Old 03-05-11, 03:26 AM
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lhbernhardt
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Delivered the Berkeley Daily Gazette when I was in 6th grade or so. Had a black Huffy with balloon tires and a big steel rack on the back, over which I would place the canvas "pannier" newspaper bags. You could also wear these bags like a poncho; there was a hole in the middle for your neck. Had about 60 papers that I delivered six days a week. We'd sit on the corner, the district manager would arrive in his beat-up Ford station wagon. We'd pull our bundles out of the back, cut the wire holding them with our little round wire cutters (looked like spoke wrenches), then count the papers. Most days the papers were thin enough we'd fold then in a "tomahawk fold" that made the papers easier to throw. Got quite good at hitting porches from a moving bike, but every now and then I'd roof the paper, so I'd get a complaint sheet the next day. Hey, just look up on the roof, dude!

The hardest part of the job was collecting each month from all the Berkeley deadbeats. Some subscribers required several visits before you'd catch them at home. But then you took the bag of cash to the American Trust Company downtown, and a gorgeous older woman teller would quickly count out the coins, holding a stack of quarters in her hand and manually rolling it into a sheet of paper. That just blew me away how skillful these tellers used to be!

Luis
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