Delivery Pros
Times Leader trucks stopped
at Butler and Main
around four each day,
any season, any weather.
We carried bundles,
cut binding wires,
counted papers,
rolled them and stuffed full
our heavy canvas bags as only
experienced newspaper boys can,
for precise throwing
onto porches passed
on our route.
We knew customer’s names,
addresses, dogs, gates, and fences.
We collected cash, paid the Times.
Made profits. Businessmen at twelve.
Look both ways and remember the days when print was king.
Mind the gaps, bumps, hard work, and headline news.
Collect politely to keep customers.
Our Literary Journey 
“Businessmen at twelve.” Resourceful boys. Well done them. They sound as if they’ve got it all figured out!
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We thought so. 🙂
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Perfect response Bill and so well written!
Nice!
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Thank you, Jen.
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🙂👍
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Delivered perfectly, Bill. This one goes in my file of favorites.
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Thank you, Marilyn. Glad you liked it.
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Perfectly penned
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Thank you. 🙂
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Wonderful poem, Bill. It took me back to my days on the paper route when my dad was stationed at Hickman AFB. Better than babysitting any day!😊
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Thank you, Sue. Memories are made of such things.
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This took me back – except we had to push them through letterboxes on front doors and finish in time for school!
My 68!
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Glad it did, Keith. Yes, had to put the paper where customer wanted it. So we did.
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I used to help a friend with her paper route. I remember how smudgy my fingers became, leaving prints behind everywhere. Good thing it was before CSI-type shows, or I’d be paranoid. Nicely told tell, well wrapped, rolled and delivered.
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Thanks, Lorraine. I had forgotten about the printer’s ink on my hands. Thanks for the reminder. Now I want to add that to the poem.
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Maybe a second poem on the newspaper theme?
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🙂
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This really sets the scene so well, brings us into the back story of the heavy prep work and then setting off. I never had a route – back in my day it was rare for a girl to do so, but my brother did. Early mornings and all that – certainly teaches some valuable life lessons, which is why I think the last line really is stellar. Well done!
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Thank you. I recall no girls delivering in the 50s, but I posed this on some neighborhood Facebook pages and a number of ladies posted that they did it too.
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I think it was more of “era” thing and a “needs must” – as in, if there are no boys to do it, then girls will do – I was born in the late 60s – and eventually, there were girls who had paper routes in the area , but they few and far between, and sooner than later, paper routes were almost obsolete; I know it still exists, but it’s almost not worth the delivery price now. Oddly, it fills me with nostalgia.
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