“Low miles, runs good.” These four words were in almost every car advertisement I had circled in the classifieds of the Flint Journal newspaper when I was a teenager. Don’t bother to correct my Flint grammar. I know it’s supposed to read “runs well”. That’s just not how most of us say it, and when in Rome… As I had written about earlier, I had the opportunity to go back home this past June for an extended weekend as I accompanied a friend who was working on set as a production associate on a film project. It ended up being a blessing that I didn’t have a car at my disposal, as this allowed me to concentrate on seeing places, people, and things within only a one or two mile radius of downtown. This included a walk along a few stretches of my old newspaper route in my former neighborhood .
My long-term memory is sharp, but I surprised even myself by remembering some of the names associated with the houses along my old route from all the way back in the late 1980s. I had come to associate many of my customers with the vehicles in their driveways. The Gallaghers on Windemere had the most beautiful, white-on-white Cutlass Salon Aeroback four-door, and they could be counted on to answer the door usually on the first or second ring of the bell when I came to collect payment for the month. That car was already almost a decade old by that point, but was maintained in absolutely pristine condition. There was the young family in the duplex on Mountain that had purchased a shiny, pretty, secondhand Vega 2300 notchback in a bright blue color that I observed basically disintegrate before my eyes over the course of three winters. That was unbelievable to watch as it was happening, as I had never seen a car rust that badly so quickly.
The Spooners had the first example of Plymouth Sundance, in brown, that I had ever seen up close. The Elias were loyal to Buick, as he had been a retiree from the Buick Plant on the north side. I even had a local TV anchorwoman and her husband as customers, with two Hondas in their driveway: a blue, third-generation Accord four-door, and an early, red Civic CRX. Collecting was something I dreaded. I never understood why it fell on us newspaper delivery kids to knock on doors to ask customers to give us the money that they knew they owed. Why couldn’t people pay the Flint Journal directly, with the newspaper to then cut us a check? Or, why couldn’t customers mail us their payments for the cost of one stamp? (Maybe in 2022, I’d want payments via mobile app.)
I suppose there was some lesson in there that we were supposed to be taught about taking initiative, or something. I only wanted to be good at my job, which was hitting the porch with a rolled-up newspaper with some accuracy, without denting or breaking anything. I didn’t feel like being forced by my employer to learn interpersonal skills, though I would ultimately benefit greatly from it. (My old route managers, Bill C., who drove a bright yellow, five-door Chevette, and later Donna R., should see me now.)
My bedroom floor, as I got ready for my Flint Journal newspaper deliveries. Note my Encyclopedia of American Cars and a copy of Auto Trader on my beanbag chair.
There were several major obstacles that kept me from making any significant amount of money in the long run. I was mostly introverted at that time, my default setting, with a very real amount of social anxiety. My paper route necessitated that I develop skills to navigate uncomfortable social scenarios, and I’m a better man for it, today. Still, I’d sometimes have to spend an hour in psyching myself up just to leave the house to go collecting while the deliveries, themselves, weren’t an issue.
Also, some people are just shady, dodgy… whatever you call it in your part of the world. There would be times when I’d knock on the door or ring the bell, I’d see the eyehole go dark then light again, after which there would be radio silence. I’d knock or ring again, wait, and nothing. Stupid people. I was just too nice as an adolescent to call them out, and it would be years before I’d develop some healthy, righteous indignation. “KNOCK-KNOCK. I know you’re IN THERE.” How many times did I want to say that when someone pretended not to be home?
The house behind this gorgeous, bent-glass Caprice was once covered in canary-yellow shingles and slightly overgrown bushes. It was a perfectly kept-up house, but I had the impression it was inhabited back then by an older couple, given the 1950s-style, pastel paint scheme and the wrought iron pole with the hanging nameplate that indicated that “The Thwings” (in cursive script) lived there. At the time I was first assigned my route, I was given the names and addresses not only of paying customers, but also of noncustomers to which I was supposed to deliver “ad packs”, which were bundles of coupons paid for by local businesses and also intended to lure in potential newspaper customers. None of us liked the ad packs, and their delivery seemed like a pointless, thankless exercise. Dead trees for nothing.
The Landau coupe, with its pebble-grain roof, body-colored sport-mirrors, pinstriping, and other accoutrements, was a mid-’77 addition to the newly downsized, full-size Chevrolet product range, for both the two-door Impala and Caprice Classic. Given the Landau’s late arrival to the party, there weren’t a whole lot of them produced that year, with only about 9,600 Caprice Landaus and 2,700 Impala Landaus finding buyers. This was in a year that the full-size Chevrolet sold almost 662,000 units. Landau coupe sales increased for ’78, with about 4,700 Impalas and 23,000 Caprice Classics with that package sold. One question is: would you rather have a nicer Impala, or a base-model Caprice Classic, for about the same money? A car like this gold Caprice, at around ten years old at the time I was flinging newspapers, would have been easy to find in the Flint Journal classifieds, with those magic words “low miles, runs good” included in the description, for about $1,500 in ’88 (about $3,800 in 2022). These cars are cherished classics today, but back then, it would have been just another old boat.
It would have been way too commonplace a car for my tastes, not to mention too big. But was it really that much larger than what I wanted or ultimately ended up with? I’ve previously written about having wanted to purchase a ’75 AMC Matador coupe around this time, in addition to having owned a ’76 Chevy Malibu Classic coupe for about five minutes. Here’s how those dimensions stack up:
| Length (Inches) | Width (Inches) | Height (Inches) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 Chevrolet Caprice coupe | 212.1" | 75.5" | 55.3" |
| 1977 AMC Matador coupe | 209.3" | 77.2" | 51.8" |
| 1977 Chevrolet Malibu Classic coupe | 205.7" | 77.3" | 53.4" |
As it turns out, the Matador coupe I had pined for was basically the same size on the outside as a car like this Caprice, but with much less usable interior space. Was my perception of a bent-glass Caprice coupe of this generation being gigantic based only on its label as a full-size car? This Caprice would have gotten more miles per gallon with the same powertrain (305 cubic inch V8 with 145 horsepower and a three-speed automatic) than my ’76 Malibu, given that it weighed about 100 pounds less (3,700 vs. 3,800 lbs.). The ’75 Matador coupe weighed between those two figures with a V8, which that car had.
Tracing my old paper route on foot in my old, familiar neighborhood made me feel warm, content, and a strong sense of continuity with my past. The Bakkes, Shantarams, Cooks, Eufingers, and so many others had long since moved away, as had the Dennises, decades ago. Still, to think about the person I was in 1988, and all the different experiences I’ve had and the ways I’ve grown since then made it easier to connect the dots between my past and present. It also made me think about the possibilities my future may hold. For one, brief Saturday afternoon, the sight of this ’77 Caprice Classic Landau coupe brought me back to a time when learning the responsibilities of an after-school job helped me get to know my neighbors, and more importantly, face my social anxiety head-on. For these things and more, I thank the Flint Journal organization for having given me that opportunity.
Flint, Michigan.
Saturday, June 4, 2022.
Interesting look back in time. One can go years without seeing a 2 dr. bent glass Caprice or Impal but here is my ’79.
Hi, Steve – your picture didn’t attach, as you can see. If you could try again with a smaller size, I (and others) would love to see it.
I just got back from a day trip to Indiana, and saw the first bent-glass Caprice (pretty sure it was a Caprice and not an Impala) from the train since our featured car from two months ago.
To answer your question: a nicely equipped Impala or Caprice coupe? The Caprice, tho I usually go for the lower priced end of any model’s lineup, the 77 Caprice is just a (noticeable) bit nicer looking than the Impala. Oddly, most any other year of Chevy prior to 77 it would have been a toss-up….save for the 67 with it’s ” special ” formal roofed coupe.
I wonder sometimes if the slight detail changes from between the Impala and Caprice of that 1977 – ’79 generation actually lend themselves to looking nicer on the more expensive car… or whether that’s just my perception, since I know which is which. I do see your point, though, and my preference for ’77 from a purely aesthetic standpoint is the Caprice. I’m not sure if that would be the case for the ’78 and ’79 models.
No, I don’t think it’s in your head; I think it’s in the cars; the ’77-’85 Impala faces all, to me, look very conspicuously cheaper and uglier than the Caprice faces—out of proportion to the actual cost difference—as though to deliberately and loudly advertise to the world that the buyer didn’t spend the money for the de luxe car.
You are right on the ad language – “Runs good” was in almost every ad. I remember the corollary words “no rust”, which usually meant that the holes had been filled with Bondo and painted over. “No rust ever” was the gold standard – and was not very common in northern Indiana.
It’s funny how we can remember the names of all of the people up and down the street, and those of us here can usually associate them with their cars.
I never had the joys of being a “paper boy” but my friend Dan was a designated substitute for another kid on a route for the afternoon News-Sentinel. When Dan got the call he would call me and I would help. Dan’s family had a Schwinn tandem bike, and Dan would take the back seat and sling papers as we drove along the sidewalks. I can see where collections would be a miserable part of the job.
JP, I got started delivery papers by being the substitute guy. First for Fred, and then for Tosca. After that, I decided I could do it on my own. The tandem bike setup sounds really cool. It would be one way to pass the time to do that job with someone else.
I wanted to be a paper boy, but The Oregonian would not let me deliver with my ’70 Honda CT70
I delivered Long Island’s Newsday in the 1957-1958 period but when I turned 16 and got my NY working papers I moved to the big bucks of one dollar an hour making triple-nickle hamburgers.
Newsday was 5 cents a day, 35 cents per week, and I collected on Saturdays hoping I would get two quarters and a friendly “keep the change”.
Not always. A steady stare meant they were expecting 15 cents back and in the winter, my hands were so cold that when I took off my gloves to retrieve their change from my pocket, I had insufficient finger dexterity to separate out the nickle and the dime. I just held out my hand and let them make their own change.
My bike was a very heavy one speed with coaster brake affair. Thursdays were the worst; Newsday had many extra ad pages in anticipation of the big shopping days of the weekend. Starting from a standstill with a full load required a standing on the pedals pumping position.
Even though I was a certified car nut back then (I could already drive a 3-on-the-tree ’57 Ford Courier Sedan Delivery on private property), I didn’t notice the cars my customers had. I was usually too cold, too hot, too wet, or too tired.
I could just imagine the frustration of constantly building up momentum on Thursdays only to have to slow it back down, with the weight of those papers. I also honestly don’t think I would have lasted long with a one-speed bike.
I was late to getting a “job” job in high school, but when I did, I went straight to GM as a co-op student, working at two, consecutive buildings (the GM Tech Center, an office park; and then AC Rochester, in the laboratory). It’s one of my Flint claims to fame – that I lived there and actually “worked” for GM for a year.
Former paper carrier here. Washington Post…and I still have the canvas bag to prove it 🙂
I did this during my earliest years of high school about 10 years before your stint, Joe. I have always thought of it as a pretty formative experience, particularly the “collections” part. I actually enjoyed asking for my pay, but then again I’ve never had an issue with knocking on someone’s door and chatting them up. I also loved the early (if I recall correctly, I did my route between about 5am and 6am) pre-dawn experience of picking up the stack of papers at a street corner under a street light, loading the bag, and then riding my bike around my route. This was especially delightful in the summer, where the humid DC mornings were in fact the best time of day to be out and about. Nowadays, if I’m up at 3 or 4am heading out to the car to drive to the airport or do some other travel-related task, I can get instantly taken back to those paper-delivery days if it’s dark, the crickets are active, and the air is heavy.
46 years later, I understand the changing economics of the newspaper industry and how that makes it pretty much impossible for there to be kids on bicycles slinging papers. Not to mention that you probably couldn’t find a kid anymore who would even consider doing the job…and of course, circulation is so low that the poor kid would need to be really into cycling in order to cover what would no-doubt have to be a huge route.
If nothing else, having been a carrier gives me empathy for the guy (and sometimes his wife, various friends and relatives, etc.) who drives the clapped out Kia with no exhaust system around my neighborhood at 5am…slinging papers the modern way (on a route that I believe encompasses several towns). He too is probably relieved that he doesn’t have to do “collections”, now that we do in fact pay electronically. On the other hand, he makes it a regular habit to put a self-addressed envelope in with my paper asking for tips (because he maintains that the newspaper company doesn’t pay enough to fully cover expenses)…and I hover a bit thinking “Well, if you REALLY wanted the money, come knock on my door”…and then I stick some money in the envelope.
Great piece as usual Joe!
Jeff, thank you so much.
You hit on something when you mentioned the early morning solitude. To this day, I’m still an early riser and absolutely love it that way. I also have an earlier bedtime than most, but there’s something about getting up super-early and rising with (or before) the sun, and getting stuff done before what seems like the rest of the world does.
I also have mad respect for the mail carriers who deliver nowadays. I used to see them in my condo building, delivering papers to the various doors on my floor who got the paper. Those are some hardworking folks. I would also see their vehicle darting through the neighborhood streets, getting to the multi-residential buildings to get people their papers. I delivered to single-family residences. I can’t imagine doing that for condo and apartment buildings.
Must have been tough for a Chevy dealer to sell a ’77 Malibu. It was a 5 year old design that was starting to get pretty dated. And right across the floor were the new Impala/Caprice – insignificantly bigger on the outside, but much bigger on the inside and, as they say, just a few dollars more per month.
Totally agree. The whole GM downsizing waves of the late ’70s must have caused confusion among consumers who were used to assessing the interior room and trunk space of a car by its exterior dimensions.
Paper boy; been there, done that. My older brother used to bribe/con/blackmail me into doing half his route in Iowa City, my pay (10 cents) being a fraction of what he made. It was a preview of our difficult relationship to come.
I had my own route in Towson, hauling the afternoon Sun. I had a pretty big route, and I worked hard, as the papers were fat. But at least by then I didn’t have to do the collection. That was a fairly heavy burden to place on kids.
Sunday papers were always the worst. That may always be the case. There was a real art to tossing those papers to hit a porch without damaging the paper or denting screen doors. I should know, as I did my share of damage on a few occasions. Those customers (rightfully) let me have it.
On the plus side, it helped me develop my skill at bags whenever there’s a backyard barbecue.
Went out for a walk Sunday morning and saw some Oregonians in peoples driveways. Our Sunday paper used to be huge, now it’s barely more than a leaflet. How do these people expect us to line the pet cages or soak up our oil when changing the oil on my garden tractor? That used to be the main reason to subscribe.
I recall my brother and his wife purchased a brand new one of these in 1978 or 1979. That was such a nice car! It was white with the greenish/gray part vinyl top and cloth seats. Wire wheel covers and all. If memory serves me correctly, I think his had the 5.0L V8.
I’ll say this about the wire wheel covers – GM did them correctly, at least in this application. I’ve seen bad wire wheel covers, and even if the ones on the Caprice / Impala didn’t look like real wire wheels, they were classy and looked good.
One of my friends drove a ’77 Impala Coupe in nice shape back when we were in high school. It would have been 15 or 16 years old at the time, so not old enough to be cool, but old enough to be an interesting diversion. With its 305, it was leisurely at best, but that’s good, because this friend had a propensity for driving faster than I’d like to go as a passenger.
He drove it year round, so it probably didn’t make it out of the nineties, which is too bad, because it would be a neat find today.
He could probably fit all his friends in it and split the gas money like eight ways. That was the beauty to owning a car this size!
I was a paperboy from 1965 to 1970. Started with a morning route, that was hell for me, 50 some years later and I still hate early mornings. Then switched to afternoon route. My route had about 80 stops at first but gradually dwindled to around 45. In the early days I rode a bike but found later it was actually quicker to walk the route. Back then the paper was delivered in between the storm/screen door and the main door and front or back door, what ever the customer wanted, no papers tossed into the yard, bushes or steps was allowed.
My parents would drive me on the Sunday route, there were additional customers that only got the Sunday paper. The Sunday paper was huge, loaded with ads, could only carry about twenty on the bike and probably had around 90 customers. On the Sundays I did on foot or bike it would take me 2-3 hours to deliver the route. Wednesday was also another day that the paper was loaded with ads, it could be a heavy load for walking.
Collecting was OK, every two weeks. There were the few odd duck customers, two of them I would catch at the municipal liquor store to get paid. Another was a real stickler on when she would pay, try to collect a day or two early and she would shoot you down and if you were a day or two late she would chastise you for being late. Was a great day when I was done with delivering papers.
You just made me remember that some customers did definitely want their papers delivered to them a certain way, i.e. between the front door and the screen door, through the mail slot, etc. Some also wanted them bagged with the rain bags, versus banded with rubber bands. It was like Burger King – “have it your way”. I didn’t mind it, and believe me, they may have had to tell me twice, but never a third time.
I loved reading how you retraced your teenage paper route. I take every chance I get to revisit the landscape of my youth, preferably on foot. The geography of where I grew up shaped me as much as the people in my life. From a young age I was allowed to disappear into nature after school every day, the unwritten rule was I had to be home before dark.
Thank you so much. That day was definitely a special experience for me, to retrace my old paper route, and especially on foot. I honestly don’t think I had done that in the decades since I had moved away. I’ve always been in a car, since. It’s not the same.
I don’t remember too many of the cars of my 70-80-odd customers. Three come to mind.
1. Late 1973, the first one I’d seen anywhere, the 1974 AMC Matador coupe. Red with a white stripe. I never saw the guy who owned it; he always paid by mail & I never had to knock on his door. He had a small house right on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Must’ve been a mid-level AMC employee. My reaction to it was, god the styling is awful, and given that the 1st oil crisis was underway, it was the wrong car at the wrong time. Being a Kenoshan, I felt sad as I knew that AMC was always teetering on oblivion and couldn’t afford to make mistakes.
2. AMC Ambassador, 1966, 4 door, automatic, 232 6 cyl. Man who owned it rarely drove it. I bought the car from him at the time his health was failing & he couldn’t drive any more. Drove it for a few years with nothing more than routine service, passed it along to a friend who also had no trouble with it until he ran up a curb and broke the front end. That was the end of it.
3. Buick Centurion convertible, ’73 maybe. Gold, white top. Fine car & the odd thing was their house was more dilapidated than you’d expect to find in the poorest reaches of the poorest places in the country. Gaping holes in the siding, the door didn’t close well… they must’ve paid a heating bill 3x what they should have.
These are all cars examples of which I’d love to see at a show. I can imagine the concentration of AMC cars in Kenosha from a certain time period, disproportionate to the rest of the U.S. Being the AMC fan I was, I’m sure I would have loved it. A red Matador coupe with white stripe (an X, maybe?) would have been one of my dream cars.
Thanks for the post, shook some cobwebs. Hope you’ll indulge me as I tell my story for maybe the first and last time. Feel I owe Curbside Classics and you this, for the site and for your love of AMC cars.
I’ve had moments with the Matador Coupe where I could see the appeal. Regardless, as a large car introduced at the same time as the oil shock, it was bound to be an uphill fight.
My neighborhood was working class & as such had a fair share of characters. I got to meet them when I collected the sub fees. The old lady who would invite you in for tea and keep you all night if you’d let her. The folks with the Buick who lived in that shack, wanted to ask them if they needed help hammering plywood over the gaping holes. Comely jr-high & high school classmates who I sometimes saw in their native habitats. The tavern where I could get out of the summer heat for a minute. The little trailer park, where one of the residents employed me one day to paint the roof with aluminum-asphalt-asbestos coating. And where another lady was the long-time secretary of the SPEBSQSA (Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America).
The fellow whose Ambassador I later bought ran a little roadside store that unfortunately was crowded out by more modern alternatives. I often bought candy when I went in there. The shelves were mostly bare except for some cake mixes & canned goods & a bottle or two of milk & such, stuff he bought at retail from a nearby supermarket. They lived there, so he didn’t drive much. I bought the car after he’d closed the store & retired, some years after I was the paperboy. It was already rusty despite having only 55,000 or so miles, & at 16 years old or so, wasn’t yet a collectible. I’m no body mechanic & I didn’t try to preserve it, didn’t have the space or tools & couldn’t afford them anyway.
Another oddity of that route, there was an old cottage motel that had been a Lake Michigan resort but whose back lot frontage had long ago been sold for an apartment block. The 14-odd cottages had some short-term guests and a few long-term retirees. The lady caretaker smoked like a chimney and complained about how hard she had to work. Her son, ‘Buddy’, had a ’75 or so Eldorado, silver, was a real-estate player & the motel was one of his plays as well as providing a job for his mother. Had a horseshoe drive with the cottages arranged around the outside, and a large area of grass inside. I ended up mowing the lawn at that place with a horrible smoking old push mower and an ‘Economy’ tractor with a large mower deck but an inadequate power drive for the deck, was very slow going.
The 1966 Ambassador was a faithful steed. Handling wasn’t its strong suit, although my provisioning the cheapest bias-ply tires didn’t help any. Seemed like a turn at any speed above parking got tire-scrubbing sounds from the front, out of proportion to the turning effect obtained. The torque-tube drive made for the already-smooth straight six, when at idle, inaudible & vibration free to the driver. The car was already a curiosity by the 80s and when I let my friends drive it, not shutting it due to the low-boiling gas would flood, I had to tell them not to turn the key. I had to learn to use ‘1’ on the automatic gearshift; else it would take off in 2nd and the transmission would howl a little in protest. (When I bought it, had a local transmission guy give it its 1st service in all those years.) Underway, as far as the engine, all you could hear was the low burble of the exhaust; anyone who’s driven an AMC six-cylinder (all low-speed torque) knows the sound. And maybe some fan roar at expressway speeds. Coils at all four corners made for a very smooth ride despite the light weight of the unibody car. Except, the back half seemed to do a jello wobble over sharp bumps I guess due to the unsprung weight of the torque tube interacting.
Later, after the paper route years, I had friends who were in AMC families & I got to ride in, among others, a 1968 Ambassador with a 6 cyl and 3 speed. Quiet and slow, felt solid and substantial. A great sedan for an Iowa farmer, maybe, but I wouldn’t want it in big city traffic. 1972 Ambassador Brougham coupe. To me, this style said ‘practical with a tasteful bit of flair’ & I preferred it to the ’74 Matador. Had a 360 & posi, friend sometimes drove it like he stole it & we had a lot of fun in that car. Recall packing it chock full of our then-little high school friends. I recall once he got it stuck on a steep gravel shoulder but with so many strong young passengers and with its relatively light weight and posi, we were soon back on the road.
Richard, thank you so much for this, and I especially appreciate you taking the time. You painted such a vivid picture of the characters, places, and cars from your experiences that I could envision the scene from each scenario you described. This is exactly the kind of writing that pulls me in immediately – have you considered writing for the site?
As for the ’72 Ambassador Brougham, I like them just fine. I see the Matador as being sporty, where I see the Amby as a more formal type of vehicle. I always thought the wheelbase stretch of the smaller vehicle was a curious way to “create” a full-sizer with no benefit to interior space, but as I’ve said before, I’ve got nothing but respect for American Motors and the resourcefulness of its engineers, planners, and stylists.
Another former paper boy reporting in – The Chicago Tribune, delivered for four years between the ages 12-16. I shared the route with my older brother, alternating each day and collection period. I also remember collecting from would-be deadbeats, including one joker who would tell me he would only pay if I could break a $100 bill. Christmas tips were a highlight, although some of them came in weird forms, such as an aftershave gift set for a kid without even so much as peach fuzz or a pile of McDonald’s gift certificates for filet o’ fish sandwiches, the one item on the menu I did not like. It all paid off in the end with a college scholarship, but I still have my doubts sometimes about those cold early mornings.
As for this Caprice coupe, I love the second picture above, as the profile shot really highlights the bent glass rear window. Despite a weakness for the 1979-79 LeSabre two-door, I would agree with those who proclaim the Caprice as the most handsome of GM’s downsized B-bodies. My only complaint is that Chevy’s interiors left much to be desired in comparison with the B-O-P brands, often stark and cheap where it could have been so much better.
Who asks a teenager to break a $100 bill, even jokingly? I’m sorry, William, but that just makes me mad on your behalf. Maybe I’m just now remembering so much of the foolishness that some of my customers used to pass off on me, sometimes successfully.
I wish I had gotten a good look at the inside of this car. I’m a little extra vigilant these days, though. This may have been my old neighborhood, but I was a guy on foot with a camera taking pictures. I could totally see how people might have found that suspicious. Break-ins in my neighborhood weren’t that uncommon back them, when the economy was better. I can’t imagine what people might be looking at now, even though this is still very much a nice neighborhood.
So how much for your car??? I’m in Tallahassee Florida
Another enjoyable story Joseph. In the early 60s my brother and I had 2 paper routes. We lived in suburban Toronto and started with one small route and then got a second one. The routes were like a small business, so you had to buy them from the current owner, so a bit of capital was required. In Toronto in those days there was no Sunday paper, but Saturday was large, along with Wednesday (grocery store ads). My favourite customer worked for Wrigleys Gum, so when you did the collections you always got a couple of packages of gum. It was a very good introduction to how business worked.
Mike, thank you so much. I would have gladly accepted a pack of Juicy Fruit or Spearmint from a customer while I was collecting.
I honestly don’t remember too much about the business end of things with the Flint Journal. Was I required to purchase papers like you? And how was my route assigned / determined? Now I feel like killing more minutes researching it online to see what I can find.
I don’t remember how I communicated with the paper or paid them. It is funny what does stick in your mind. I do remember that the newsstand price was 10 cents, but home delivery was 55 cents weekly (6 papers). The cost to me was 7.5 cents a paper, or 45 cents a week, for a profit of 10 cents per week. When there was a holiday there would only be 5 papers but the customer paid 50 cents, so the margin increased to 12.5 cents for less work!
I do remember a couple of vehicles from our customers. On the wealthier part there was a Sunbeam Alpine, and on the more middle class section there was a Divco milk truck. At the time I did not know what it was, but thanks to CC I can now identify it. It was actually owned by the family of a school-mate whose father owned a small dairy. This was just before all the small dairies were absorbed by the conglomerates.
Pretty sure the way it worked for me was, there was an empty money bag delivered with the papers on Thursday or Friday, with a bill for the papers that I’d ‘purchased’ in the past week. I would load the bag with bills and coins in the proper amount. The ‘district manager’ drove around & picked up the loot from the carriers that evening or on Saturday morning. I think. It’s been a very long time.
The 1977-1979 Chevy Caprice Classic / Impala 2Door Coupe I Could Look At All Day. Here Is A Photo Of My 1978 With Just 27k Actual Miles.