Paper Girl: Take Two

I was a paper girl for The Post Register. This evil, oblivious to "stranger danger" form of slavery known as a job for children, was a family heritage.

When you were of "age", whether a her or a he child, you inherited the family paper route. Passed down from the older sibling once the older child could work a "real" job.

The Torment had his first route down fireman's hill by the school, so I was lucky to inherit the one by our house that he and my father had earned by pressuring The Post Register with the long line of Paper Carriers in our family. (or we got lucky)

Which assauged my parents fears of strangers taking newspapers from unsuspecting children.

The fact that my father had a paper route defaulted to all of his children suffering the same fate. He was my mom's folks' paper boy so this had to be destiny that we, his offspring, carry on the back breaking tradition.

HIS father was a paper boy in Franklin County, Idaho. Which was waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy worse than having to deliver to the houses on a few of your nearby streets.

"The driver from Salt Lake said that Grandpa (T.R.) was the only kid waiting for him to drop off the papers." (At 4 am.) Padre told me the other day. He had to ride his bike all over Franklin County, a farming community."

This made me feel a twinge of guilt about the whining I would delve out on a daily basis, especially on Sunday mornings, gouged my conscious.

Padre went into the story I'd heard a million times. But J had only heard a few times.

"After his father, Rolla, died, [he] was the bread winner along with, Ruby, his mom.
He bought the living room furniture and kitchen dining room set."

"whoa." J

"At age twelve." Padre waited to add for empasis on our blessings.

The "whoa" part of my Great Grandfather's death of Scarlett fever was the Dr's attempts to save his life. I picture his wife, Ruby, who lived to be 97, by his bedside as he struggled and the consequent mantle put upon the oldest son, T.R.

However, that was the legacy left to me--- paper delivery. And thank goodness my friend had a paper route, too, or it would have been that much more brutal to my reputation.

Chelsea lived around the block from me from the day we were born.

In elementary school, I was the other half of a dominating three-legged race winning duo with Chelsea.



One of those few things that many, if any, have the fame to claim. My kitty corner, backyard neighbor, Chelsea, and I could work together like conjoined twins in that race. When I wanted to play with her, I headed out the back door, into the yard down to the southeast corner, where I slunk behind the lilac bushes to the telephone pole.




Instead of huffing it around the corner, I'd hike my foot up on the steel step, smash down the splinters on the cropped pyramid tops of the fence with my hands and using the strength from my shoulders and arms, elevate my body up against the fence, draw my left leg up and the rest of my body over in smooth swoop.

Arms out ready to do a graceful ballet move, I balanced one foot in front of the other as I walked the thin plank.


to the intersection of Neva's, Larry's and Chel's yard. (there wasn't as much tree growth to duck under back then.) Finally, I'd draw my hands in, tuck my knees up tight, and Jedi-rise over the fence triangle, landing cat-like onto the prickly grass.

Phoebe, Chel's hound, usually was there to greet me with her hot dog body and bark along with talent equal to my graceful fence balancing act of avoiding her ears while running after me up to the M's back door. Me avoiding tripping over her ears was a whole other story.

If no one came to the door fast, she'd chomp on my pant leg until I heaved myself up onto the banister,




holler at her to stop, simultaneously pulling my legs up to my chest and balancing on the thin rail. Thankfully, her stumpy legs didn't kept her from climbing up too high.

Chel's back yard also had the greatest play house. Her Dad's crafstmanship was the first aching in a young girl's heart for her own house one day, replete with a balcony, bay windows and a Laura Inghalls ladder leading up to her bedroom.





Despite the stuffy attic of the play house, we begged for sleep overs in the summertime. Pulling our sleeping bags up the ladder



we climbed up to the top level, spread out our bags and excitedly talked about leaving the kiddie school of elementary and moving on up to the prestigious Junior High.

With the book series Sweet Valley Twins and their steamier mishaps in HS (Sweet Valley High);


we had an arsenal of topics to cover late into the evenings. But it was an addiction we had to keep paying for to keep satisfied and so we delivered. In rain and snow, wind and hail.

Using our paper route money, we would go to the Grand Teton mall book store, purchase, exchange amongst each other, and covet Cindy's sisters' collection of the Wakefield twins woes and "oh! whoa!"'s of HS.

Back then, the book store was no Barnes and Noble. (See below) NOW, you can take your own mug and the coffee shop guy will fill it with hot water. (I bring my own tea bag, too.)



Hot water was what we girls eventually got into with the help of the Wakefields and hormones. However, reality was that we were required to earn money and this hard work kept us, for the most part, out of trouble.

To satisfy our parent's desire for us to learn to work or punish us, Chel and I would leave our homes quite sullen around 3:45, and rendezvous at the paper drop off. From afar I could see her round the bend of her street, wearing the same downcast/obligated face; we'd intersect on the corner of Harper and Mars (street names changed), to load The Post Register into our bags.

The grave mood, cooupled with a smoldering loathing that brewed in our hearts until the cold Idaho weather froze them, we attacked the task before us. Our breath hitting the cold air permeated the atmosphere we waited for the paper drop person.

Like a farmer kicking bales of hay off a wagon for farm animals to eat, a hired driver in a car, trunk open to dispense of the goods like a dead body into a ditch, would rapidly whip around the corner and with a shove of his foot our bundles would slide to a halt on the cement next to our cold feet.

But there on the cement sidewalk, where they dropped off our yellow, nail breaking banded bundles



every afternoon and Sunday morning we nodded to each other, commiserated about delivering those black ink smudging, neck breaking, dog attack invitations of a newspaper, and solemnly vowed not to tell anyone that we delivered papers. Thanks to the Torment,however, the word got out to my classmates in JR. High anyway!

If you became absorbed in your walkman or a day dream, that load would turn lop-sided and necessitate being turned round and unloaded from the other end. In my dream like state I would occasionally sling it around so quickly the bag would slash a razor burn around my neck. This typical paper-kid behavior often meant you walked passed people's houses that needed to receive the daily news and they would call the Post Register, who would then call mom and in the pitch black night you'd take the leftover paper in your green bag to the disgruntled customer.

But on summer evenings, instead of donning the notorious faded green and torn carrier that resembled an adult bib, we would be in our jammas, cocooned in our sleeping bags, despite the sweltering heat; our faces glowing from the light of an old flashlight.

Due to the Wakefield twins experiences in the books we read, we had an arsenal of topics to discuss such as dealing with boys at dances. Giggling with anticipation we wondered and fantasized that an Edwardian (twilight vamp) good looking guy would ask us to dance.


"Where art thou Romeo?"

"What if the guy tries to kiss you?" Chelsea asked, as if the possibility were very high. (Jessica and Elizabeth dealt with this kind of dilemma on a daily basis!)

Oh, boy! I sighed and laid back on my pillow. Thinking about this amazing character of a man with his arms around me, all the others dancing, how could I escape his lips at such a close proximity????????????

Looking at the ceiling with my arms folded behind my head I contemplatively played out the scene, what I would do. Nancy Drew-like I sleuthed a concluded answer: "I'd just turn my head and he'd have to kiss my cheek!"

That seemed to satisfy the dilemma.

After we graduated from 6th grade, earned our final ribbon for the 3-Legged Race and entered the harmone charged halls of ER Jr. High, we were shocked to find that we didn't have to avoid boys trying to kiss us at the dances.

Stumped by this false premise, we girl huddled in a corner of the gym by the bleachers and wondered why the guys were so stinkin' scared to part the waters of our un-ease and self consciousness and ask us to dance, let alone try to smooch us!

It was rare that one boy trembled across the basketball court amidst the staring eyes of the amoeba huddle to ask if I wanted to dance.

HIs cold hands on my waist, and my sweaty palms on his shoulders we stiffly held our arm's length distance from each other. Instead of talking with each other I would look around at the others, what they were wearing and that the older ones were holding each other a lot closer.

If my partner happened to get my attention and say something I'd have to un-kink my stiff arms, lean in closer and yell: "What?" over the loud 80's music. (Think a-ha, Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Chigago, Milli-Vanilli, Def Leapord, Poison, Bangles, Tears for Fears; all endless reminders of my cobra teased hair.

Don't get me wrong, Chel and I came up with some good strategies in the attic of that playhouse. And I only had to pull out that game plan once when a Tongan stranger tried to kiss me before entering Le Bus after a day at Hawaii's PCC. (Polynesian Cultural Center- the aloha spirit is very alive there)

So it took until I was 21 to be stuck in such a situation. But that is a whhhhhhhoooole other story. I know you can't wait to hear how Jen missed the whole thing as she walked up the steps and found her seat while the old driver watched as if he saw this every day (with the same guy) and didn't come to my aid! But you will have to wait for that post. Maybe in November I will recycle those days.

The sub dispatch called and asked if I would aide at the very Jr. High Junior High that belted out Madonna's Vogue video, spot light showing the moves of the 9th graders mechanical dancing and running man in their cardigans; the likes of pros like Carrie and Jayme, who already so boldly wore hair dye, right alongside them.

(now little elementary girls have acrylic nails, have my manicures, high and low lights in their perfect hair, and don make-up better than I did in Jr. High. But there has to be Pioneers, People!



I proudly stand up as one who plowed a path- that others found to be a wrong turn= by twisting my hair in the pink and purple hot sticks every morning in a desperate attempt to copy Olson girl's locks of hair, only to achieve a teased, and broad winged mass with so much hair spray that not even the Idaho wind could tame it.