Leave a Paper, Take a Puppy
Farm-route carrier gets unusual tip.
BACK IN COUNCIL Bluffs, Iowa, in the 1940s, I was 10-going-on-11 and wanting a paper route. The manager of
The Daily Nonpareil lived close to my friend. If he was around when I was at my friend’s house, I’d bug him to give me a route. He kept saying no, because I had to be 12.
Finally, my constant bothering paid off. The manager assigned me route No. 64, which was right in my neighborhood. I didn’t have a bike; I walked the route, which included a few farms.
Early on, one of my customers’ farm dogs had a litter of puppies. Now it was my turn to be bothered: Every day the woman would
tell me that I needed a dog. Eventually I broke down and took one. I named her Boots.
I had a big route—117 papers—and just as other carriers did, I threw the rolled-up papers onto the porch as I went by. One day, the wind blew the paper onto the roof of a house. I didn’t have any extras to rectify my error, so I just left.
I got only about 50 yards down the road before I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder— my customer, and he wasn’t pleased.
“You little blankety-blank, get up on that roof and get that paper!”
I made $4.50 a week. If someone complained, you were docked 15 cents.
The paper was thin on weekdays, and a truck would
drop off the bundle at a store near my house.
But on Sundays, I had to go to the printing plant in town to pick them up. I’d fill my burlap bag and then catch a streetcar back to my route to start delivering.
I rarely read the paper, but I do remember the headlines announcing the end of World War II in 1945.
And Boots? She followed me everywhere, right up until I joined the Air Force, when my mother took her in.
We renewed our bond when I was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Boots lived for 17 years—long after I’d stopped delivering the
Nonpareil. People say a dog can’t live that long. She did. I am 88 now and still remember her. I loved that dog.