Of Hills and Inboxes: My Life as a Paperboy

My first job ever has a lot in common with the job I am doing now. Sort of.

You see, at the age of 12 I began delivering newspapers for the San Francisco Chronicle. The job was tough, my paper route was in a hilly area of Daly City known as Top of the Hill.

It wasn't easy walking up and down those hills with a bag weighing about 50 pounds, sometimes more when more subscribers were added to the paper route, every day after school when I was already tired from the day. 

The worst day of the week was perhaps Sunday -- or as I used to call it Hell Day -- when the thick papers full of the advertisements would roll out and the weight and girth of the papers rose significantly. I would always enlist the help of my friends to help me on Hell Day by promising them a cut of my paycheck, which amounted to about $25 or $30 every two weeks.

I would usually pay them about $10 to help, so my take home pay, after taxes, was roughly $15. Hell Day would start a 5 a.m., when my entire house was asleep and it was still dark outside. The newspapers would always be waiting for me on my front steps, bundled, and ready to be wrapped.

We used to wrap each one of them by hand, which usually took about an hour, divide the papers up evenly, and begin walking the hills in almost always chilly weather to deliver Sunday's edition of the Chronicle.

Those were the days. Today, I'm still delivering the news, only differently.

We live in a digital world, where paperboys such as the 12-year-old version of me, are replaced by laptops, smart phones and televisions. The paper boy of today comes in the form of a nifty newsletter that's delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

The newsletter is populated with the daily edition of the Patch and is a good way to start your day off 'in the know' so to speak. Once signed up for the newsletter, you will also be notified when news breaks in Dixon -- whenever there is essential information to share with the community or an emergency happens.

The newsletter is free to everyone, which in this day and age where many newspapers charge for content (they have paper boys to pay out and MANY others), is pretty cool.

If you haven't signed up for our newsletter, you can do so by clicking here.