“a strange sort of sparring”

Ben Fong Torres had a paper route in Oakland in the 60s. His experience and mine were similar. I like his little collecting for the bill scene. 

After school, Barry and I worked together delivering the Oakland Tribune around the neighborhood. …  

[O]nce a month … we had to collect. Most of the subscribers paid promptly, but there were always procrastinators and a few who played hide-and-seek with our $3.50 a month, of which I would get fifty cents.  

With them, it was a strange sort of sparring; a kid, not yet a teenager, trying to get a grownup to pay for a month of papers they’d had delivered to their front steps daily. 

‘I don’t have it.’ 

‘Oh.’ A downward look. ‘Tomorrow?’ 

‘How about Friday?’ 

‘Think you could have it Wednesday? I need to pay up.’ 

‘All right.’ Reluctantly. ‘We’ll see.’ 

That meant they wouldn’t even be home Wednesday. … 

For all the grief, there was nothing like counting up the month’s take — before the Tribune got its majority share.

I don’t remember how much the monthly subscription fee for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat was. But $3.50 doesn’t sound far off the mark. And I was a paper carrier this and that side of 1980. Huh. Was The Press Democrat so much cheaper than the Trib? Or were all newspapers still that low cost? 

I do remember covering the dining table with cash at the end of the month. It sure looked like a lot of money! 

Like Ben, my brother and I shared a paper route. Eventually it was officially divided between us. We didn’t deliver from bikes. We walked our routes after school. I kept working my route after David quit his.

Mostly customers were nice — I got some great tips at Christmas. At least, they seemed huge to me. $2! $3! 

Yes, there were a few who would tell me to come back another time. I’m sure I was making well under minimum wage. I don’t remember what arrangement there was for the deadbeats. I think at first we were on the hook, but maybe our mother protested? 

source: The Rice Room: growing up Chinese in America, from number two son to rock ’n’ roll

by Ben Fong Torres

1994. Hyperion, New York