My First Paper Route Empire in Ohi

In the 1960’s when I was living in Columbus Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch was a large newspaper business that had many customers throughout the city and state. In fact, other than the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, I think it was the second largest newspaper around and to have a job delivering newspapers was a privilege and an opportunity to make some good money selling papers in the neighborhood I lived in. I remember my route number was 79 and I would out of a small shack or building every morning.

The building had three rooms as I remember it. It has an office for the manager, a storage room for the papers delivered via the company truck and a wide open space with shelves and benches where we took our newspapers, counted them, folded them and rubber banded them. On rainy days we put them in plastic bags the company provided for us. I remember the most important thing to have was rubber bands because they kept the paper together no matter how tight you wrapped or folded them. 

My route was a good one. It had more than 80 houses along the way and on Sundays, it grew to over 110 as that was the main day to deliver the most popular newspaper in town. The route was a good one, in fact it was one of the better ones because my customers paid on time so I could pay my bill.  It was an enterprise I was doing well in until I met Roger Wharton, the neighborhood bully.

 Roger and his friends had their eye on my route and wanted to sabotage me so I would lose it to them. One thing I remember real well about him and that Roger was the kind of boy who wanted something by doing nothing. He expected people to owe him just because he was a popular kid and his dad had a good job. His friends were equally snobbish and I resented him a lot but stayed away from him if I could. 

There were three things I remember having a paper route. The first thing was a bicycle and a little red wagon to put the newspaper bag in when I delivered. The set up was simple and it worked as I put the number of papers in my bag and then put the bag in the little red wagon. It was an easy way to deliver the papers and keep track of hem without losing any. 

The second thing I remember was it rained a lot in Ohio it seemed and winter was even worst. Keeping the papers dry was tricky and took more time as well when delivering so there were a few times my dad helped me with his car as I stuffed the papers in the trunk of the car to keep them dry and delivered them slower but keeping them dry. It was not a perfect solution but it worked.

I wanted to expand my route to include more houses but I had to prove I could handle these before they gave me a bigger route and keep this one too. I was offered a second route only after I completed my probation on the first route and I was thinking of hiring a friend of mine to help me with a third route. It seemed manageable and realistic to me to make more money off more papers delivered. 

Well circumstance changed as Roger was eyeing my prosperity and wanted a piece of the action. First he tried the bully way where he threatened me physical harm if I didn’t share the profits with him and his friends. That didn’t work for I beat the crap out of him and his buddies ran when that went down. 

Then he went to the second tactic and that was stealing papers off the porches I had delivered to as he followed me during my deliveries. That worked a little bit better for him as the shack manager chewed me out for having too many misses and complaints. 

In desperation, Roger and his friends decided to strong arm me by working the manager against me. This created conflict and friction almost every day and soon I was on the manager’s drop list if I didn’t get the deliveries right and pay for my bill because customers were refusing to pay for newspapers not delivered and I understood that. This only meant it would come out of my own pocket when it was all said and done. 

Finally, it donned on me. I could play this game too. I talked a couple of my taller friends to follow me on a Sunday morning and make sure Roger and his crew did not remove any papers from the porches. They would stay behind and watch and see if the destruction crew was sabotaging the route and take a Kodak picture of them doing it. That way I could show the station manager I was being set up. 

I made a bunch of maps of my paper route. Really they were maps of memories. The first three were attempts to map the memories of my earliest impressions and gave them to my friends. This way I knew for sure they would be looking in all the right places for Roger.

Sure enough, it worked as my friends stayed behind and followed me on their bikes to make sure the papers were protected. Carrying one of those plastic cameras that need a flash in the dark, they made sure it was loaded with film and prepared themselves for the paper thieves. It was the flash that gave them away but Roger knew he got caught. 

I delivered the photo to the manager about four days later. I had to get them developed at the drug store and when I showed him the black and white photos or Roger and his friends stealing my papers he told Roger and his crew they could never set a foot inside that paper shack again and banned them from ever having a paper route. 

I not only gained the trust of the shack manager but I shared my profits with my friends. Upon the offer by the manager to start my second route, I offered a fair share to my friends who were more than pleased with the deal and helped me build my newspaper route empire which had expanded now to be big enough to afford more stuff to buy after I paid the bill.