Story Notes: Delivery · 11:42pm Jan 26th, 2020
So sorry about this being late, I got busy, then not busy, then busy again, then said fuck it all. So, story notes! Lets see if I can even remember anything...
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I guess lets first look at the characters of this story, the important ones being Rudy, Hot Brew, and Jack.
I know there isn't much description given of these ponies and human, but that's kind of the point. It is stated later on what colors both Rudy (dark red/burgandy coat with gold/yellow shaggy mane and tail, so kind of a small Big Mac except a pegasus) and Brew (Baby blue coat with chestnut brown mane and tail, trimmed and neat) are, but I don't go into the cutie marks. Rudy is kind of a mystery, even to me, since I had no plans other than having him be a male pegasus, but I do know his cutie mark is nothing to do with newspapers, or the delivery of them.
Brew's the same situation, her mark is to do with coffee and organization, although the later makes some sense with what her actual job at the Journal is. Again, I didn't describe it, nor do I really have any idea what it should actually be. I'll just leave it all up to the imagination, cause as of right now I have no real plans to re-use these characters for any other stories.
Also Rudy is short for something, but I don't know what yet. Again, not really worried about it, but if you noticed in the story, Rudy tends to use the more universal terms for people, like, well, "people", where as Brew still calls everyone "pony". Rudy is either a nickname, play off of his name, or hell, maybe he took a more "earth like" name so he would fit in better. Admiral Biscuit did the very same thing, multiple times in fact, so it's possible.
Lastly, we have Jack.
... yeah, I got nothin'. He's older, obviously, probably mid 60's. A lot of newspaper drivers, back when I was still involved, were retired folk who just wanted side jobs for more income. It was very commonplace to see these people and their adult childred, or even their grandchildren, helping out.
My mother had been doing newspapers since her mid-20's, way before she ever met my dad. Otherwise she worked in bars, so I grew up hanging out in bars and in the back of whatever vehicle she had, delivering newspapers.
Strange times they were. Now a days, since my mother still has her route and I do not, I don't go there anymore, except for Thanksgiving papers if I happen to have the day off from work. It's weird, all the old timers are gone, now its younger kids who drive around small cars.
Jack's vehicles are very true to life for me. I grew up in the back of a '86 Chevy Van, grey. At one point, we got rear ended, and I dug out some junkyard doors that were white, only because they had opening windows which was A MIRACLE OF INVENTION OH MY GOD.
Also we called him Gramps.
He was parked, running, about... oh gosh, 8 years ago now. We got another van, and used him for Thanksgiving or Sunday nights when we were still busy. I rode in the back of that van... gosh as early as I can remember, 9 or 10. Before that my mother had... a lot of other vehicles, that usually got totalled when she'd hit a deer.
Anyway, Gramps was replaced with another van, one I named Nana.
The only reason, mind you, was because Nana was a GMC... and it was outfitted as a body hauler... it had heat... it had REAR HEAT. Oh my God those last few years of doing newspapers were such a God send. She also had working AC, until when we had her trans overhauled, they accidently cut a line, and we said screw it. Nana had windows! That opened! It was amazing.
Aaaaand then as you can see by the image, she started getting lots of rust holes, and it started to get cold. So yay for license plates, they're great patch panels. Part of her floor is also license plates and old computer tower panels.
When my mother got rid of her store route, we parked her, and now she's been sitting 3 years. Still runs and drives, Gramps did 3 years ago as well, but blow brake lines. When I went to do the brake lines on her, I found her whole underbody just so rotten and messed up, I've decided she is a lost cause, and plan to pull the engine and trans, and junk her.
Gramps has too much of my young life in him, so I'd never part with the old bastard.
I own a '85 Buick Riviera, and the Olds 307 in her is just tired, so I plan to try and put Nana's 305 Throttle Body Injection into it. Research tells me it will, but I won't know until I try it!
Crap where was I... oh shoot, the story, right!
Yeah, in the story Jack had a old Buick Century Wagon. A guy at the Journal I knew used to use one, and I loved that car. I almost bought it from him, but he ended up totaling it one night out delivering. Oh well.
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I guess I should start talking about newspapers, huh?
So I was helping my mother deliver newspapers since before I could remember. I vaugly remember sitting in the bar with her, bumming quarters from the drunks, but more so in the back of a van, or truck, or car, rolling up and bagging newspapers. At first we delivered The Detroit News, but for reasons my mother never would tell me (or I simply forgot) we left there and went to the Flint Journal. The lady who's route we took over, she sold us Gramps because she had no use for him since she was quitting.
So that was my life. I helped do newspapers, struggled in school because of the crazy hours, but we had to do what we had to do. Until I was in High School, I mostly helped do just the Saturday and Sunday delivery, because weekends, and occasionally helped on the other days if school was out, or whatever reasons.
When I got out of High School, I wanted to be done with newspapers, but I still helped do my mother's home delivery.
And then a route became available while I was going to college, and I took it. I had my route for 5 years, started at 280 customers. This was roughly 2010, pushing into 2011 (and yes, around the time I got into MLP). I started working at the airport in 2014, and by 2015 I put in my 2 weeks with the Journal and never looked back.
When I quit, I was down to 120 customers. I have lots of stories about the people on my route, and how lovely they all were, nice, helpful, but I'm sure I could save those for another day.
So lets talk about the actual part of the papers.
In this story, I put a lot of detail, or hope I did, into the part where we actually got our papers. I can't remember a lot of dates on some events because I was younger, but I'll try my best.
The Flint Journal used to be run out of the original building in, shocker, Flint. They had the famous "Overflow Parking" painting on an entire wall. They had it restored before they sold the building back in, lets see... probably 2011-2012. Before that happened, however, they spent some stupid amount of money and built a brand new printing press building, and turned the old one into the offices. It was nice... for the 4 years they used it. Then when The New York Times bought them out, they closed up everything and moved us to several storage vault locations, depending on where your route was. Eventually they did, in fact, lease a warehouse and had us all together again, but it wasn't like the story described.
We used to do just as Rudy and Jack did. All the vans had a calling order, never changed. You were either in the bay, on deck, or second up. The Bay was as it says, you were backed up to the loading window, and we had mechanical rollers that came out and were suppose to come out towards your vehicle so you could load easier. The old Journal building, they almost never worked, so that was one nice thing when they built the new building.
By the way, I forgot to mention, our old old building is now owned by Michigan University, and our old new building is the Flint Farmers Market. I actually this past year had my 10th year High School anneversary there. It was strange being back after so many years...
Anyway, when you were in the bay, bundles of papers came out at you like the end of an assembly line. You stacked them in your vehicle however you wished, and then you left.
Lots of us, however, had multiple routes under one truck number. (The truck numbers were all assigned to each driver using the first 3 didgets of your MI Drivers License), and each route had a number that no one I knew understood how it worked. For instance, we had 3 store routes. 0998, 0995, and 0993. My mother's home delivery is 0982. Mine was some crazy number, 90125 if my memory serves me correctly.
The reason for different routes was because, as explained in the story, each area had different adds depending on what stores were around them. That's it. Well, and location, but I digress.
We always placed the papers in a particular order, and even though they had a piece of paper on top letting us know what route they were, it was easy to get disoriented and start using the wrong ones.
Back in the day, when we had a combined total of roughly 1500 papers between all routes, we used the bundles for everything. I had a milk crate to use for anything from a seat, to a rest, to a table, or I'd roll bags over it, place a stack of stuffed papers on it, and pull the bag up over and tie it. This was detrimental on Sundays, Dailie papers weren't as crazy.
All papers came in two parts, and Sundays were three. You had to stuff the parts together, and Sundays for a long time we'd pick up the first two parts Saturday mid-day, then that night get the cover pages. When papers started getting smaller, and sales started getting worse, they began pre-stuffing the dailies, and Sundays were only two parts. Eventually, the Journal went down to only 3 days a week, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, but eventually brought back Tuesdays. They still do this.
We'd always hire random guys to drive the van on Sundays, so I could be in the back stuffing while they drove. One guy was a carpenter, and one day took our van and made us a custom, folding table for the back. It's still in Gramps, and it was nice. As the counts went down, I even got luxuries such as a chair! And two milk crates!
Of course, because of how we sat, facing the left side, reaching over to the right for bundles, we were always breaking the right legs on the chairs.
We also changed how we stacked, because as mentioned in Delivery, everyone stacked their papers on the left side to leave the door free. Most everyone had the old GM vans like mine pictured above, but a few would have a Ford, or a whatever minivan (those never lasted long) and the occasional SUV or station wagon mixed in. Anyway, vans, they all leaned to the left, and yes, some people DID put higher end shocks, leafs, and springs on the left side of their vans to compensate.
We were one of them, lol.
Somewhere I have an old Polaroid of all the vans lined up in the bays, and they're all tipping. If I ever find it I'll share it.
Newspapers are an excellent insulator, so when the heat that never worked maybe worked, they helped keep me warm in the back. Then one of our guys installed a fog light above my head for a light to see. That thing was prone to falling off, or just burning me outright that I began to parody the song "Blinded by the light" as "Burned up by the light".
He hated when I'd start singing it, but I also hated it when the damn thing would fall on my head and burn my neck.
So, our truck was never first to load, we were usually 3rd in line, so we were second up. Parking they had it set up, so the vans ahead of the ones in bay were on deck, then in front of them were second up. It was often rude to take someone's spot, even if they were late. You only did so when someone inside called you out and said they were being skipped. Happened to us a few times, and it was never fun having to hand load them from a cart out back by the dumpsters.
No, they werent' throwing them away, that's just where the door was. It sucked.
Most everything else worth mentioning was already in the story, so basically we got loaded up, and headed out.
All days except Sunday, my mother did on her own or with my help in one vehicle, usually her truck. Sundays, we loaded up Gramps/Nana, and would meet my mother at one of our first stores, she'd take her papers, and we'd continue.
The times also changed over the years, from out delivering at 10pm, to 11, to midnight, and now a days it's 2am. We always got the weird people out driving, or stumbling into gas stations half naked after a late night romp while getting gas.
That happened a few times, actually. I got stories for everything. We also dealt with one robbery, that wasn't fun.
When I got my own route, stores were still the same, but now I was like my mother, out in my own vehicle (Simmons the '96 S10 Blazer) and doing home delivery, again, like my mother did her own route.
It was nice, and around that time was when I got into MLP, so I was listening to that music, The Bronyville Podcast, and the old Fallout: Equestria audio books by Scorchmechanic. Those were the days, man... never will be another time like it, that's for sure.
So, stores are fairly self explanitory. We walk in, take out the old ones if there are any, and drop off the new ones. We have clip boards, both on us, and in each store, that we logged the counts. Being newspaper people, we were independant contractors, which meant we actually BOUGHT the papers from the journal, distrubuted them, and the stores paid us. Journal got a cut, we got a cut, stores got a cut. We had a little wiggle room on how those charges went, but we couldn't change the actual paper's cost.
If we had returns, we would take them back and fill out paperwork to get credit back for the unsold papers. According to my mother, she's one of the only delivery drivers left that they still do that with, because all the new, young people just get paid a flat rate to deliver, and the stores throw out the old ones.
Crazy stuff.
It's actually very similar to how the flight charts are in aviation. We used to sell them, but when they got rid of the return credit, we stopped getting them in. We were losing too much money, cause everything's going electronic.
(Sorry you don't get more factual information and images and links like Admiral does, but you do get more rambling and stories from me!)
Home delivery was similar, except there were not returns. Customers subscribbed, and us contractors got paid a rate per paper, per customer. Before I quit, I was getting roughly .42 cents per daily paper, which was $1, and the subscription rate made it .55 cents. It doesn't seem like much, but do all the math multiplying it by hundreds of customers per driver, it was, well, something.
When delivering to homes, the standard was we put out on metal posts a plastic tube. Bad weather we also had bags to put them in (which we had to buy) with rubber bands (also had to buy). We also had customers that we'd throw the paper in their driveway, or for the older folks, we'd drive up and toss it by the house for them.
Inner town/city routes, however, were basically walking routes. I never had one, but my mother did before the Free Press, and I kinda remember it. Having to walk through apartments to drop off papers on each step, or down streets tossing them up on porches. It sucked, but hey, it was what it was.
Then again, in the good days, my mother was putting on 250 miles a night on her trucks. Each day. 7 Days a week. Her '04 Silverado with the 4.8L V8, before the cluster quit, by 2016 had over 600k miles on it. It would have been more, but as I mentioned above, aroud 2010 they went to 3 then 4 day delivery.
The truck still runs and drives, but man is the frame shot. It's now the generic yard truck.
My route, in comparison, was only 63 miles a night, but before Simmons died, he had 290k miles on the 4.3 V6. From what people tell me, that's pretty damn good for that engine. Oh, in fact, I found a pic of him!
He was such a good boy. My high school car, had lots of fun and grand stories involving him. Sadly, he had a critical engine failure, and even though I have a spare engine still sitting around, getting underneath, he was a mess. Frame was so bad, body was worse, I had to conceed and sold him to a junk man who wanted parts before scrapping him.
I felt better with that, becaue at least the guy needed several of the parts that were still good. I later found out he figured out what happened. Cylinder number 1 cracked on the inside, which was why we couldn't find the leak. Crazy stuff...
He also had one of the "famed" pictures from pony con's, Canterlot Gardens in fact, in the con/hotel's parking lot!
That was also the con I tried to help someone who had a fuel pump fail on their own S10. Sadly, I had unloaded my tools to make room for con stuff, but they eventually got it figured out.
Holy crap do I derail or what, come on people keep me in check!
Newspapers, right!
So I guess I pretty much covered everything. Any questions feel free to ask in the comments, but I guess I should send this off with one final word.
Times change, and I'm one who struggles with that fact. I know people complain about newspapers going away, but remember this: They've been around for over 400 years. I mean, that's a long time for something to last, and while I don't see them going away anytime soon, I expect in the next 30 to 50 years, they will be a lost medium.
The days of the paperboy are coming to a close, but at least I lived it, and can tell all kinds of stories.
See ya!
*EDIT* Oh you know what, I forgot to talk about the theme of the story: working holidays. Not much to say, it was normal for me to work on them, even when I was little, going out trying to see Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny while delivering newspapers. I never did see them...
I also didn't see the ball drop for about 12 years, so yeah, that was something.
We've done paper delivery local for a few years, with a break in the middle. Thankfully, we're out in rural-land, so there's only like a hundred or so papers in the route.
I really did enjoy the interactions you worked into Delivery, and the van looks exactly what I imagined up close.
Thanks for sharing these stories!
Interesting; thanks. :)
Holy frick, the Bronyville podcast. That takes me waaaaaaaay back, like 2012 back. I can hear the intro and everything haha. Yikes.
5193206
Yeah, my back up MP3 player (512mb) still has the last dozen episodes, as well as the 26 chapters Scorch did of his Fo:E readings. As the song goes, Those were the days, my friend.
5193453
懐かしいな〜
When did they stop anyway? I think I'll listen to their last episodes when I get the chance. There's plenty of stuff I missed I'm sure, and I love it when they meet with artists and creators.
5193764
Gosh, I think they gave up the ghost around 2013? Maybe into 2014. I wanna say they got to episode 200, but I can't remember.
Ironically, I remember people feeling sad in the 1980s that paperboys were being replaced by adults who delivered papers using vans. See eg here. Or not. Honestly, that link ain't really worth reading; I provide it for completeness.
When I had a paper route, I think I had, like, 80 subscribers, and IIRC it took maybe 6 hours a week to deliver the papers (less most weeks, but more when there was snow), to make about $30 a month. So, like, a dollar an hour.
I'm supposed to feel like it taught me to be reliable and to value money, but mostly I'm bitter about it. I missed out on part of my childhood--couldn't participate in any after-school activities for years--to save up money for college, and when I went to college, the money that had taken me years to save up didn't even last a week.
You know you can tag a blog post with a story? Then people who favorited it get a notice.
5194910
Aaahhhh, so you do get it then. Yeah, that was basically my childhood, only instead of saving for college I was just helping with bills.
5194920
I thought I did? The story should have been tagged with this blog post.
Meeting you, and finding out that you type up your fanfics on a mechanical typewriter is one of various things that will stick out for me from the final Bronycon.
Now that I remember how much different it was typing on a mechanical typewriter, versus a computer's keyboard, it suddenly makes my Dad pounding the keys on his keyboard like they owe him money, make sense (he's not angry while he does this, and he's used computers since like the mid to late 80's, so he knows how to properly type on a keyboard)
I started and ended 2014 alone at the office on the phone helping a customer with resetting a password. That was a matter of me volunteering for that shift, so my coworkers with kids could spend it with their kids.
My company provided 24X7X365 IT support to the companies that we supported, so someone needed to be available during the holidays.
I also volunteered for the Thanksgiving dinner slots, for the same reason.
The overtime pay also helped with my motivation.
Always look out for and take care of your teammates.
5301801
I wish I typed out stories more on my typewriters, but lately I've been lazy. I've also been heavily distracted, so maybe I do need to get out one of my machines.
5302099
I know that lazy and distracted feels.
My progress in my masters program isn't doing too hot as a result.