I still remember the streets and house numbers as well as some of the more scandalous family entanglements on “my route.” It was hard to keep anything from the paperboy since things seem to either happen or clear out just before daybreak. Recently, a retiree in Ann Arbor said that she grew up at 126 Tyrell Street in my home town. I blushed at the reference because I always had difficulty “collecting” the 40 cents owed each week for the daily and Sunday from her folks. They would always ask me to come back tomorrow which meant another long bike ride the following afternoon. I didn’t tell her that I was from the same bump in the road, because I just didn’t want to go back there, even in my mind.

The papers would be delivered in a 1949 Ford truck to Mr. Derry’s basement long before daybreak. I got there soon thereafter and prided myself on being able to fold a paper tighter and faster than Jimmy, my older colleague. It was important to twist the papers as tight as possible so that I could fit all 82 papers in one dirty canvas paperbag with the Free Press logo on it. That way I could prop the bag on top of the handle bars and it made the delivery much easier. I hated Thursdays because the papers were fatter because of the advertising for the weekend. Going to two bags meant I had to put the lighter bag over my left shoulder, making it much harder to navigate my blue Columbia in the snow.

I only got 82 papers. If I miscounted and shorted myself, then I had to go all the way back to get the extra paper. Usually the extra paper was not there, because Jimmy would always leave after me. He didn’t go to school (because he didn’t want to and his parents lived on a farm). He would take my paper as an extra in case he had miscounted or in case one missed overhead fling resulted in a wet and muddy tabloid. The end result was that I had one very unhappy customer. I would get stiffed 7 cents (collecting only 33 cents) the following Saturday afternoon when I “collected.” I would have to pay 5 cents out of my own pocket to cover the cost of the missing paper. The paper really wasn’t missing. If Jimmy didn’t need it, he would take it home to his folks to read.

I could understand why the family was upset about not getting the paper. That was pretty much all the news there was. Not that the paper had anything great in it, but everyone followed the Tigers. (They wanted to know exactly how many home runs Charlie (Paw-Paw) Maxwell had hit. Any other happenings seemed to take place at Carter’s Funeral Home, the bus station, or the Meteor Bar. But those are other suppressed memories.

The daily newspaper as I knew it is now in a heap of trouble. My two sons, both in their mid-thirties, read many online national newspapers. Just as the major banks got rid of community banking as we knew it, institutional newspapers seem to be leaving communities behind with shrinking newsprint and a cost structure that no longer makes business sense.

From adversity always seems to come a little opportunity. The Ann Arbor Chronicle – “the community newspaper and town hall” – is somewhat the way I remember the news, it just isn’t folded as tightly as my papers. The difference is I didn’t get paid anything to write this column and you didn’t pay anything to read it, so we’re even. I don’t like to owe anybody anything.