Rant #1,598: Delivering Newspapers In the Snow

It is raining outside this morning in my neck of the woods, which means that a lot of the mounds of snow that we received during the winter storm we got attacked by this weekend will melt into nothingness by the end of the day.

Good. I can't stand looking at it anymore, because it reminds me of my toil in cleaning my little piece of property.

But about 20 years ago, I had it much, much worse.

Not only did I have to clean my property, but I had to deliver newspapers so that they could get buried by another terrible storm that we had.

It was 1996, and I was in between jobs.

After three and a half years working for a burglar and fire alarm association, I was let go of my job in Queens for no apparent reason--I later found out that I was the pawn in a game of political football--and because of this unfortunate situation, my job at the time was threefold: look for another job, of course, take care of my newborn son, and deliver newspapers.

I had taken the adult deliverer's job several months earlier, because I needed the extra income of $150 a week, less tips, which on my route, were very few and far between.

The job ended up being both a curse and a godsend, because when I was out of work, at least I had something to do, but that huge salary I was making prevented me from getting out of work benefits: I was, believe it or not, making too much to get unemployment pay, a measure I fought, but ultimately lost, with the government.

Anyway, it was the hardest, easiest job I ever had.

I had to go to bed at 7:30 p.m., wake up about 11:15 p.m., get ready to go to pick up my papers, go to the depot, get them by midnight, wrap them, deliver them, and then go home.

I would be home by about 3 a.m., and that was prime feeding time for my newborn son, who was just five months old in January 1996.

I would feed him as we watched "Gomer Pyle, USMC" on TV (the ABC affiliate here had the show on at that time of the morning), I would put my son down for sleep, and then I would sleep myself.

When I was working, I would sleep maybe two hours and then go into work. When I was out of work, I probably slept until 8 a.m,, got up, and proceeded to the library, where I would look through the want ads for work.

It was a tough life, made tougher by the storm we had in January 1996, a storm that I will never forget.

It wasn't as huge as the one we had this past weekend--20 to 25 inches at best--but I had to deliver newspapers in this mess.

And yes, there were no excuses, I had to deliver the New York Times, or people would get hysterical.

Better it be buried under several feet of snow than to not deliver it at all.

So I went on my way, and somehow, I delivered the newspapers.

I was certainly one of the few cars actually on the street at that time of night in those conditions, but somehow, I got through it.

I remember getting semi-stuck on one patch of snow and ice, and somehow, going back and forth with my car--a Plymouth, one of the last of that line for sure--I was able to maneuver this and any of the other snow-induced hurdles that I met.

(No, I did not deliver the newspaper on bicycle, as the kid in the photo did. That would have been really horrific!)

I am sure it took me much longer to deliver the newspapers in the middle of that storm--I don't remember how long, to be honest--but I did my duty, and did it days afterward as people dug out from this horrific storm.

By March, I was in a new job--the one I still have--and after a little more than a year of delivering newspapers, I left the newspaper delivery job on April 28, 1996--my birthday present to myself.

Funny, in the intervening 20 years or so, I have had a nightmare here and there about delivering newspapers again. I wake up in a sweat, but then I realize that it was all a dream.

But it wasn't a dream 20 years ago, it was reality, and it was something that I remember both fondly and with a lot of disdain.

It was fun, at times, to be maneuvering the streets so early in the morning, the police knew me and sometimes used me as a "lookout" for trouble, yet on the other hand, the situation I found myself in that forced me to do this job in the first place was utterly bewildering.

So when we got what we got this past weekend, I had to flash back to my own experience in the mid 1990s, when I was much younger, and much in need of a job.

If nothing else, my situation back then brought me closer to my son, and that is something that is fantastic.

But overall, I do respect those who do this unheralded job, because I've "been there, done that" so to speak.

So when you find your buried newspapers cascading out of the snow today, don't be angry, be happy that your deliverer was diligent in doing his job, even during a storm like we had.

I found one of my newspapers today--which came out of hibernation and basically fell out of its encasement in snow and ice due to the rain today--and it put a big smile on my face.

Like I said earlier, "been there, done that."