Growing up in the 60’s & 70’s provided unique opportunities for kids to learn about business at an early age. I was a paperboy and along with delivering the paper, we were tasked with collecting money monthly from our customers (hopefully with tips!). Once a month I would sit down with the coordinator and deliver the money, discuss new accounts buy rubber bands for packaging and learn about the rewards available for meeting certain distribution targets. There is a good book called RAIN that does a nice job of describing the business training many of us got in the paper-route business.
My sister also had a paper route. We both delivered our papers on bike, the stack of papers and adds would be delivered early in the morning by the Contra Costa Times to our driveway. Better than the Oakland Tribune, they would drop at a box about a mile away. It was an afternoon paper and I did this sometimes on a sub basis. But ours was a morning paper and someone dropped it off for us to stuff ads and wrap with rubber bands into a size that you could throw. Most customers were OK with the paper tossed onto their driveway, some liked them “porched”. A well wrapped and banded paper could be thrown from the street on a moving bike onto a porch and those customers usually tipped for the service.
It became a habit to watch the papers sail across from lawns onto the porches moving along the street on my bike. It was very early and the neighborhoods void of traffic. Over the years I became quite good at the act, learning from the errant throws which you would have to retrieve from a bush by hand and deposit on the porch. Time was a factor, the quicker the better so missing was not favorable. And when you had customers on both sides of the street papers flew both directions and no hands on the handlebars.
One day after successfully landing a series of these throws I looked up to see a pick-up truck parked in my path. No hands on the handle bars, going at a good clip. Very little time to react. I was able to grab the handle bars just before slamming directly into the front bumper. Me, my papers and the paper bag I wore over my shoulders all few over the cab of the truck and into the bed. I was not hurt, but shaken up quite a bit. My bike however was trashed, broken frame and not ride-able. I borrowed my neighbor friend Curts bike and finished the route.
Funny thing is that my sister Kim ran into a station wagon on her bike a few years later. Not sure if that’s a family thing or a rite of passage.