Paper Delivery Round

Fridays were our heaviest, and nicest, mornings. That was when the
Heralds came out. The Herald was our home-town, weekly newspaper and it
doubled our load. We would arrive 15 minutes earlier and sit quietly
round Jimmy's nice, coal fire (he always lit a cheery fire at ~4:45
am), toasting our feet, chatting about football, listening to his
reminiscing about the old town and straining to hear the "thunk!" in
the lobby, which indicated the Heralds were finally arrived.

Late saturday mornings, the one who didn't deliver earlier that
morning, put on his pleasant, humble personality and went to collect
the subscription money (and tips). Sometimes there was the irritation
of fruitlessly ringing the bell of rich people, who were absent for 8
weeks in a row; or the sad pleasure of getting an enormous,
inappropriate tip from an old-age pensioner, or the nerves of ringing a
house bell and hoping that the pretty daughter would beat her mother to
the door.

Sunday lunch time we took the "takings" to old Jimmy who added up the
endless column of figures, disagreed and then always got persuaded of
the veracity of our arithmetic.

Often there were crises (the truck arriving late and frantic cycling to
get to school in time; punctures;oversleeping). Most of these usually
occurred around exam time.

By the time we were about 17 and in our last but one year at high
school,
however, it dawned on us that the perpetual lack of sleep, dozing
occasionally in class, and erosion of study time might have a negative
effect on the standard of our crucial examination results. Accordingly,
we earmarked two successors, plucked up courage to break the news to
ol' Jimmy that we were getting out.

To our pride, he was shocked, disappointed and offered to lighten our
workload. But it was too late. And so the great day came when we could
sleep late, like normal--or, rather, non-working--boys. We felt
slightly guilty for we noticed that our two successors were showing
disturbing, feckless, half-hearted inclinations. It came as no shock
when we received a visit from one of the boys, later. "Jimmy is
agitated and panicky and told me to ask you to come back." If he (Old
Jimmy) had stood in person on the doorstep, we would, I am sure, have
caved in. But his absence gave us strength. "No," we said, sadly but
firmly, as we passed irreversibly through that phase in our life.