Paper Route Stories

Paper Route StoriesThe Day I Met JimThe winter of 1964 I was in the fifth grade. The older brother of a best friend asked me if I would like to take over his morning paper route and I agreed.
 
 I learned many things during those years. What it was like to be outside in all kinds of weather. To freeze your fingers and toes until they were numb. Or racing from one house to the next in a furious summer storm filled with lightning and thunder.
 
 And I also learned a lot about people. I learned that people gave better tips when I put the paper in the door rather than on the doorstep. And not to look into the window of a car that was bouncing up and down at 5 a.m.
 
 It was on this paper route that I met my first true life curmudgeon. Jim was a kindly curmudgeon for the most part but a curmudgeon, nonetheless. I picked up a lot of my world view from Jim.
 
 I met Jim early one summer morning at dawn. He spoke to me from the open door of his garage and scared me near to death. I could see him sitting under a dim pull chain light. I think back on it and marvel that I wasn’t afraid to approach an adult at such an early age and all alone, but it was a different time.
 
 Jim sat in an old wooden rocker with cushions bottom and back in a small space among the clutter of an old two-car garage set back diagonally from the house. There were two one-piece garage doors, one closed and one open.
 
 He asked me what I was doing in his yard and I told him I had just delivered his morning paper. He thanked me for always getting the paper delivered so early. He appreciated being able to read it before going to work.
 
 Jim was probably one of the first adults who ever shook my hand and introduced himself by his first name. I was a little surprised. I was only nine or ten years old and easily impressed.
 
 I remember asking Jim why he was sitting in his garage and he said it was because he didn’t want to wake his family, a wife and three daughters.
 
 He asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee and motioned toward a work bench along the wall. There was a large chrome coffee pot perking and looked like it would hold at least a half gallon. It was the kind without a spigot that you had to pour and had a red light on it. 
 
 I declined, but on another day in the future I would accept my first cup of brewed black coffee with no sugar or cream. Jim didn’t believe in what he called “luxury coffee”. (And on that later date I remember he used his shirt tail to wipe out an old ceramic cup.)
 
 In the weeks and months to come I would drop by to visit with Jim regularly and he always seemed happy to see me. I discovered that many people enjoyed Jim’s company and would stand talking with him.
 
 One time I asked Jim why there were no other chairs in his garage since he seemed to have a lot of visitors and he grinned back and said it was so they couldn’t wear out their welcome. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I now find it to be a sound philosophy.
Paper Route Stories

The Day I Met Jim

Comment Guidelines Hashtags Help
