridays and Saturdays. Some prefer one day over the other. Your helper will explain how that is done as you deliver each of the papers.”
Wow, that’s nice of him.
After explaining how much I’d have to pay to the Jackson Citizen Paper and the amount I’d be able to keep, he glanced at my stepmother, then me. “What do you think? Do you want to deliver papers for us?”
I thought about it for a moment. Seems like I’ll have to give up a big share of what I collect, but I guess they are the ones printing the paper and all. Fair or not, making anything at all is way better than nothing! I looked at my stepmother, who smiled.
Sighing while sticking out my chest, I nodded. “Yes, sir. I want to be a paperboy.”
After school that next Friday, I hopped on my bike and drove ¾ of a mile south down Sandstone Rd. and headed left on King Rd. to the Marathon gas station at the intersection with M-60. Two stacks of newspapers, wrapped in twine, awaited me on the sidewalk in front of the large glass windows of the white building. A couple of mechanics were busily working under cars, perched on lifts in the bays.
A few minutes later, a young man arrived on his bicycle and stopped nearby. Looking at me, he called out. “Are you Andy?”
“Yep, that’s me. Are you the one that’s going to show me how this works?”
As he dismounted, he nodded. “Yes. I’m going to take you around the route today. I’ll show you which houses are on your route and how to collect the money. This first collection will be going to the boy who had the route before you, since it is the payment for the papers he delivered. After that, you're responsible for collecting the money and paying Jackson Citizen Patriot their share. Whatever is left over will be yours.”
He introduced me to the friendly owner of the gas station who welcomed me with a big smile. The tall, slender man gave me a quick tour, and said, “Good luck,” before returning to work.
As my helper explained my tasks, he cut the twine with his jackknife and carefully counted the papers. When done, he looked at me. “Perfect! You always want to count the papers to make sure it matches the number of your customers, plus one, just in case someone complains they didn’t receive theirs. If you’re shorter than that, you’ll have to call the phone number the man from the Patriot gave you in your welcome package the other day and tell them to send you what’s short.” After stuffing the papers in my three Jackson Citizen Patriot canvas bags, lining the baskets on my bike, we headed off to the route.
The training session and the first few weeks on my own went pretty smoothly with few hitches during the summer. I’d do my morning chores of feeding and cleaning the cows, hogs, and chickens, and later, complete my daily chores which often included hoeing, pulling weeds, harvesting the tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, sweet peas, and other vegetables.
That first time, when I imagined the route in my head, while the gentleman from the Patriot was talking, I didn’t factor in all the driveways I’d have to go up and down and all the hopping off my bike to stick each paper behind everybody’s storm door. Some of the longer driveways were an eighth of a mile long. As if that wasn’t enough, I also had to make sure each paper was secure between the storm door and the thicker main door.
That all took quite a bit longer than I had figured. Yuck and double yuck!
Late one Sunday morning, after changing my clothes when we returned from church, the phone rang. My dad answered it and stared at me. “It’s for you.” As Tata handed me the phone and I stuck it near the side of my head, a not so friendly voice pierced my ears before I could even say boo. It was one of my customers, and he was not happy in the least bit.
Supposedly, I hadn’t closed his storm door all the way, and the newspaper got wet in the rain after I had delivered it. By the time he got done transferring every ounce of his unhappiness onto me, I wasn’t feeling all that great myself.
Nonetheless, I remained polite as possible, but kept thinking, What? He expects me to ride my bike all the way back to his house. He’s the furthest away on my paper route?
My heart sunk as I hung up the phone. After explaining to Tata what happened, I grabbed the one extra paper I always kept “just in case” and headed out the door with my head hung low. That’s a long way for one stupid paper!
Whether it was my fault or not, it truly didn’t matter. The customer is ALWAYS right!
When the school year began and autumn’s cooler air swooshed down from the north, things got a bit trickier than I had imagined. Not only did I have to do my morning farm chores, go to school, and deliver the papers when I returned home, I had to do my evening chores and homework before us kids had to go to bed at 8:30 each evening.
All of a sudden, it hit me. There's not enough hours in the day! Weekends weren’t much better since I was busy during the day, baling hay, harvesting vegetables, picking fruit on our great grandfather’s orchard, while taking time out to deliver the papers.
Getting up at 5:30 to do chores every morning was bad enough, but on weekends, I had to set the alarm for 4 a.m. so that I could deliver the papers before doing chores when I returned. Yikes!
Worst yet, Sunday’s papers were the thickest of all and difficult to get into the baskets for one trip. On some of the worst days, when the papers were bulging from advertisements, I’d have to make two trips to the gas station to handle all the newspapers. Holidays -- especially the Sundays before Thanksgiving and Christmas -- were absolutely horrible.
Figuring out what to wear wasn’t always so simple. If my clothes were too heavy, I’d start sweating up a storm with all the physical activity of riding the bicycle and hopping on and off my bike. I didn’t have any extra room in my baskets for any clothing if I wanted to take them off.
It didn’t take long before I realized that 40 degrees seemed to be a magic number. At that temperature, I needed a pair of gloves and a lighter jacket. Once it dipped down in the 30s, I needed to double up the gloves and wear insulated socks and a heavier winter coat.
Trying to talk my parents into driving me around the route in the station wagon when it dipped down to the teens was dashed the instant my plea barely left my lips. Tata simply grinned. “You need to tough it out. There are no days off on a farm. You’re going to have to work outside all winter. Get used to it!”
********
That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this latest story. I plan to share more of my paperboy experiences and childhood adventures in the days and weeks ahead.
Thank you so much for your wonderful support!
Andy Skrzynski
ANDY JUNIOR'S CHILDHOOD STORIES
Life After the St. Joseph Home for Boys
My 12th Short Story
This is the first short story focused on life, after the orphanage. When my dad remarried in 1965, he brought us three kids back to live at home on Sandstone Road in Spring Arbor, Michigan. I kicked off another new schoolyear that September at Western Junior High School in Parma, Michigan. My brother and sister went to elementary school in Woodville.
"Seven Miles of Paper -- Part 1"
“Even during some of the nastiest weather, you just have to learn to tough it out.”
--Andy Skrzynski
When I was young, most offers to do something more grownup enticed me to no end, until I found out what I actually got myself into. An opportunity to take over a paper route in the surrounding neighborhoods arose during the summer before my sophomore year at Western High School.
I didn’t really know much about the Jackson Citizen Patriot, other than my dad always took the sports section with him whenever he headed to the bathroom, after a couple cups of coffee each morning. This was a prominent warning that I had better get myself outdoors and nowhere near that location, whenever he opened the door after doing his business.
To be sure, “my” business didn’t smell like a bed of roses, but it didn’t seem to bother me as much as being around the unpleasant aroma of “someone else’s” business. If I had already completed my regular tasks, I’d keep active doing farm chores outside for more than a half hour, before venturing back inside.
Later that morning, a gentleman from the Citizen Patriot stopped by the house to discuss the available job opening. I wasn’t sure what owning a paper route really entailed, but he made it sound fairly easy. Better yet, the part where he explained I’d be making some money of my own sounded absolutely wonderful. Hmmm, I can think of a lot of cool things I’d like to buy!
The middle-aged man, neatly dressed in a sharp looking suit one might wear to church on Sundays, looked me in the eye as he continued his pitch. “You’ll need a reliable bicycle with front and saddle baskets to hold all the newspapers you’ll be delivering.”
I looked at my stepmother and she nodded. “That shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll buy those for you now, and you can pay us back from your collections.”
I wasn’t sure how much that was all going to cost, but my newfound money already appeared to be slipping through my fingers before I even delivered a single paper and earned my first dollar. How is that even possible? This doesn’t sound quite as cool as I thought.
While I was rethinking the whole ordeal, the friendly sounding gentleman proceeded. “On weekdays, we’ll drop the newspapers off at the Marathon gas station at King’s point around 3 p.m. When you pick up the papers, you will proceed with your bike and deliver papers to the houses along King Rd. to the west, all the way down to the first subdivision, where you will deliver papers to those homes as well.”
As he paused for a second, I nodded with a smile. “I know where that is. That’s not too far.”
“You’re right, it’s really not that long of a route. When you’re done with that subdivision, you’ll head back home and deliver papers to the houses along Sandstone. Your place will be the last one on the route. See, that’s not too bad, is it?”
As he was talking, I followed the route he described in my head as best I could from what I remembered when riding past those areas in the Chevy truck with my dad. I was fairly confident it wouldn’t be too bad. I smiled. “Sounds pretty reasonable. How do I know which houses to deliver to or not?”
“I’m going to give you this list of addresses, and we’ll send someone out with you on Friday, which will be your first day if you accept the job. You’ll collect money from your customers on Fridays and Saturdays. Some prefer one day over the other. Your helper will explain how that is done as you deliver each of the papers.”
Wow, that’s nice of him.
After explaining how much I’d have to pay to the Jackson Citizen Paper and the amount I’d be able to keep, he glanced at my stepmother, then me. “What do you think? Do you want to deliver papers for us?”
I thought about it for a moment. Seems like I’ll have to give up a big share of what I collect, but I guess they are the ones printing the paper and all. Fair or not, making anything at all is way better than nothing! I looked at my stepmother, who smiled.
Sighing while sticking out my chest, I nodded. “Yes, sir. I want to be a paperboy.”
After school that next Friday, I hopped on my bike and drove ¾ of a mile south down Sandstone Rd. and headed left on King Rd. to the Marathon gas station at the intersection with M-60. Two stacks of newspapers, wrapped in twine, awaited me on the sidewalk in front of the large glass windows of the white building. A couple of mechanics were busily working under cars, perched on lifts in the bays.
A few minutes later, a young man arrived on his bicycle and stopped nearby. Looking at me, he called out. “Are you Andy?”
“Yep, that’s me. Are you the one that’s going to show me how this works?”
As he dismounted, he nodded. “Yes. I’m going to take you around the route today. I’ll show you which houses are on your route and how to collect the money. This first collection will be going to the boy who had the route before you, since it is the payment for the papers he delivered. After that, you're responsible for collecting the money and paying Jackson Citizen Patriot their share. Whatever is left over will be yours.”
He introduced me to the friendly owner of the gas station who welcomed me with a big smile. The tall, slender man gave me a quick tour, and said, “Good luck,” before returning to work.
As my helper explained my tasks, he cut the twine with his jackknife and carefully counted the papers. When done, he looked at me. “Perfect! You always want to count the papers to make sure it matches the number of your customers, plus one, just in case someone complains they didn’t receive theirs. If you’re shorter than that, you’ll have to call the phone number the man from the Patriot gave you in your welcome package the other day and tell them to send you what’s short.” After stuffing the papers in my three Jackson Citizen Patriot canvas bags, lining the baskets on my bike, we headed off to the route.
The training session and the first few weeks on my own went pretty smoothly with few hitches during the summer. I’d do my morning chores of feeding and cleaning the cows, hogs, and chickens, and later, complete my daily chores which often included hoeing, pulling weeds, harvesting the tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, sweet peas, and other vegetables.
That first time, when I imagined the route in my head, while the gentleman from the Patriot was talking, I didn’t factor in all the driveways I’d have to go up and down and all the hopping off my bike to stick each paper behind everybody’s storm door. Some of the longer driveways were an eighth of a mile long. As if that wasn’t enough, I also had to make sure each paper was secure between the storm door and the thicker main door.
That all took quite a bit longer than I had figured. Yuck and double yuck!
Late one Sunday morning, after changing my clothes when we returned from church, the phone rang. My dad answered it and stared at me. “It’s for you.” As Tata handed me the phone and I stuck it near the side of my head, a not so friendly voice pierced my ears before I could even say boo. It was one of my customers, and he was not happy in the least bit.
Supposedly, I hadn’t closed his storm door all the way, and the newspaper got wet in the rain after I had delivered it. By the time he got done transferring every ounce of his unhappiness onto me, I wasn’t feeling all that great myself.
Nonetheless, I remained polite as possible, but kept thinking, What? He expects me to ride my bike all the way back to his house. He’s the furthest away on my paper route?
My heart sunk as I hung up the phone. After explaining to Tata what happened, I grabbed the one extra paper I always kept “just in case” and headed out the door with my head hung low. That’s a long way for one stupid paper!
Whether it was my fault or not, it truly didn’t matter. The customer is ALWAYS right!
When the school year began and autumn’s cooler air swooshed down from the north, things got a bit trickier than I had imagined. Not only did I have to do my morning farm chores, go to school, and deliver the papers when I returned home, I had to do my evening chores and homework before us kids had to go to bed at 8:30 each evening.
All of a sudden, it hit me. There's not enough hours in the day! Weekends weren’t much better since I was busy during the day, baling hay, harvesting vegetables, picking fruit on our great grandfather’s orchard, while taking time out to deliver the papers.
Getting up at 5:30 to do chores every morning was bad enough, but on weekends, I had to set the alarm for 4 a.m. so that I could deliver the papers before doing chores when I returned. Yikes!
Worst yet, Sunday’s papers were the thickest of all and difficult to get into the baskets for one trip. On some of the worst days, when the papers were bulging from advertisements, I’d have to make two trips to the gas station to handle all the newspapers. Holidays -- especially the Sundays before Thanksgiving and Christmas -- were absolutely horrible.
Figuring out what to wear wasn’t always so simple. If my clothes were too heavy, I’d start sweating up a storm with all the physical activity of riding the bicycle and hopping on and off my bike. I didn’t have any extra room in my baskets for any clothing if I wanted to take them off.
It didn’t take long before I realized that 40 degrees seemed to be a magic number. At that temperature, I needed a pair of gloves and a lighter jacket. Once it dipped down in the 30s, I needed to double up the gloves and wear insulated socks and a heavier winter coat.
Trying to talk my parents into driving me around the route in the station wagon when it dipped down to the teens was dashed the instant my plea barely left my lips. Tata simply grinned. “You need to tough it out. There are no days off on a farm. You’re going to have to work outside all winter. Get used to it!”
********
That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this latest story. I plan to share more of my paperboy experiences and childhood adventures in the days and weeks ahead.
Thank you so much for your wonderful support!
Andy Skrzynski