Paper Route
My brother, Kelvin, and I wanted to buy a horse so we had to find a way to earn a regular income. We were able to get a pretty large paper route (close to 100 subscribers) that was close to our home. Kelvin delivered about 2/3 and I did the other 1/3, so of course he earned more. We delivered the Deseret News and it was an evening paper except for Sundays, so we would work after school. We would go to a lady's garage (and later to a sort of storage shed) that was set up with shelves where we would receive our papers and fold them. Then we'd load them into bags which we loaded on to our bike handles and off we'd go. We became expert at tossing the papers onto people's porches.
Summer delivery wasn't too difficult, but in the winter you sometimes had to get off and push the bike through the snow. That was miserable.
Once a month you would get a bill from the paper company for the papers you had received. You had to go door to door to your customers and collect the money they owed you. You then paid your bill and whatever was left was your profit. The problem came when your customers wouldn't pay. You might not be able to find them at home or they might pretend they didn't hear you knocking on the door or they might keep telling you to come back. I remember one man who told me he had been on strike from Kennecott Copper Mine for several years and how did I expect him to pay for his paper? I was just a kid and didn't know what to say. I came back with Dad to deal with him.
People didn't seem to understand or care that I had to pay for the paper if they didn't. I was thrilled, years later, when newspapers started requiring customers to pay the company directly for their subscriptions.
Summer delivery wasn't too difficult, but in the winter you sometimes had to get off and push the bike through the snow. That was miserable.
Once a month you would get a bill from the paper company for the papers you had received. You had to go door to door to your customers and collect the money they owed you. You then paid your bill and whatever was left was your profit. The problem came when your customers wouldn't pay. You might not be able to find them at home or they might pretend they didn't hear you knocking on the door or they might keep telling you to come back. I remember one man who told me he had been on strike from Kennecott Copper Mine for several years and how did I expect him to pay for his paper? I was just a kid and didn't know what to say. I came back with Dad to deal with him.
People didn't seem to understand or care that I had to pay for the paper if they didn't. I was thrilled, years later, when newspapers started requiring customers to pay the company directly for their subscriptions.
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