I hate getting up in the morning. I detest the cold. I run from snarling dogs and I’m not real good at maintaining a schedule.
Other than that, I was a fine paperboy.
No, really. I was terrible. If I wasn’t oversleeping, I was delivering papers to the wrong door. I used to fold the things up as tight as I could so they were like granite blocks to be hurled at a house. There is nothing like the thunder of a wadded-up newspaper hammering a metal screen door to shatter the dawn silence in a neighborhood.
Oh, yeah. It was delight out there delivering papers all those years ago in sleepy Waterville. The highlight of my short, uninspired career was the time a pretty lady answered the door in her underwear. Beyond that, it was nothing but misery.
I have enormous respect for anyone who spends more than a week toting around heavy bags full of newsprint to get them on the front steps. They work in bitter cold and blizzards. They prowl around in the darkness like cats or thieves. They brave mean mutts and grumpy men and women who never take the time to thank them.
Sounding the alert
Paper carriers see things. In the hours before dawn, the truly mischievous roam the night and the carriers walk among them. These men and women with their bags of news are out with eyes wide open while most others are blissfully asleep. They’re like guardians of back lawns and front steps, delivering the news and watching the world.
There was a case years ago in which a downtown businessman was beaten, robbed, tied up and left in a hallway unconscious. It was a paperboy who found the bloody man and who summoned help.
In 1999, a paper carrier dropping off the daily edition to a house in Sabattus scared away a pair of masked men who held a woman at gunpoint while invading her home. The woman survived the ordeal, and the suspects were later corralled.
In 2000, a woman delivering newspapers in New Auburn spotted flames ripping from the side of a house on her route. She called for help and firefighters arrived moments later to douse the blaze.
Just last month, a 32-year-old man delivering newspapers in Farmington was bitten in the thigh and on a foot by a dog that lunged at him while he was on his appointed rounds. The man wrestled with the dog for 15 minutes before he got away from the beast. It took more than a dozen stitches to close the wounds, but I’m pretty sure the paper was left where it was supposed to be.
Perhaps a cape?
Newspaper carriers, these guardians of dawn, have halted car thieves, interrupted break-ins, stepped in on assaults and shared crucial information on other crimes with police. Maybe they should be deputized. Maybe they should wear capes while patrolling the driveways and porches in the hours before the sun.
Carriers see things, but they know when to mind their business. You wonder how many philandering men the paper carriers see sneaking into their homes in the wee hours, with shoes in hand and a weak story to tell the wife.
When I was a lad, newspaper carriers were paperboys. We were almost exclusively male and almost always young teenagers. We wanted a few extra bucks to impress our girlfriends but we didn’t want to work real hard to get it. We were lazy and occasionally hung over, and there were more than a few around who were short on scruples. They’d collect money from the same house twice, if they could get away with it.
Times have changed. The carriers these days are held to a higher standard. They’re often older people supplementing their incomes, who bring to the job a work ethic not seen back in my day. There are husband-and-wife teams. There are single parents who rely on income from every paper they deliver. The guy who delivers to my place is there before I go to bed, and I’ve never tricked him into bitching about the weather. These people have character. These people have grit.
So I was a lousy paperboy. I admit it. I got a little better when I bused tables at a truck stop. By the time I climbed the ladder to gas attendant, I was starting to get into the swing of the working world. Now I’m a reporter and I’m hitting my groove.
Except that I hate mornings. I detest the cold, and editors make me nervous.
Other than that, I do just fine.
Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.
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