When I was 18 I gave up my newspaper routes as my family was moving to Louisiana. My routes were a total of 120 miles long and I delivered 450 newspapers.
I really enjoyed the years of running paper routes. I learned to drive a car on the newspaper routes when I rode with my dad, and later on I took them over. I had 43 cars in the five years that I ran routes. I would buy junk cars that shared common engines, transmissions or bodies and combine them to make a cheap car with no note. It taught me how to work on cars, and I got very proficient at repairing or rebuilding them.
Every day I began the route as the rally car driver! I knew exactly how much time it took to complete every section of the route, and I raced to beat my previous best. That might be the reason it took 43 cars to make it through almost 5 years of running routes!!
I would race through the gears as fast as I could all the while rolling newspapers and slinging them left and right out the windows or across the windshield. Eventually I was able to put a newspaper in a 5 gallon bucket at 50 mph if I wanted to.
I would practice to see how fast I could go and put a paper in a tube. A regular tube was too wiggly, so a little over 30 was as fast as I could go and get it to stay. One customer had an oversize tube and I could get it in at 35. I just knew I could put one in faster than that! Day after day I would practice.
I had a very large mailbox with no door on it that I intended to use to beat my record. It was on a long straight highway, so when there were no cars I'd cross over and pop it in. No matter what I did, it wouldn't stay in if I was doing over 35. I tried it at 50 one day, but it just hit the back of the box and came sailing back out.
One night I got the wild idea that maybe I could get it in at 100 mph! It was the Sunday paper with all the coupons and I reasoned that if I could get it in the box it might just stay, unlike all the lighter weight papers that had previously come sailing right back out.
It was a clear moonlit night without a car in sight for miles. I got up to 100 mph and lined up on the box, putting my mirror 1" off the box. As I went past, with perfect timing I flicked the paper in. It stayed!! I looked in my mirror and it didn't come back out. I think time had slowed down slow motion for much to my horror, I saw the back of the box fold out and a Sunday newspaper disintegrate as it flew out THROUGH the back of the box! Oops!
There were all kinds of things that happened. Several times I threw a newspaper through a chainlink fence and it didn't even touch the fence. The paper was just the right size and hit at just the right spot so it rotated right through without touching.
One time I was doing 35 mph going down a dirt road approaching a customers house. She was out in the yard working and hollered for me to throw the paper to her. I hollered "NO", she hollered "YES", so I threw it. A Wednesday paper doing 35 mph plus the speed I added to it is VERY difficult to catch. It hit her square between the eyes knocking her to the ground while her arms were still out wide to catch. I backed up and apologized, but through her tears she said "I asked for it!"
I delivered the newspaper to Arlene's Catfish Kitchen, and she wanted it INSIDE the doorway. Not in front, not to either side, but INSIDE. The door was a single door and there was a small entranceway. With cars parked in front, I would have to make sure I was doing at least 50 mph so that the newspaper had enough momentum to arc over the top of the cars and land in the doorway.
Arlene's was always closed on Wednesday, and the Wednesday paper was the biggest paper during the week. One Wednesday as I approached the restaurant I noticed there was only one vehicle in the parking lot, a high top custom van. I threw the paper over the top and as I came past I saw the paper coming over in a perfect arc headed for the doorway. However, there was a circle of older people standing on the other side of the van that I hadn't seen! The paper hit one man in his little bald spot and knocked him to the ground!
I spun the car around and came back, apologizing profusely as I came to a stop. The group of senior citizens were coming towards the car cursing me and telling me of all the different kinds of bodily harm they were going to do. I apologized once again and said I was sorry, but I couldn't stay around to get beat up. I shot out of there. Arlene never called me and the police didn't chase me down so I reckon it turned out okay.
There was an intersection that for the first two years I ran the route, I never saw a single car. After all that time, I started running the stop sign and practicing sliding the car. The intersection was made of white road base and very flat and smooth. I had to make a left turn, so I would play with the emergency brake and the gears as I spun the car around in circles. After a couple years of practicing every day, I got to where I would enter the intersection at 50 mph, spin the car around 180 degrees and make the turn to the left backward, and when it dropped to 35 mph I would put it in second gear and spin the car 180 degrees again so I was now driving forward after having completing the left turn.
This was a lot of fun, and one of the things I looked forward to every day. One day after having made the turn but still sliding backwards, I met someone coming through the intersection that also had never seen a car there and had run the stop sign. It was Les Trosper, a young man I went to high school with and he had three friends with him in the open top jeep. As I slid past them backwards, I gave a casual wave, dropped it in second and spun the car around and went on my way. I was the talk of the school after that. That was the last time I ran that stop sign though!
Speaking of Les, he had to learn an expensive lesson. I was done with the route one day and was headed home on the highway, driving my 1974 ford courier. I forgot to check the oil and I heard the engine knocking "Brrrrrr" and then "Bing!" as the rod went through the side of block amid a cloud of smoke. Les was behind me, and he stepped out to pass, honking his horn and laughing at me. Just as he got past me I heard "Brrrrr" "BING" as a rod came through the side of HIS engine block amid a cloud of smoke.
I got out of the truck and a customer who happened to be the next vehicle back, stopped and picked me up. I asked him if he could give Les a ride to and he said no, he saw Les making fun of me so he could just walk. Les had a really glum face as we drove past him.
Thankfully in all my years of running paper routes I never got a well deserved ticket nor ever had an accident with another vehicle. The Lord had mercy on my foolish youth. I did slide off in ditches many times either due to terrible road conditions or flat out stupidity on my part. I carried a high lift jack and a chain with me and used them frequently, particularly when it was muddy.
In August 1988 I reluctantly said goodbye to the newspaper routes. It was a job I had thoroughly enjoyed, though working 7 days a week did get old. I trained a replacement, a young man also named Jeff.
Jeff was around my age as well. I was running the route in a 1969 Plymouth Station Wagon, a huge boat of a car. As we began on the route, evidently my tail pipe broke off behind the muffler. It didn't sound any different, but the carbon monoxide seeped in the back as we ran for the next four or five hours.
When I only had two customers left, I started feeling loopy. The road looked like a roller coaster in front of my eyes, much like the time I had got really dehydrated. I pulled over, and we walked the next paper a few hundred yards to a customers house. The customer took a look at me and said I didn't look too good and offered to give me a ride home. I chunked the last paper as we went past.
When I got home, I felt really bad and laid down on my parents bed. My friend Jeff was playing with my little sister and didn't act like anything was wrong with him. All at once, he fell straight back on the bed and didn't move. I shook him with no response. I kept shaking him, and finally he said very slowly and slurred that he couldn't move.
I jumped out of bed and ran next door to the neighbor's house and asked for a ride to the hospital. The neighbor's son and I carried Jeff out the door and to the car. On the way to the hospital I was praying and talking in tongues, praying for Jeff and praying for myself.
When we arrived I ran inside and got a wheel chair and brought it back out to load Jeff into, who was still out of it. A paramedic helped me wheel him in, and I filled him in on the details as we went inside. The nurses took over and wheeled Jeff to the back, so I said "I need help too!" The nurses thought I was just distraught over my friend and kept reassuring me that I would be okay. Finally the paramedic came and started hollering for them to get me on oxygen as I was in the same car.
I was on oxygen for 6 hours before I snapped out of it and they released me. My friend Jeff had to stay over 24 hours before he finally came out of it. The doctor told me I had what could have been a lethal level of carbon monoxide in my blood, and that I had a higher concentration than my friend Jeff. My neighbor who drove us to the hospital was not a christian, but she kept saying later "I heard you praying, I know you came out faster because of God."
Jeff
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