The Paperboy

The Paperboy

It is likely that a high percentage of readers of this story have never seen a paperboy. They are forever disappeared from the American landscape, and the loss this represents is beyond calculation. That may seem hyperbolic. I will reveal why it is not.

I was a paper boy, twice, in two different small communities. I was 13 years old the first time. I had just started college the second time. In both cases, I delivered newspapers from the nearest large cities. The towns and newspaper names in this article need not be mentioned, because they could be literally any location in America during the era when this was standard practice by the news distributing industry.

By the end of the 20th century, the paperboy was just a distant memory. I do not need to list all the reasons for why this is a fact because everyone knows that already. There are no imaginable circumstances for this task to ever return to our culture.

What is even a greater loss than the demise of the paperboy, is that fact there there does not exist any other opportunities for school age children that teach the lessons about society, people, business, and responsibility this job provided. It was commonly the first actual job for youngsters. Even though the job is named paper “boy”, young girls also were employed, just not as commonly.

What were the specific responsibilities related to the paperboy job? They are numerous, important, and invaluable to learning how to manage business principles and practices…