Keith John Paul Horcasitas, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen!
Thanksgiving for many things - including the newspaper boy & daily paper by Keith John Paul Horcasitas
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Rated "G" by the Author.
Thanksgiving, Newspapers, Newspaper Delivery Boy, New Orleans, Valentine's Day, Cherished Memories, Classifieds, Obituary, First Jobs.
Thanksgiving for many things - including the newspaper boy & daily paper!
As we are approaching Thanksgiving this year, we all have so many things to be thankful for. Surely, God, family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers are tops on most people's lists of who we usually think of at this time of the year. Yet, who else has been as dependable to me, day in and day out, than my newspaper delivery person?
After morning prayers, getting JP's Peanut Butter and Jelly lunch ready for school and posting on Facebook, the first thing I usually do is head out to get the morning Advocate paper. I have not had to call to report a "missing paper" at all this past year - not too many businesses have that kind of quality assurance record!
No matter how much I like online news surfing and info sharing, there will always be a place for the daily newspaper. While it is true that newspapers' readership have declined steeply since the advent and ever expansion of the internet, many people like me still like the ole faithful newspaper to gather and share info.
My first job ever, other than cutting the grass for neighbors, was as a paperboy. Back then, in New Orleans, we had two papers: the Times-Picayune in the morning and the States-Item in the afternoons. So on weekdays, I would deliver the Item in a neighborhood near to mine after school - using my old banana bike with a basket on it. On Saturdays and Sundays, I would deliver the morning papers.
One of my paper routes was in the 8 Story Tulane Apartment Building on S. Claiborne Ave. for Graduate Students. It was fun delivering the papers there early on the weekends, since I would take my little bike in and use the elevators to then go up and down the halls quickly tossing off the papers in a manner under the doors - except, of course, for the big Sunday editions.
I also delivered the papers to an adjacent ritzy neighborhood, Audubon Blvd. When it came time to collecting my fees from subscribers for the deliveries, it seemed like I had the hardest time with these folks as compared to the college students. Like my dad used to lament with me, "Son, that is why they are rich - they know how to hold on to their money!"
Another fun newspaper story involves when me and my buddies had a high school crush on Lynette, a Tulane student we met one summer at the Tulane summer camps. With Valentine's Day coming up then, we came up with an impressionable tactic to let Lynette know how seriously in love we were with her! Paul and his father delivered The Times-Picayune daily, so we all spent a Saturday night at his house and got ready for an avalanche of papers to be given to her on the next day.
Early Valentine's Day morning with the darkness still permeating, after we had come down St. Charles Ave., we positioned ourselves in front of her two story house. We had found out earlier that her bedroom was on the second level right in the front of the house with a little porch adjoining it. Being careful not to damage anything, we quickly hurled at least 20 + Sunday Valentine's Day papers to the porch! You can imagine the sound we heard with those heavy Sunday papers landing!
So as I reflect again about Thanksgiving this year, I'm fond of these and many other cherished memories indelibly marked by newspaper ink on both my mind and my fingers! While I certainly don't agree with all the opinions or endorsements of the editorial staffs in the paper that I read, the exposure to these helps me to truly develop and enhance my critical thinking skills.
And how many jobs have I gotten from a newspaper classified ad? In my case, that would be at least 4! How many obituary notices that I've chanced upon have allowed me to attend a Visitation or a Funeral to be able to express my condolences to the loved ones of people I've been blessed to know? More than I can count! How can I make it through a day without the comics, Jumble, the Fun Section, Letters to the Editor, Smiley Anders, Pat Shingleton's forecast, Parade, Faith and People, the People Section, "Human Condition" in MAGAZINE, the Sports news about the Jaguars, Tigers, and Saints, etc.?
Happy Thanksgiving to all - and most especially to my newspaper delivery person. You have brought to me more than the news - you have brought to me much joy and enlightenment! I need to include you on my Christmas list for Black Friday shopping - send me a big wad of ads in the Thanksgiving day paper!
Keith John Paul Horcasitas, LCSW, MHA, 1133 Knollhaven Drive, BRLA 70810, khorcasitas.yahoo.com, November 15, 2009.
