A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper
From 1955 to 1961 into my sophomore year at St. Mary’s, I delivered newspapers, initially for the Sioux City Journal and, subsequently, the Des Moines Register. Over time, my routes encompassed almost every neighborhood in Storm Lake, including downtown. While I delivered the Journal, the Meusey twins delivered the Register. When our paths crossed each day, they would often give me a hard time that they worked for the better of the two papers, implying that the Journal was inferior to theirs.
It may have made an impression. When they retired, I gave up the Journal to deliver their morning Register route. Over both of the routes, I could have possibly been and most likely was many of your parent’s and grandparent’s paperboy. Both routes, seven days a week, were early morning before school started. Deliveries were year-round, spring, summer, fall and winter; in heat, humidity, rain, sleet, wind and snow.
Each paper provided us with a canvas bag to carry the papers in. Both bags were white. The Journal bag used red lettering; the Register black. Once filled with 50 plus newspapers, hoisting it over my head like a sling was quite a feat. That weight alone, at the beginning provided motivation to finish quickly, lessoning the load as you went.
The Sunday paper which was thick with advertising was much heavier and required more fillings. It was no easy feat. I had to hustle on some weekdays and Sundays so I could get to St. Mary’s Church for altar boy responsibilities. Walking both routes, while not giving it a thought back then, was a great workout and surely a minimum of 10,000 steps daily.
Daily for almost six years I would get up around 5 a.m., sometimes eat a quick breakfast, pick up the Journal by the U.S. Post Office, or the Register in their office located in the basement under Ressler Drug, right next to the Storm Lake Bakery. The bakery was oft times the first stop before beginning my route. For anyone who has ever been in the Storm Lake Bakery, experienced that sweet bakery aroma, you know what a treat it was to start my route there.
I usually had either cinnamon rolls or gooey chocolate frosted brownies two or three times a week and probably spent a lot of the meager money I earned from the paper route at the bakery. But it was awesome. I probably worked most of those calories off on the route. Well, maybe not all. It’s great to know that the bakery is still in business and since moving back to Storm Lake, I have but twice allowed myself to enjoy that sensory experience again.
About that Des Moines Register office
It was in the basement of the Ressler Drug building. The alley entrance was a set of steps that led down into a very large wide-open room. Upon entry and immediately facing you behind a long, plain, floor length counter was Richard (Dick) Connolly. Dick was Storm Lake’s resident representative for the Des Moines Register and Tribune. But to all of us “Paper Boys,” he was our “Paper Man.” I never recall anything less than a sincere, smiling “Good Morning, Rick.” He was a good man to us all.
On one wall were floor to ceiling, two three-foot-high cubicles filled with our route’s newspapers, from which we’d fill our black and white shoulder strapped paper bags and be off on our days route.
On Sundays, bound up with twine, were bundles of thick advertising-filled papers that we had to lug up those steps to either our bikes or, on some inclement days, our parent’s cars.
The very back of the room was a wide-open, well-lit space that contained “The” ping pong table.
Dick spent most of his waking hours in that basement. Seven days a week, he was there very early in the morning to help the driver from Des Moines unload the truck, then sort the papers into the appropriate bins. They were always ready to go between 5:30-6 a.m.
Throughout the day, Dick was there for us to turn in our collection money from our customers, pick up new collection tickets (our collection equipment consisted of a 6 x 3-inch top double-ringed collection book containing a page for each customer with 12 small perforated ticket receipts that we tore off and gave to the customer when they paid us and a pouch to hold the book.) Occasionally a customer would build up quite a balance due or just plain stiff us. When that happened, I would send my “enforcer” — my dad!
Lapel pins and turkeys
We paper boys had to be somewhat adept salesmen in order to get new “starts” to subscribe to the paper. I have no clue how, at that age, I developed that skill. But I was good at it. The Register would often have a campaign that would allow us to get rewarded. One simply was, in a month, if you got 10, you would get a silver and blue or a red and silver lapel pin that read “10.” If you got 25, almost unheard of, a white and gold “25” lapel pin.
I got both and I still have them. Another campaign awarded a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving for every 10 “starts,” I think. I don’t recall how many my dad actually had to give away, but I am sure we ate turkey for the next six months or more. I can still vividly recall, the little imp in me, standing in the cold of a November evening, shivering on a sidewalk, woefully peering up at a potential customer and iterating “I’m trying to win a turkey for Thanksgiving for my family.” Bam, bring on the flock!
On “The” ping pong table, Dick taught me how to play. Not just casual play, but competitive, hard-core action for hours on end. I got to the point that I could actually beat him at his own game. It would bode well for me years later when I was in the Air Force and stranded with my buddies in the barracks in Alaska, virtually snowed in on a three-day break.
I thank Dick for my competitiveness, the skill at ping pong and a lot of the money I won from my fellow airmen. That actually helped to pay cash for my used 1964 VW Bug at Storm Lake Import Motors when I came home from Alaska.
Lessons in frostbite
On cold and inclement days, I often huddled, out of the elements, in available structures along my route. One was Farm Bureau, located by the railroad tracks on Seneca Street (A Touch Above, now). Walking from downtown, I couldn’t wait to get there. It had a very small, enclosed heated alcove where I could get warmed up (sometimes with my dog, Tiger). One winter, I actually got frostbite on my inner thighs. My skin got black and scaly.
Not knowing what it was, I tried scrubbing it off only to break the scale open and subject myself to very sore open wounds. Years later I saw cases of frost bite in Alaska and it dawned on me that it looked just like what I had back then.
The demise of Tiger
My home was on Hudson Street and I would often stop and get Tiger to go with me. He was awesome, never on a leash and just loved to run. He loved to chase doves. They would land somewhere, and he would run toward them, they would take off and land a few feet away repeatedly until one day sadly, they landed in the middle of Flindt Drive. To this day I can still see him rolling around under that blue car.
After being hit, he got up, ran to me and died in my arms. I carried him all the way back home crying all the way. My dad took him away somewhere, leaving me with nothing but years of fond memories. He was the best dog I ever had until 1998 when I finally got another, Rueben, who was with me for 16 years. I was blessed with two great dogs and lots of fond memories and cherished moments.
I quit being a paper boy for my bellhop position at the Bradford Hotel. However, there was a brief period of time, until Dick found my replacement, that I did both. As such, there was an occasional day when I got up at 5 a.m., delivered papers, altar boy Mass at 7 a.m., start school around 8 a.m., finish school and be at the Bradford from 4-9 p.m., and home for homework. It was a precursor of my future management career when I was oft times referred to as, and truly was a “workaholic.”
Rick Wimer lives in Storm Lake.
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