My Failures as a Paperboy

(This article follows an article about how I became a paperboy and a second article about how I delivered newspapers and a third article about paper-route economics.)

From the beginning of my paperboy career, I understood the importance of increasing the number of customers on my route. The time I spent delivering papers every day was practically constant. Delivering one more newspaper took almost no more time, but my profit increased by more than a penny a day.

I did more arithmetic. If a new customer subscribed to both the daily and Sunday deliveries, then in a year, my increased profit at the end of the year would total (42¢/month * 12 months = ) $5.04. If I put that extra profit into my savings account at Cattle Bank, then at a 3.5% interest rate I would earn 18¢ interest every year afterwards -- EVERY YEAR AFTERWARDS !! -- PLUS COMPOUNDING !!!

And that was just for one more customer. My brain feverishly fantasized about the profitable results of several new customers added to my route every month.

During the first couple of months after I took over my paper route, I spent a couple of hours on Saturday afternoons knocking on doors of non-subscribers in my route area and trying to sell subscriptions.

I had read the guidance in The Newspaper Carrier's Handbook about how to sell subscriptions. The following pages depicted the paperboy scouting for prospects on his route and then approaching those prospects to sell subscriptions.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

There also were various sales instructions like this ...

Click here to see the above leaflet in larger sizes.

... and this.

Click here to see the above leaflet in larger sizes.

I did not have the self-confidence or the ability, however, to sell like the boy in the manual did. I was only nine years old and was easily intimidated. When I knocked on a door and someone opened the door, the conversation usually went like this:

Me: Hi, would you like to subscribe to The Lincoln Star?

Adult: No, thanks. [Closes door]

After a few such Saturday afternoons of rejection and frustration, I gave up.

However, the newspaper's distribution office in Lincoln regularly conducted various contests and prizes to entice the paperboys into trying to sell subscriptions. One popular prize was a group trip to the state fair in Lincoln. If all the paperboys in a district together sold a total of so many new subscriptions in a particular time, then all the paperboys (even paperboys who did not sell any subscriptions at all) got to go to the state fair for a day.

I would try to sell subscriptions when the prize was a trip to the state fair. I cannot remember whether I did sell any subscriptions on those occasions (maybe a sold a few) but I always got to go to the state fair, because all the paperboys in the district sold enough for everyone to go.

The trips to the state fair were a lot of fun. In the morning we paperboys would fill a bus, which drove us to Lincoln and dropped us off at the fair. I think each of us received some discount coupons for rides and games. Then in the evening the bus would drive us all back to Seward.

The state fair had a much larger selection of rides and attractions than the county fair in Seward had. The state fair had some burlesque attractions. There were some view machines, where you put a coin in the machine and then you looked into a visor and saw a short film of a woman dancing around in lingerie. Then the woman would start to take off their lingerie and the scene would go black. There also was a live burlesque show with real women dancers. I was too young to get into that, but a couple of the very oldest paperboys were allowed to enter. I spent a few coins looking into the viewing machines. A couple of the guys bought some playing cards that were illustrated with pictures of women with lingerie, and those guys would show the cards around in the bus on our ride back to Seward. This was the funnest day of the year for us paperboys.

During the first year that I worked as a paperboy, a bunch of us won a trip to watch the University of Nebraska's football team play a game. There were a lot of empty seats in the stadium, because the team always had a bad record in those days. Paperboys were allowed to attend free as a promotion, just to fill some of the seats. I remember that we boys spent more time running around and playing in the stands then watching the football game. (The Cornhuskers began to win football games and become popular after 1962, when Bob Devaney became the coach. My father sat next to Devaney on an airplane flight and had a conversation with him when Devaney was flying from Wyoming to Nebraska to take over the coaching job.)

After I quit working as a paperboy, there was one subscription contest where the prize was a trip to Omaha to go on a tour of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) air base. My brother Steve Sylwester went on that trip.

I remember one subsciption-selling contest where I did sell a couple of subscriptions. One summer afternoon each of us paperboys received a phone call telling us we were supposed to report immediately to the home of Austin Neihardt, Seward's distribution manager, for an important meeting. This never had happened before. I rode my bicycle to Neihardt's, where the living room was filled with paperboys. A distribution manager from Lincoln introduced himself and gave each one of us a small catalogue showing prizes we could win for selling subscriptions. The prizes were very attractive. Then he told us that we would get triple credits for all the subscriptions that we sold by 7 p.m. on that very day and double credits for all the subscriptions that we sold by the end of the weekend.

Of course, all we paperboys raced out immediately on our bicycles to our route areas and tried to win these prizes. That day I sold one subscription, and then I sold another subscription by the end of the weekend. The I won a good Swiss Army pocket knife and a couple of other prizes. Normally we had to order our prizes from the catalogue and wait a few weeks to receive them in the mail, but when I returned to Neihardt's house at 7 pm with my first new subscription, the manager had one of the prize knives with him, and so he gave me that prize immediately. I opened the blade and barely touched it to my finger tip, and the blade was so sharp that it cut my skin and caused me to bleed. What a cool knife!

That particular contest has stayed in my memory for several reasons -- the unexpected phone call, the catalogue, the sharp knife and my immediate success selling two subscriptions. This success bothered me, because I felt that I probably could have sold more subscriptions during those years if I had continued to try regularly. I could have improved my sales skills and could have earned more money. I pondered my inadequate effort and sales failure often during my last months as a paperboy.

I did sell a few subscriptions by giving prospects the newspaper free for a week. On the first day we would leave the first day's newspaper at the foot of the door and hang this announcement on the prospect's doorknob.

In my experience, this method worked rather well -- certainly much better than knocking on doors with cold calls. I think that about half of the prospects who received the newspaper for a week eventually subscribed. I wanted to use this method more often, and I do not remember why I did not. Maybe I was supposed to take more initiative and propose good prospects to the district manager. Or maybe these free newspapers were a bonus for paperboys who already were selling more subscriptions with other methods.

In general, my attitude, effort and service declined significantly during the last year or two that I delivered newspapers. I got up later and later and delivered the newspapers later and later. I dawdled. I forgot to deliver papers to some customers. The number of subscribers declined to a lower number than when I had begun delivering the route. I became dissatisfied with the amount of money I earned, but I did not want to make any effort to sell subscriptions.

I made a special effort to deliver the newspapers early only during the month before Christmas, because most of my customers gave me a Christmas bonus. Some customers gave a cash bonus -- as much as five dollars. Other customers gave me boxes of candy. During the Christmas break from school, I would spend my days eating boxes of chocolate-covered cherries and watching television (Jack Benny movies, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movies, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movies, Abbott and Costello movies, etc.).

A major reason why my attitude declined was that I foresaw that I would be able to work in the Concordia College cafeteria during my eighth-grade year. That job payed 60¢ an hour and did not include exposure to freezing, windy weather. I could foresee an escape from my paper route and a big step up in my employment.

For some boys, delivering a newspaper route was the beginning of a life-long career in entrepreneurial business. I, however, grew up in a family of teachers and pastors, and so during those young years I had no role models or mentors or coaches who provided guidance and encouragement for a business career. When I think back at that experience of delivering newspapers, I cannot escape the conclusion that I did not succeed as I initially hoped I would succeed and perhaps could have succeeded.

Paper-Route Economics

(This article follows an article about how I became a paperboy and another article about how I delivered newspapers.)

I think my paper route had an average of about 20 customers, varying from about 17 to 23. The below account statement, for the four-week period that ended on December 11, 1964, records that I delivered about 19 daily (Monday through Saturday) and 18 Sunday newspapers during that period.

(Larger sizes of this image can be seen here.)

Let's do the arithmetic for a four-week period when a paperboy delivered to 20 customers who subscribed to the daily and Sunday newspapers. The Agency Carriers' Collection and Billing System included the following Price Schedule:

In order to apply the simplest arithmetic, we will use the third column, labeled "Both" (i.e. both daily and Sunday deliveries) and we will use the bottom part, labeled "FOR THE 4-WEEK PERIOD".

The row labeled "Your collect" indicates that the paperboy collected $1.50 from each customer. Since the paperboy had 20 customers, he collected a total of ($1.50 * 20 customers = ) $30.00 for the four-week period.

The row labeled "Your cost" indicates that the paperboy had to pay $1.08 to the delivery manager for each customer. Since the paperboy had 20 customers, he paid a total of ($1.08 * 20 customers = ) $21.60 for the four-week period.

The row labeled "Your profit" indicates that the paperboy earned a profit of 42¢ for each customer. Since the paperboy had 20 customers, he paid a total of (42¢ * 20 customers = ) $8.40 for the four-week period.

Since the paperboy earned a profit of $8.40 for a four-week period comprising 28 days, he earned about 30¢ a day, which was an average of about 1½¢ for each newspaper he delivered.

I estimate that I spent about 1.5 hours delivering the newspapers every day, so my hourly earnings were about (30¢/day @ 1.5 hours/day = ) 20¢ per hour.

In addition to the time that I spent delivering the newspapers, though, I also spent time collecting money from my customers and spent time trying to get new customers. Therefore I probably earned 15¢ or less per hour.

---

According to the Agency Carriers' Collection and Billing System, the paperboy was supposed to pay the delivery manager within the seven days following the end of the four-week period. You can see from the account statement at the beginning of this article that the four-week period ended on December 11, 1964, and that I paid on December 19, 1964, so I paid one day late on that occasion. I don't think there was a monetary penalty for paying late, but if a paperboy paid late chronically, then the delivery manager might eventually fire the paperboy.

Continuing with the hypothetical case where a paperboy delivered to 20 customers who subscribed to the daily and Sunday newspapers, the paperboy would have to pay $21.60 to the delivery manager within seven days after the four-week period. Since each customer paid $1.50 for such a subscription, the paperboy would have to collect from at least 15 of his 20 customers within those seven days in order to pay the delivery manager the $21.60 on time ($1.50 * 15 = $22.50).

The paperboy would be able to collect some of the money while deliverying his route. If the lights were on in a customer's house when he was delivering, he could knock on the door and collect. Mostly, though, the paperboy would ride to his customers' homes during the afternoons, evenings or weekends to collect. Often during such trips, the customers would not be home or perhaps they did not have the money available, and so the paperboy would have to make several attempts to collect the money. Therefore a paperboy normally spent three or four hours a week collecting the money.

The paperboy recorded the customers' payments with collection cards.

The collection card, along with instructions, can be seen in larger sizes here.

The card was about nine inches long and made of light-yellow paper, a little stiffer than a playing card. The paperboy made a pair of identical cards for each customer. He filled in his own name and address on the top and his customer's name and address along the left side of each card. He gave the customer one of the pair of cards and kept the other of the pair for himself. The paperboy kept all his collection cards, in customer-delivery-order on a large, metal ring that he carried with him when he collected. When he collected the money from a customer, the paperboy would use a paper punch ...

... to punch a hole in the space marked with the date that ended the four-week period. He would punch a hole in the customer's card and in his own card.

Practically all my customers always paid in cash. I carried a drawstring money bag to hold the collected money and to be able to make change. My money bag was something like this ...

... but, of course, it did not have a dollar sign on it. My money bag was made of soft, green cloth and it had a white drawstring.

After I had collected enough money to pay my bill, I went to home of Seward's delivery managers, Austin and Josephine Neihardt, who lived next to the water tower. Josephine received all the payments from the paperboys. When she counted a paperboy's money, she was extremely slow and fussy. She carefully straightend out each bill. She put the bills into piles by denominations -- one pile for the one-dollar bills, one pile for the five-dollar bills and so forth, and she piled all the coins by denomination likewise. Then she used a big, old-fashioned adding machine to do all the multiplications and additions and subtractions, writing each calculation carefully on a sheet of paper.

Then Josephine would slowly and carefully write an account statement, like the one at the beginning of this article, as a receipt for the paperboy. In the above receipt she calculated that I delivered 456 daily papers and owed her 2.92 cents for each one, totaling $13.32, and she calculated that I delivered 71 Sunday newspapers and owed her 13.5 cents for each one, totaling $9.59 -- with a grand total due of ($13.32 + $9.59 = ) $22.91.

Watching Josephine do this procedure so slowly was maddening for every paperboy. Another unpleasant element of the procedure was that Josephine did not have any teeth, just gums, and she often licked her thumb to count through the bills. A couple of paperboys got checking accounts just so they could write her an exact check.

I did not have a checking account while I was a paperboy, but I did open a savings account at Cattle Bank, which looked like this:

I tried to put five dollars in my saving account every month, which left me about four dollars to spend. I loved to figure out arithmetically how much money I might eventually earn in interest. If I deposited five dollars every month, then the total deposits would amount to $60 at the end of one year. If my account earned about 3.5% interest, then I would earn $2 in interest. At the end of two years, I would have about $122 in my account, and I would earn more than $4 in interest. At the end of three years, I would earn more than $6 in interest. And so forth.

These projected interest earnings were fantastic, but my fantasies went really wild when I imagined my accumulation of savings and interest if I could get a lot more customers in my route.

---

Robert Sylwester wrote:

Interesting. I just figured out that I made about $3.50 an hour during 1964 as a Concordia professor -- with a doctorate and a family of nine to support. It comes out to maybe 40-cents an hour per person in our family. So given the circumstances, you didn't do too badly with 15 cents an hour. As I recall, it cost maybe 50 cents for an adult to see a film at the Rivoli Theater.

---

Gene Meyer wrote:

Loved your description of the lady who collected the money. I can still see her licking her fingers and counting and arranging the dollar bills. I only subbed for Steve Roettjer and Jim Hardt…it was way too cold in the winter for me.

What’s 20 cents per hour worth day?

Per this site:

In 2008, $0.20 from 1960 was worth:

$1.45 using the Consumer Price Index

$1.17 using the GDP deflator

$1.81 using the value of consumer bundle

$1.73 using the unskilled wage

$3.26 using the nominal GDP per capita

$5.49 using the relative share of GDP

$4.53 using the nominal GDP per capita

$7.40 using the relative share of GDP

Delivering the Lincoln Star Newspaper

(This article follows an article about how I became a paperboy.)

Three daily newspapers -- The Lincoln Star, The Lincoln Journal, and The Omaha World Herald -- were delivered by paperboys in Seward. The Lincoln Star and The Omaha World Herald were morning newspapers, and The Lincoln Journal was a weekday afternoon newspaper. The Star and Journal newspapers were owned by the same parent company, and the paperboys who delivered those newspapers had the same route manager in Seward. I delivered The Lincoln Star.

Peter Kolb, who lived at the other end of Faculty Lane, delivered the Herald, and my brother Steve substituted for Peter when the Kolb family went out of town. (See that Herald route list in this Flickr set.) Eventually Steve and my next brother Tim became a Lincoln Star paperboys too. My sister Tricia delivered the Lincoln Star into coed dormitories on the college campus.

A few boys in town delivered a newspaper called Grit, which was not a local, daily newspaper but rather a newspaper published for the entire USA a couple times every week. Grit advertised for paperboys in boys' magazines like Boy's Life. Grit printed articles with good news and practical advice, and it eventually went out of business.

The Lincoln Star newspaper routes in Seward were managed by Austin and Josephine Neihardt, who lived on the edge of downtown on Seventh Street next to Seward's water tower.

A bundle hauling truck drove from The Lincoln Journal/Star printing and distribution facility in downtown Lincoln to Seward early every morning, and then delivered Seward's bundles to a covered area along the back wall of the Seward Post Office. If the Neihardts were waiting when the bundle hauler arrived, they could receive the bundles directly from the truck into the back of their station wagon. (One morning the truck was very late due to a late press run, so my brother Steve bicycled to the Neihardts' house and was present when the truck delivered the bundles of newspapers there.)

The newspapers arrived in separately prepared route bundles that were bound with wire. Each bundle had a top bundle cap that was labeled by route number so the paperboy could identify his bundle.

The Neihardts loaded the bundles into their station wagon and drove to each paperboy's home and threw the bundle onto the yard. I often heard the bundle of newspapers hit my yard at about 5:30 a.m. and heard the Neihardts' car drove away. I got up, dressed and walked outside to prepare to deliver my route. Since my bundle was bound with wire, I had to cut the wire open with a wire cutter and throw the wire into the garbage. (On one occasion I got into trouble because a wire I had left in the grass wrecked the lawn mower of Alan Meyer.) Then I counted the newspapers and put them into my paperbags.

The paperbags were a pair of large, canvas pouches that were joined by a long, narrow, canvas neck. The paperboy would wrap the neck around the middle of his bicycle handlebar, and one pouch would hang down from each handle.

We Lincoln Star paperboys (and, I think, Omaha World Herald paperboys) all wrapped our paperbags around our bicycle handlebars. (Paperboys who delivered Grit wore their paperbags over their shoulders.)

I delivered about 20 newspapers. I think the number varied from about 17 to 23 during the course of my career. On weekdays the newspapers were thin and fit into the paperbags easily. On Sundays the newspapers were thick, and 20 newspapers filled the bags rather fully. (See a couple of my route lists in this Flickr set.)

I rode a one-speed bicycle that my Dad had bought me, used, soon after we moved into Seward. During my last year as a paperboy I rode a three-speed bicycle that I bought used.

It was dark every morning when I began. In the summer, the sky was turning light as dawn approached, but in the winter it was very dark for a while. I had a small generator attached to my bicycle's rear wheel-frame. As I rode, the revolving tire turned a mechanism on that generator, which lit a red light on the rear of my bicycle and a white light on the front. The street lights provided enough light for me to see where I was going, but the generated lights enabled car drivers to see me.

My route started just west of the water tower -- just west of the intersection of Seventh Street and Jackson Avenue. According to Mapquest, the trip from my house on Faculty Lane to the start of my route was about nine-tenths of a mile. After my family moved out to remote North Columbia Avenue, the trip from my home to the beginning of my route was about a mile and a half.

My route covered an area from Seventh street on the east to Forteenth Street (the swimming pool) on the west and from Bradford Street (the block north of the water tower) on the north to the south edge of town. Looking at the area on Mapquest and tracing the route within that area, I suppose that I traveled about two miles within my route area. So, the total distance I rode my bicycle was about a mile from my home (on Faculty Lane) to my route area, about two miles on the route itself and then about a mile from my route area back to my home -- a total of four miles. After my family moved to remote North Columbia Avenue, the total distance was about five miles.

My route ended at about the intersection of Eighth Street and South Street (a block south of McKelvie Road, which was Highway 34). My last customer was the Pollock family -- the father was Seward's sheriff, and one of the sons was my classmate Robert Pollock. From there I would ride through the town square on the way home. At that time of the morning, the smells from the bakery dominated the town square, so I often stopped to buy a maple bar in the bakery.

I suppose the entire trip took about an hour and a half on a normal morning. In the early part of my career I would leave at about 5:30 and return home at about 7:00. Gradually, I left later and later, so by the end I was leaving after 6:00 and returning after 7:30. Eventually I got so bad that I had to rush to get to band practice at school by 8:00, and some customers complained that I delivered the newpapers too late.

There was one old guy who lived toward the end of my route and who often sat out on his porch in the mornings when the weather was nice. He always tried to engage me in a conversation for as long as he could, talking about nothing. I didn't mind talking with him for a while, to be polite, but if it was on a day when I didn't have school. Otherwise I rarely had any contact with my customers while delivering the newspapers. (I will write about collecting money from my customers in my next article.)

There were a few homes with barking dogs, and some of those dogs did not get used to me even though I came every morning for four years. On one occasion a strange dog that was running wild bit me on my thigh. A man saw the dog bite me, and he took me to the hospital, where the wound was treated. The bite punctured my skin, but since the bite was through my jeans, the doctor figured that no dog saliva got into my body, so I did not have to get rabies shots.

I often encountered John Garmatz while he was delivering his own route. We would stop and talk. There was one other paperboy I often encountered, a public-school kid, and we would stop and talk too.

When the wind blew, it seemed that the wind always blew against me. When I was riding from my home to my route area, the wind blew against me. And then when I was returning from my route area to my home, the wind had changed direction and blew against me then too.

In the winters, delivering my route was painfully cold. I hated to go out into such cold, windy weather so early in the morning. I would get out of bed, dress and go lie down next to the heat vents along the floor in our house, trying to store up warmth before I went outside. I would wear two socks one each foot and two gloves on each hand. Sometimes by the time I returned home, I was crying because my fingers and toes hurt so much from the cold. I would rush into the bathroom and hold my fingers under lukewarm water for five minutes.

When it was snowing or raining heavily, one of my parents would drive me around on my route in our car. A couple of the roads at the south end of town (around the egg plant) were not paved, and they became quite muddy after a rain or after snow thawed. I would get mud stuck in the spaces between the tires and fenders of my bicycle and would have to push the mud out of those spaces with a stick every block or so.

One pleasure I had from delivering my paper route was that I saw the sun rise every morning. On some mornings when the weather was nice, the sunrise was beautiful, glorious. All the birds began singing as the sun rose. I would think to myself, surely there is a God, because our world is so wonderful at such moments.

I delivered most of the newspapers onto the front porches or into the area between the screen door and the front door. Most people on my route had front porches. A couple customers lived in apartments without porches and also without screen doors. Some customers had special wire holders or boxes next to their front doors. I did not roll up my newspapers with rubber bands, and I never threw the newspapers onto the customers' properties. I placed every newspaper carefully.

One morning I remember well was August 6, 1962, the day after Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her bed. I had not known that news until I opened my newspaper bundle and saw the headline. I hurried through my route, eager to spead the news to all my customers. I placed each newspaper as artfully as I could on each customer's porch, imagining the impact the headline would make on each customer. (I have no such vivid memory of delivering my newspapers after the assassination of President Kennedy.)

Toward the end of my paperboy career I sometimes had problems with absent-mindedness while delivering my route. I could deliver my entire route without thinking about what I was doing. Sometimes I would end with one newspaper still in my paperbag, and so I would have to wrack my brain to re-think which house I might have missed, and I would have to back-track to a house to see if I had left a newspaper there. There were a few times when customers complained I had not left a newspaper at their home.

I ended my paperboy career in eighth grade, because then I was able to get a job washing dishes in the college cafeteria.

The boy who took over my route was the younger brother of two sisters who were in our eighth-grade class for a couple months. These sisters had got into some trouble with the police because of their promiscuous behavior, so they were enrolled at St John School to straighten them out. After a couple of months, as I heard, the police caught them one night with some men in a car, and so the two sisters were sent away to a juvenile-detention facility. Anyway, a few weeks after these two sisters disappeared from my eighth-grade class, the time came for me to teach a new boy to take over my paper route so that I could quit. The new boy lived in a house on North Columbia Avenue, between my family's house and the school, so I went into his house a couple times while I was waiting for him to get ready to go with me. He was a few years younger than me, maybe in about fourth grade. As we talked while delivering the route, I learned that he was the younger brother of those two sisters and that they no longer were living in the home. I did not ask him for any further details about his sisters' problems, and he did not tell me.

After I quit my own route, I substituted a couple times for other paperboys who had to leave town for a week or so on family vacations.

For many years after I ended my paperboy career, I had bad dreams about that experience. The dreams were about me forgetting to deliver newspapers to customers or about me promising to substitute for another paperboy for a while and then forgetting to do so. I still have these dreams sometimes, although more than 40 years have passed.

How I Became a "Lincoln Star" Paperboy

I delivered the Lincoln Star newspaper in Seward every morning from 1961 until 1965. For me, that was from the age of 9 to 13, or from fourth to eighth grade. Being a morning paperboy was a major part of my experience of growing up in Seward. I still remember my old paper route 44 years later, and I have retraced it whenever I have returned to Seward for visits.

I was recruited in 1961 by my classmate Ken Uhlig, who already had a paper route. Ken came to my house one day during the summer after we had finished third grade because he wanted me to take over his route so that he could transfer to a route closer to his home. He told me that I could earn ten dollars a month if I took over his route. This seemed like a huge amount of money to me, so I was eager to begin immediately.

Ken and I then discussed the opportunity with my parents. They thought it was basically a good idea, but they wanted more information. Arrangements were made, and a couple weeks later a Lincoln Star delivery manager traveled from Lincoln to Seward to visit our home for a couple of hours one evening. He interviewed my parents and me and explained the job. He then left me some printed materials to read.

As I recall, the Lincoln Star company had a rule that paperboys should be at least nine years old, so I had to wait until my birthday, November 6. However, I think that the rule was not enforced strictly. I remember that the delivery manager visited our home again several weeks after the first visit in order to complete the recruitment procedures, and I began delivering newspapers after that second visit.

One of the printed materials that the delivery manager gave me during the first visit was the The Newspaper Carrier's Handbook, which I studied thoroughly during the weeks between those two visits. My brother Steve Sylwester later became a paperboy too, and so he received this same handbook and has kept it all these years. When Steve told me he had this handbook, I was delighted because I still had a vivid mental image of it. When Steve then e-mailed me the scans, I recognized all the pages because I had read them thoroughly and repeatedly as a boy. I have uploaded the scans of all the pages into this Flickr set.

The delivery manager emphasized during both visits that I should try to sell more subscriptions to people on my route. Let's suppose, he explained, that a paperboy has a route delivering 25 newspapers, which takes him about one hour. The paperboy would earn about 30 cents an hour in that situation. If, however, the paperboy were able to sell 25 more subscriptions and thus increase his daily delivery to 50 newspapers, then he would double his earnings to about 60 cents an hour. Delivering 50 newspapers does not take significantly more time for the paperboy than delivering 25 newspapers, because they all would be along the same route that he travels anyway. This logic was clear to me, and so I studied the manual thoroughly because I was eager to double my earnings from $10 to $20 a month.

The The Newspaper Carrier's Handbook explained that this job would give me business experience that I could develop positively throughout my life.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.)

In the photograph on the left page, we see the young paperboy dressed in a suit and tie, fantasizing about becoming a successful businessman as an adult.

The following pages depicted the paperboy scouting for prospects on his route and then approaching those prospects to sell subscriptions.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Click here to see the above two pages fully in larger sizes.

Soon after the second visit of the delivery manager, I became a paperboy. I accompanied Ken Uhlig on the route for about a week in order to familiarize myself with it, and from then on I delivered the route by myself.

Of course, I also was given a Route List, which stated the name and address of each customer and whether the customer wanted daily and/or Sunday deliveries. Below is a Route List that my brother Steve has saved from his own route.

Click here to see the full list in larger sizes.

Mike Sylwester Remembers the Uhlig Family

I had a classmate, Ken Uhlig, who lived about 500 yards southeast of the football field. Now there are a couple men’s dormitories and some other buildings in that area, but that area still was mostly empty in the early 1960s. His father Walter taught religion. Ken's parents both were able to communicate in sign language fluently, because they previously had worked with deaf people. The Uhlig family had six kids, but I remember only Diane, a classmate of my brother Steve.

At that time, the Uhlig home was at the very edge of town. Behind his home was a creek area, I think it was called Little Creek (a word we Nebraskans pronounced as “crick”). Ken Uhlig had lived in this house for a long time and had explored the creek area in great detail. I would visit him, and he would lead me and show me around. He showed me mudfish, toads, birds nests, and other such stuff that I as a young boy thought was very interesting. Ken loved to climb around in the mud and bushes and get dirty.

Ken was smart and had a good sense of humor, but he was not interested much in sports, although he was reasonably athletic. He was not interested in trying to be popular. He followed his own interests independently from a young age.

Ken was the guy who talked me into delivering newspapers to earn money. About a year after we had been living at Faculty Lane, he visited our house and told me that there was an opening for a paperboy delivering the Lincoln Star. He himself worked as a paperboy. He told me that I could earn about $10 a week delivering on the route that had become available. For me, who was about nine years old, this was a fantastic opportunity. I excitedly took Ken to tell my Dad, and Ken told sold my Dad on my doing this job. And eventually I was hired for the job, and I think Ken got a few dollars as a commission for recruiting me.

The Klammers lived near the Uhligs for a while before the Klammers moved out to remote Columbia Avenue with us.

Eventually a couple of dormitories were built in that area for the male college students. At the end of the school years, some kids would fish through the garbage dumpsters near the male dormitories, looking for grown-up male stuff, especially Playboy magazines. I think Ken was one of the kids who found some stuch stuff. Or maybe the Klammer boys found them. Or John Garmatz.

I don't remember whether I ever looked at the pages inside such found magazines. I think I just looked at the covers, or maybe read some of the articles. My memory is hazy about those details.