DELIVERING "THE CITIZEN" - Part III

Alone, or with Brothers

Mike, Tom and I each managed Route 11 on our own and, for periods of time, with each other. Tom worked with Mike, I worked with Tom, and my very favorite days were those when Paul and Dave worked with me. Together, we could get papers delivered quickly and have a lot of laughs along the way.

Alone, at least for me, I would take my time feeling no urgent need to finish quickly. There were plenty of reasons to go slow, and distractions to slow me down. In eighth grade, the big music hit was Jesus Christ Superstar. I had borrowed the album from a friend and carefully recorded the entire two or three albums on my cassette tape recorder using the stereo system in the living room. Walking along the route, delivering papers from house to house, I would sing in my head (and perhaps aloud!?!) every lyric of every song from that album. Yes, I admit it…pretty strange.

In the winter, on particularly cold days, it was good to find a reason to dillydally as you delivered papers where you were required you to go indoors. There was a house on Owasco Street, across the parking lot from the Super-Duper grocery store, where we were expected to enter from the side door and climb a flight of stairs to a second-story apartment. It was a French door into the apartment, so you could see a little bit of what was going on inside.  Also, there was a space of about half an inch between the bottom of the door and the floor. On the other side of the door was a cat who lived in the apartment.  More often than not, no one was home and, not being in a rush, I would frequently push the paper just slightly underneath the door and then pull it back, hoping to get the cat’s attention. Many times, the cat would make a game of it, with me pulling the paper back and the cat grabbing for it frantically. The cat still had claws and did a terrific job of shredding the newspaper. There were days, I am sure, that the people in the apartment had no idea what the headlines were on the front page of the paper!

But the best days on the route were when you worked with a brother. Hanging out with Tom, waiting for papers to come off the press, we stuck together trudging up East Hill, unloading a bunch of papers at the Koon Apartments, and alternating houses on Owasco Street until we hit the parking lot of the Super-Duper grocery store. There I would take about 20 papers and head down to Miller Street along the outlet while Tom continued in the same direction but on Owasco Street. We would meet up again on Lizette Street, work together on Owasco street until we hit Lake Avenue where we would split up again, each taking separate sides of the street until the end of the route.

When Paul and Dave worked with me, we used the same pattern.  But I was really fortunate: I had two helpers, not just one. In the summer, the three of us would walk down Owasco Street to the Koon Apartments to pick up the papers. Along the way we kept our eyes open for discarded glass soda bottles. Incredibly, our routine was to carry those bottles down the street until, just before the apartments where the rocky bottom of the Owasco outlet could be seen from the street above, we would throw them into the outlet hoping to hit a rock and break them! Not a thought in the world as to whether this is something we shouldn’t be doing. All we cared about was the crash of the glass on the rocks.

When the three of us were working the street together, we did a really good job. Newspapers weren’t just left on the front porch but tucked inside storm doors or into porch mailboxes. And Paul and Dave…they hustled. I would fold the newspapers into thirds and pretend that I was a quarterback and they were running backs, taking my hand off and racing ahead to the end zone (the house where the paper was going). On a good day I didn’t even have to slow my pace. I walked along the sidewalk as they took one hand off after another making their delivery.

Like the routine that Tom and I had established, when the three of us reached the grocery store on Owasco Street, Paul would take a handful of papers and continue, while Dave and I covered Miller Street. Along the way we would gather the proper-sized rocks that we needed to compete in what we had named the “Knute Rockne 7-rock Rock Tourney.“ Paul would hustle through his part of the route on a Owasco Street and meet us at the corner of Miller and Lizette where, in the middle of the Owasco outlet, still sat the foundation to the old Lizette Street bridge.  For as long as I can remember there was never a bridge, just the foundation which was now the target of our rock throwing tournament. The three of us would position ourselves on the edge of Miller Street overlooking the outlet. We had an uninterrupted view of the bridge foundation. One at a time we would throw rocks at it to see who could hit it most frequently. We would save the last rock, however, to see exactly how far we could throw it. Distance, not accuracy. Paul and Dave had pretty good arms but could never quite clear the outlet. Being older, I had a stronger arm and could reliably clear the water and land a rock in the trees and bushes on the other side. Just beyond the bank on the far side, where the old bridge once connected to Osborne Street, there was now a parking lot that could probably hold 10 or 12 cars. On one particular summer day, I must’ve had the perfect rock to throw because not long after it left my hand Paul, Dave and I clearly heard it hit one of the cars parked in that lot! We returned to our newspaper delivery responsibilities immediately…

Looking back, it was terribly unfair that Paul and Dave did most of the work and were paid so little, even including the daily soda.  And, of course, the day would come when they would own the route and run it any way they pleased. But at the time, and in the moment, we were working hard and having fun - something that brothers do best.

-To be continued