It was the best of times. I inherited the paper route in the Arlington Projects from an older, red-haired kid named Roger. The Pittsburgh Press paid 1.5 cents for each daily paper and 5 cents for each Sunday delivered. I was 10 years old when I started the route and, for the next three years, I “Yes, Sirred” and “Yes, Ma’amed” my way to financial independence and some of life’s most useful lessons.
I delivered to the bottom section of the Arlington Projects: seven rectangular, red-brick buildings. Each building had three green doorways with a staircase leading up three floors and two apartments on each landing. I ran the stairs every day at about 4 p.m. after school and Saturday, and then delivered Sunday morning around 7 a.m. before Mass at St. Henry’s.
Saturday evenings, a large square-bodied, yellow Pittsburgh Press truck dropped the Sunday edition, bundled in aluminum wire, on to the sidewalk in front of our building. The news carrier was expected to hand-stuff each thick paper with advertisement circulars. The sack bulged with the weight of the Sundays. After stuffing the papers, I delivered some to customers who wanted them on Saturday evening. This was the bulldog edition. My dad said the bulging, heavy sack with Pittsburgh Press emblazoned on it would give me big shoulders. He may have been right.
I distinctly remember two of my 40 or so customers: Mr. McCarthy, who lived in the building beside ours, and my Aunt Gen, who lived in the same building. Mr. McCarthy had been gassed in World War I. He was a small, older man who talked with a rough but not mean voice when I collected on Friday evenings. His voice was that of distant history: trench warfare, gas attacks and gasmasks distorting the face of soldiers. I dimly realized that even back then.
Mr. Washington, who was disabled and used a cane, lived in one of three buildings near a dead-end street called Cordell Place. It was called the colored section. Both customers paid on time and Mr. Washington always tipped 10 cents (tips were rare in the projects). After I handed him his payment stub (say, paid for the week of August 27, 1957), we talked about fishing and sports. Mr. Washington seemed to love to hear my stories about the catfish my friends and I caught in the Monongahela River near Beck Run and The J&L steel mill.
On Saturday mornings, Mr. Ben Barclay from the Press knocked on our apartment door at 3038 Arlington Ave. to take the money I had collected from customers the nights before. He seemed a happy man, especially for an adult. He’d give me my earnings and collect extra papers not sold during the week before. Sometimes, for new customers I signed up, I got prizes. I especially loved the wooden bat and softball I earned.
I couldn’t imagine my parents delivering my papers or helping with my job. I never had much trouble keeping up with the demands, although my memory may be faulty on this point. I distinctly recall my father and I having one of those old time this-is-going-to-hurt-me-more-than-it’s-going-to-hurt-you discussions. That was the Saturday evening I came home almost an hour late to stuff papers and deliver Sunday’s bulldog edition.
When my 13th birthday came around, I contracted a bad case of the “too cools.” I was heading for high school and it just wouldn’t do to deliver papers anymore. It was time to pass the Press paper route to a kid named Tommy, a member of the neighborhood’s next generation. I remember I also jettisoned my Levi jacket for high school but kept my signature crew-cut. The money I earned in those years was mine to spend as I liked, and the lessons, such as dependability, money management and, most important, dealing with adults in an adult manner, were mine for a lifetime.
It has been a long while since a paper carrier knocked at my door (or probably any door) on Beacon Street in Squirrel Hill. But I do remember the last time. The kid was older than I was. He had an easy smile and a yarmulke perched on the back of his head. We talked about his going to college. I think Mr. Washington from my route in the Arlington Projects would have liked that young man, too.
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The first newspaper carrier was Blarney Flaherty. In 1833 he answered an ad in the The Sun in New York City for “dependable men.” Benjamin Day, the publisher, was so impressed with the 10-year old that he hired Blarney despite his age.
National Newspaper Carrier Day is celebrated each Sept. 4, and the Newspaper Carrier Hall of Fame, established in 1960, is located in New York and celebrates notables such as Warren Buffet, Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Wayne.
They forgot me. But I remember.
Walt Peterson is a teacher and writer living in Squirrel Hill.
First Published: September 8, 2018, 4:00 a.m.
