Delivering the News

In the greater picture, newspaper delivery is very old fashioned and ranks pretty low when compared to earthshaking world events. Wars, famines, earthquakes and tornadoes are all of major importance to thousands, even millions of people throughout the world. The delivery of a newspaper impacts those people who (1) subscribe to the newspaper, and (2) who are on the route of the particular newspaper delivery person, like us. We're on one route, we're being impacted, and it's starting to drive me a bit crazy.

I remember growing up and seeing newspaper delivery boys
and girls riding in the neighborhood, delivering the
morning paper. It was a good way to make money for kids
who didn't mind the early morning hours. 

More than two years ago our newspaper changed delivery people. For years we had two women who did a fantastic job - the papers were delivered in a timely manner to our front door, rain or shine, seven days a week. The new delivery person, however, missed our house several times over the first two weeks of delivery. For a while there it seemed as if I was phoning the paper to report non-delivery almost every day.

This is a classic photo of a delivery boy from 1950. I absolutely
love the retro bicycle, which of course was anything but
retro in those days. 

But after a rough beginning, everything fell into place and delivery became flawless. I even met him a couple of times, his delivery time intersecting with the time I left for the gym. Two weeks ago, to our sorrow, we received a handwritten notice in our paper that the routes had been shifted. He said that after a rough start, he had managed, with the help of those of us in his delivery area, to become the number one delivery person for the paper. But, the routes were being moved from one area to another and we would have a new person, effective immediately. "Oh, oh," were DH's first words upon reading this. We knew it would be another breaking in period and were not looking forward to it.

I loved this photo of newspaper delivery boys in the early 1900's and
tried to find out more information about it, but failed. It's a great
picture, though. Can't you just see these boys at intersections of
the major cities crying out "Extra, Extra, Read All About It" while
selling off the street to drivers heading to or from work?  

I don't know who my new person is, but I've seen them in action - once - as I was driving away. He/she/it pulled into the driveway, opened the car window, dropped the paper from the window, and backed out. The paper, which is supposed to be delivered to the front door, was now delivered to our driveway instead, and it has been that way every day. I hoped that familiarity with the route would allow for my front porch delivery to resume, but it hasn't. So now I'm going to have to start phoning the newspaper again to try to get my front door delivery re-established. *Sigh* The things I do to make sure DH has his daily crossword puzzle and a dry newspaper during our upcoming fall and winter weather. Have a wonderful Friday!