When I was 10 years old, I was given a small part of the family paper route. It consisted of Cosmian Avenue and Lilly Street, about 20 customers in all. The route was located in our immediate neighborhood, so it was a good place to learn the ins and outs of my new profession.
One August day in 1945 I was delivering the paper to Mrs. Julia Hunt on Cosmian Avenue. Her paper always had to be delivered to the back porch. She was a nice old lady with gray hair that was always pulled back into a bun. That was my favorite stop, because she would always give me a homemade cookie. On this particular day she opened the kitchen door with tears streaming down her face.
“Bobby,” she said, “a terrible thing has happened. They just announced over the radio that an atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. They said it was such a powerful weapon that it destroyed an entire city and killed all the people in it. The world will never again be the same.”
At the time I didn’t really understand, nor did I realize the significance of what she was talking about. However, I knew that it must be something serious if it made the poor old lady cry. It was one of those experiences that would remain fresh in my mind for the rest of my life. How wise that woman must have been to realize, right away, the significance of that event.
In time, I would inherit that paper route. It must have been the largest route in Florence, with 118 customers, most of them in single houses, making for one very long circuit. The route encompassed all of North Main Street, Cosmian Avenue and Lilly Street, part of Bridge Road, all of Oak Street, Lake Street, Myrtle Street (now Bardwell Street,) Greeley Avenue and Hayward Road. The route wasn’t so long when I was able to ride my bike, but walking it in the winter snow was no easy task.
On Thursday, the paper contained its weekly shopping supplement, making it too heavy to carry the entire load at once. That necessitated a trip back to the center of town to get the second half of the load. The bundles of newspapers were dropped off by the Daily Hampshire Gazette in a small empty lot on North Maple Street across from the Norwood Manufacturing Co. There were times when I got home after everyone else had finished supper and I had to eat a warmed over meal alone. On those days, many of the customers on the end of my route were not very happy about getting their paper so late. I can’t say that I blame them.
The paper route was actually owned by a lady who lived across the street from us, and my mother leased it from her. So, when I collected from customers on Saturday, the lady who owned the route got her piece of the action, my mother took her piece of the pie and I had to settle for what was remaining. I’m sure there must have been some antitrust laws violated somewhere along the way. Oh well, I was just a kid — what could I do!
I was doing OK when the paper was only 3 cents a day. That amounted to 18 cents a week. Most customers gave me a quarter, leaving me with a 7-cent tip. That wasn’t too bad in the days when a bottle of soda or a candy bar cost a nickel. However, when the paper went to 4 cents a copy, it equated to 24 cents a week, leaving me with a penny tip. That was my first lesson in the cruel realities of the business world.
One of my paper customers from Lilly Street was Mrs. Cora Loomis, who had an unusual hobby. She raised silkworms. She even had a mulberry tree in her yard, from which she gathered leaves to feed her worms. The thought of her raising “worms,” and the fact that her house always seemed dark, made it a pretty scary place to me. She always left her weekly payment, 18 cents, on the outside windowsill, next to the kitchen door. One Saturday I was standing on her sidewalk looking over the coins of her payment when she opened the door and said, “What’s the matter, don’t you trust me?”
I, her terrified paperboy, explained to her that I was only checking for Indian head pennies for my collection. With that said, she told me to wait there. She had something for me. As I stood there on the sidewalk, shaking in my boots, she returned with a handful of Indian head pennies. “You can have these,” she said as she handed them to me. All of a sudden, that scary old lady became a nice old lady, and one of my favorite customers.
Another one of my favorite customers was Mr. Smith of North Main Street. He made a batch of delicious donuts every Saturday morning and always saved one for me.
Then there was a kind lady across the street from Mr. Smith who would have me step into her kitchen for a moment on cold winter days to warm up a bit. To help me warm up, she would give me a cup of hot cocoa to drink. Nice lady!
There is no way I can ever forget the customer who told me that if he ever found his paper in the bushes again, that is where I would find my money. “Put the (blankety–blank) paper between the front doors, every day!” he shouted. I don’t remember the man’s name, but I sure do remember the house and that darn bush.
I found out years later that Mr. Smith’s Saturday morning donut making operation was a side business that he ran to supplement his income, and my brother Georgie got paid to help him run the operation. I wonder why Georgie never gave me any donuts!?
The best part of having such a large paper route was the Christmas tips that it rendered. Many of the customers gave me an extra 50 cents, while some of the more affluent ones gave me an extra dollar. It made for a good payday for this young kid from Florence. I remember well the year I bought my first pair of ice skates with my Christmas tips.
I often wonder if that grouchy old man with the bush in his front yard where he found his paper one day ever gave me a Christmas tip or just said, “Bah humbug, kid, bah humbug.”