My first paying job at age 6 was helping my older brother Bill, 9, deliver Sunday morning newspapers, mainly the Milwaukee Journal but also copies of the Chicago Tribune and Minneapolis Star, as well.
I helped Bill head our wagon down Wisconsin Street until we faced the old courthouse lawn. Up over the curb and onto the grass and down the courthouse hill, we made it to the red-bricked farmer's market square that yet sported cast iron horse drinking troughs. We crossed the square and entered the alley adjacent to the blacksmith shop, which I often visited just to watch the smithy laborers work their magic.
Our steel wagon with its squeaky wheels made quite a racket as we nearly made it to the bottom of a steep hill that led to a street perpendicular to the alley, ultimately the alley's end. That's when we stopped and approached an open doorway of an exposed basement. Inside that basement were a number of boys, paying attention to what Mr. Coleman, the newspaper delivery boss, was saying. Alongside Mr. Coleman was his daughter, Lois.
I immediately liked Lois because she was as freckle-faced as I. However, I noticed that she paid more attention to my brother than any other kid in that room. Much later, they became boyfriend/girlfriend for a while.
"First, we have to stuff papers," Bill advised me, showing me what to do. Since I was a quick learner, Bill quit stuffing the paper's innards with advertisements and Sports page and visited with Lois. She had quite a smile. I didn't mind doing the stuffing because Bill was my boss and paying me to work. So, work I did.
Once all our papers, numbering close to fifty, were stuffed, we carried them to the wagon. Mr. Coleman handed Bill a large key ring that had a number of thin cardboard "tickets" attached to it, a hole on their top center. Those tickets had written on them names and addresses of customers. Also, there was a note as to where the money could be found or if the paperboy had to knock on the customer's door in order to collect the necessary amount of money.
Our first customers were apartment dwellers above the J. C. Penney store. Almost all of them put their payment under a small Welcome rug placed before the door. I recall that one customer placed his dime carefully on a cross member on the inside of the screen door. A few customers left us two cent to a nickel tips.
Collecting from each customer a dime to twelve cents was imperative because we had to pay Mr. Coleman a certain amount of money upon our return. Our take, if all customers paid what they should have, was about eighty cents, not including tips. Bill gave me a quarter. That was big money in those days. A Saturday matinee cost only twelve cents. A bag of popcorn was a nickel and a box was a dime.
Bill eventually tired of the Sunday route and thus I lost my job. After that, I had a number of summer jobs, working on farms. Each noon meal was as large as one we had on Thanksgiving. Those farm ladies surely knew how to cook.
When I turned thirteen in 1952, I applied for a job as a daily newspaper delivery boy with the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, the Milwaukee Sentinel, and lastly, the Milwaukee Journal. My friend, John Ristow, had a Tribune daily route of about one hundred customers. Another pal, Phil Murphy, delivered morning Milwaukee Sentinel papers to about seventy five customers. Each of them was able to roll up their papers and place them in canvas sacks with the newspaper's name in large black letters on the bags' front. They then placed the bag over their bike's front fender, carefully not touching it, or in a large steel-meshed basket and wrapped the bag's handle around the bicycle's handlebars. Carefully, they held onto the bag's handle so the bag wouldn't fall off.
Not long after I talked to each of them, I made application for a delivery job. A kid who distributed the afternoon Milwaukee Journal on our side of the river quit. That's when I received a phone call from the local 'boss" who asked me if I still was interested in delivering the weekday and Saturday Journal. "Yes," I excitedly answered because I'd get a free copy and the "Green Sheet," its actual color was near the paper's center. The Green Sheet was my favorite. It had all the funnies and puzzles and most curious stories.
Each afternoon after school, I headed my Schwinn to a small building on the other side of the river, across from their farmer's market square. I had forty two customers. Thankfully. Why thankfully? Because every Thursday's edition was about as large as the Sunday paper, filled with numerous advertisements. I couldn't roll up those thick issues and put them in my bag. Instead, I had to take that same wagon Bill and I used seven long years ago and walk. I hated Thursdays. One time, I tried bicycling and holding onto the wagon's handle. It proved a dumb move. I had to park my bike across the river, walk the wagon the entire route, return home with the wagon and walk across the river to pick up my Schwinn.
Most of the Milwaukee Journals were always "thicker" than its competitors' papers. I liked the Saturday edition especially because they were similar in size to the local paper and morning Sentinel. I could roll Saturday editions as easily as John Ristow and Phil Murphy rolled their dailies.
Each Friday, I had to make collections because I had to pay my boss on Saturday for the papers I received. I had a number of thin cardboard "tickets" also attached to an oversized key ring. Each ticket had the customer's name and address. On the outside of the tickets were spaces for me to punch, signifying the customer had paid for such and such date. The customers also had similar tickets, which I also had to punch whenever they paid. The Milwaukee Journal also sold life insurance for twelve cents a week and the few customers who signed up had to pay me and I had to punch separate differing colored tickets that they and I had.
I hated it when I knew a customer was home and would not come to the door. I'd continually knock until I just knew they weren't going to pay me that afternoon. One couple did that continuously. I told the Boss. He called them. They quit receiving the Journal. That did not displease me. Then, they started getting the local paper. A couple of weeks later, John Ristow asked me if I had trouble collecting from them. "You bet," I answered. On his own, John stopped delivering to them.
Some of my customers were sticklers as to where and how I should leave their paper. One stuffy couple, obviously from the looks of their home and car and the manner in which they spoke, were wealthy. Husband and wife advised me in no uncertain terms that they wanted me to get off my bike, open the door to their enclosed back porch, and place the paper neatly on a specific rug, not the one nearby. "This one, and this one only." I did so, each and every afternoon, hoping around Christmas time, they'd reward me with a generous tip.
For Christmas, they rewarded me with a quarter. Other less finicky customers awarded me with dollars, some even with five dollar bills.
After I applied for a job at the Standard gas station on the corner of Baker and Eighth Streets, I was soon hired. Then, on my last delivery day, I left that afternoon's newspaper where those cheap, finicky customers wanted it delivered: Inside their back porch on that carpet, not on the one nearby.
However, inside that now folded in half paper, I had scooped fresh dog doo-doo with a kid’s shovel, my tip for them.
I helped Bill head our wagon down Wisconsin Street until we faced the old courthouse lawn. Up over the curb and onto the grass and down the courthouse hill, we made it to the red-bricked farmer's market square that yet sported cast iron horse drinking troughs. We crossed the square and entered the alley adjacent to the blacksmith shop, which I often visited just to watch the smithy laborers work their magic.
Our steel wagon with its squeaky wheels made quite a racket as we nearly made it to the bottom of a steep hill that led to a street perpendicular to the alley, ultimately the alley's end. That's when we stopped and approached an open doorway of an exposed basement. Inside that basement were a number of boys, paying attention to what Mr. Coleman, the newspaper delivery boss, was saying. Alongside Mr. Coleman was his daughter, Lois.
I immediately liked Lois because she was as freckle-faced as I. However, I noticed that she paid more attention to my brother than any other kid in that room. Much later, they became boyfriend/girlfriend for a while.
"First, we have to stuff papers," Bill advised me, showing me what to do. Since I was a quick learner, Bill quit stuffing the paper's innards with advertisements and Sports page and visited with Lois. She had quite a smile. I didn't mind doing the stuffing because Bill was my boss and paying me to work. So, work I did.
Once all our papers, numbering close to fifty, were stuffed, we carried them to the wagon. Mr. Coleman handed Bill a large key ring that had a number of thin cardboard "tickets" attached to it, a hole on their top center. Those tickets had written on them names and addresses of customers. Also, there was a note as to where the money could be found or if the paperboy had to knock on the customer's door in order to collect the necessary amount of money.
Our first customers were apartment dwellers above the J. C. Penney store. Almost all of them put their payment under a small Welcome rug placed before the door. I recall that one customer placed his dime carefully on a cross member on the inside of the screen door. A few customers left us two cent to a nickel tips.
Collecting from each customer a dime to twelve cents was imperative because we had to pay Mr. Coleman a certain amount of money upon our return. Our take, if all customers paid what they should have, was about eighty cents, not including tips. Bill gave me a quarter. That was big money in those days. A Saturday matinee cost only twelve cents. A bag of popcorn was a nickel and a box was a dime.
Bill eventually tired of the Sunday route and thus I lost my job. After that, I had a number of summer jobs, working on farms. Each noon meal was as large as one we had on Thanksgiving. Those farm ladies surely knew how to cook.
When I turned thirteen in 1952, I applied for a job as a daily newspaper delivery boy with the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, the Milwaukee Sentinel, and lastly, the Milwaukee Journal. My friend, John Ristow, had a Tribune daily route of about one hundred customers. Another pal, Phil Murphy, delivered morning Milwaukee Sentinel papers to about seventy five customers. Each of them was able to roll up their papers and place them in canvas sacks with the newspaper's name in large black letters on the bags' front. They then placed the bag over their bike's front fender, carefully not touching it, or in a large steel-meshed basket and wrapped the bag's handle around the bicycle's handlebars. Carefully, they held onto the bag's handle so the bag wouldn't fall off.
Not long after I talked to each of them, I made application for a delivery job. A kid who distributed the afternoon Milwaukee Journal on our side of the river quit. That's when I received a phone call from the local 'boss" who asked me if I still was interested in delivering the weekday and Saturday Journal. "Yes," I excitedly answered because I'd get a free copy and the "Green Sheet," its actual color was near the paper's center. The Green Sheet was my favorite. It had all the funnies and puzzles and most curious stories.
Each afternoon after school, I headed my Schwinn to a small building on the other side of the river, across from their farmer's market square. I had forty two customers. Thankfully. Why thankfully? Because every Thursday's edition was about as large as the Sunday paper, filled with numerous advertisements. I couldn't roll up those thick issues and put them in my bag. Instead, I had to take that same wagon Bill and I used seven long years ago and walk. I hated Thursdays. One time, I tried bicycling and holding onto the wagon's handle. It proved a dumb move. I had to park my bike across the river, walk the wagon the entire route, return home with the wagon and walk across the river to pick up my Schwinn.
Most of the Milwaukee Journals were always "thicker" than its competitors' papers. I liked the Saturday edition especially because they were similar in size to the local paper and morning Sentinel. I could roll Saturday editions as easily as John Ristow and Phil Murphy rolled their dailies.
Each Friday, I had to make collections because I had to pay my boss on Saturday for the papers I received. I had a number of thin cardboard "tickets" also attached to an oversized key ring. Each ticket had the customer's name and address. On the outside of the tickets were spaces for me to punch, signifying the customer had paid for such and such date. The customers also had similar tickets, which I also had to punch whenever they paid. The Milwaukee Journal also sold life insurance for twelve cents a week and the few customers who signed up had to pay me and I had to punch separate differing colored tickets that they and I had.
I hated it when I knew a customer was home and would not come to the door. I'd continually knock until I just knew they weren't going to pay me that afternoon. One couple did that continuously. I told the Boss. He called them. They quit receiving the Journal. That did not displease me. Then, they started getting the local paper. A couple of weeks later, John Ristow asked me if I had trouble collecting from them. "You bet," I answered. On his own, John stopped delivering to them.
Some of my customers were sticklers as to where and how I should leave their paper. One stuffy couple, obviously from the looks of their home and car and the manner in which they spoke, were wealthy. Husband and wife advised me in no uncertain terms that they wanted me to get off my bike, open the door to their enclosed back porch, and place the paper neatly on a specific rug, not the one nearby. "This one, and this one only." I did so, each and every afternoon, hoping around Christmas time, they'd reward me with a generous tip.
For Christmas, they rewarded me with a quarter. Other less finicky customers awarded me with dollars, some even with five dollar bills.
After I applied for a job at the Standard gas station on the corner of Baker and Eighth Streets, I was soon hired. Then, on my last delivery day, I left that afternoon's newspaper where those cheap, finicky customers wanted it delivered: Inside their back porch on that carpet, not on the one nearby.
However, inside that now folded in half paper, I had scooped fresh dog doo-doo with a kid’s shovel, my tip for them.
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