The paper route

I caught this opinion piece by Peter Funt while I was sorting through emails and catching up on news this morning. His view is true and another sign of the sad state of the newspaper business.

I never saw a kitten thrown out of a van, and don’t recall anything so crazy when I had my paper route, but his stories brought back a lot of memories that I rarely think about anymore of my first job as a newspaper delivery boy, tossing our hometown newspaper in suburban Kansas City onto the driveways in my neighborhood. … Maybe it was my second job – I worked for a couple summers as a little league umpire, too, but which one came first, I no longer remember. Later, once I could drive and entered high school, I was a “courtesy clerk,” aka grocery sacker, at the local Price Chopper – which provided some crazier experiences, including a night that I witnessed a robbery while I was collecting carts outside the store – and then a tester, and whatever else my dad needed me to do, at the LCD factory where he worked.

I don’t remember exactly how I came to be a newspaper delivery boy. A newspaper ad, it must have been, that my mom saw and shared with me to gauge my interest. I thought it sounded good, I assume at that age, mostly because it meant extra spending money in my pocket for baseball cards and Slurpees from the 7-Eleven a few blocks from our house. It was the early ’90s, and I couldn’t have been more than 13 or 14 years old.

I remember it was spring time – March or early April – when I took the job. I spent a few early mornings riding around with a woman who oversaw the newspaper delivery operation, learning my new route. Thinking about it now, in this day and age, it seems almost blasphemous to basically be picked up at 4 or 5 in the morning by a woman I’d never met and for her to drive me around for a couple hours in her beater of a car with no parental or company supervision. But the early ’90s still had a vestige of earlier decades when we were more trusting of people and kids were allowed to roam and explore our surroundings with the neighborhood kids and be gone for hours without Mom or Dad growing too concerned.

When it was time for me to do the route on my own, my mom drove me on most mornings until the weather warmed and I could go completely solo on my bike. By the summer, my parents and I had recruited my younger brother to help.

It was a daily newspaper. So every morning, one of my parents woke me up around 4 in the morning. We retrieved the stack of newspapers from our front step and then lugged them to the laundry room at the back of our house where we rolled them, placed them in rubber bands – we also placed them into orange plastic bags if it was a rainy day – and stacked them in my white canvas delivery bag. … Until that time, I don’t think I knew people got up and went to work so early.

Along with the stack of newspapers came a spreadsheet that showed all of the addresses on my route and the names of the subscribers. Every morning I had to review the list to look for new subscribers, or subscribers that had canceled and no longer required a stop at their address. I recall there were maybe 40, 45 addresses – it might have been much higher, now that I’m thinking about it – on the daily list, which covered our subdivision and two or three neighboring subdivisions, all located within one or two square miles.

The job for me didn’t last more than two or three months. By July I had moved on to other things. Because I was becoming a wise teenager and quickly realized – I think my parents did, too – the pennies I was being paid for each newspaper I delivered were not worth the stress of my parents rattling me out of bed every morning, carting me around on the days I couldn’t ride my bike and the amount of labor it took for a 13-year-old kid to get all of the papers neatly rolled and delivered by 7 a.m.

But some of the things I recall most clearly – and that make me happiest – about that time is the trust my parents put in me to do the job, to hold some responsibility and, above all, the care they took in helping me try it. Lord knows, they couldn’t have liked getting up so early those mornings either. … I remember, too, how good it made me feel on the occasions when one of the subscribers stepped outside as I rode up to the front step on my bicycle, complimented me on the job I was doing and handed me a dollar bill as a tip. It made me want to place the newspaper on that person’s doorstep just a little bit neater after that … I remember how fun it was to watch the progress of the sun rising as I neared the end of my route each morning … And I remember the fun my brother and I had on the days that he helped me, racing our bikes to see who could finish their half of the route faster and then wahoo-ing as we reconvened near the end of the route and raced up the winding road to our driveway.

Did it help shape my love for newspapers and influence me to embark on my newspaper journalism career? Maybe, but I believe that fate was sealed years earlier when I would eat breakfast with Dad before school and he’d share the sports pages of the Wisconsin State Journal with me. That’s a whole other story.

A lost era of Royals fans still cheer

So my friend Kara just posted this good read about the Kansas City Royals on Facebook. And now it has me recalling the good 'ol days, too.

Because of family moves while I was growing up and into my adulthood, I grew up a fan of the Brewers in the '80s, turned into a Royals fan for the '90s, and returned to following the Brewers in the 2000s. I've always been a Cubs fan, though.

I have no recollection of the 1985 World Series. My earliest postseason baseball memories are from 1988, and so began my love for the Dodgers.

As the 100-loss seasons pile up for the Royals, it's always amazed me how passionate the team's fans remain.

Sure, you could say that about Cubs fans, and their century-plus championship drought. But the Cubs have had quite a few winning seasons sprinkled throughout that drought, and Wrigley Field is known more for its frat party atmosphere than the kind of fans who hang on every pitch.

Red Sox fans, too. But they put their 86-year-old curse to rest -- twice. And they, too, had several close calls in between.

Yankees and Cardinals fans are known for their passion. But they're always in the hunt.

Royals fans got nothin.' Not since the early 1990s. And yet the team still draws consistently good crowds for its market size, sometimes larger than more successful teams.

This month makes 25 years since the Royals won their only World Series championship, and the team has young fans anyway, a generation that knows winning baseball only through old stories and grainy video.

My earliest Royals memories are of being awestruck by the beauty of the stadium and its fountains and the wonder of seeing baseball being played on astroturf.

Of watching Brett Saberhagen's no-hitter on TV and then getting our family locked out of our apartment the next morning, just before we were supposed to be leaving for school, because I wanted my mother to buy me a Kansas City Star to feed my fascination with baseball and the newspapers that covered the game's historic moments.

Of watching George Brett's march toward 3,000 hits in September '92. And witnessing his 2,992 and 2,993 hits from the upper deck of Kauffman Stadium.

Of watching George Brett's final games on TV. His kiss of home plate. And his last hit in Nolan Ryan's last uniformed appearance with the Texas Rangers on the last day of the 1993 season.

Of watching that classic ballgame in '94 (No. 6 on my list). Seeing Bob Hamelin barrel into third base and beating the throw on a Gary Gaetti single. And sitting so close to the Seattle Mariners dugout we could feel Lou Pineilla's spit when he returned to the dugout from arguing an umpire's call and proceeded to get into it with a boisterous fan.

Of attending the game on a hot July day in '95 when the Royals inducted Frank White into the team's hall of fame. I went with my dad and my childhood best friend Nate. ... I have memories of the Royals playing Boston on that day, the "Cheers" theme blaring on the stadium PA during the Red Sox batting practice, and calling a Mo Vaughn home run -- but baseballreference.com is telling me I must be thinking of a different day.

Of attending Cal Ripken's world-recording breaking consecutive game. With my dad and three of my best high school buddies on a beautiful June night. I wore my Ripken jersey and we played catch in the parking lot before the gates opened. The "I Was There" certificate we received remains one of my most prized collector's items.

There was joy in watching some of my childhood favorites -- mostly from years of unwrapping their Topps baseball cards -- play the twilights of their careers in Kansas City. Kirk Gibson. Kevin McReynolds. Greg Gagne. Gary Gaetti. Wally Joyner. Jose Lind. Vince Coleman.

They all love the Royals for different reasons. Some of it is geography and family and some of the same memories their fathers may have had, like sitting in the old G.A. and getting sprayed by the groundskeepers on a hot day or trying to get a beer with a fake I.D.

I remember all those things, too. Oh, how I loved sitting in the old G.A. with my high school buddies. $5 tickets. Getting sprayed. And chasing home run balls during batting practice.

Then there was the painful decline.

David Cone. Johnny Damon. Jemaine Dye. Carlos Beltran. They all got away. Mike Sweeney was wrecked by injuries. The Tony Muser years -- I attended a few of those press conferences as an aspiring sportswriter in college -- sheesh.

The Royals sank at the hands of poor leadership and a lack of ownership.

In recent years, it seems like the names on the roster have changed so much that it's a lost cause to try keeping up. You just wait to see who the manager -- whoever that might be, there's been a lot of them in recent years, too -- puts on the field that day.

“Even though I hate almost every player on the team and I hate watching us lose, I continue to watch.”

And yet I've continued coming back.

Watching in amazement and rooting them on from K-Town during that fluke 2003 season. Working in a Friday night game when Kates and I returned to Kansas City for my 10-year high school reunion. Cheering Ned Yost's hiring in May. And becoming a Royals-hat-wearing local again this summer.

I can only hope there are many more thrills -- like that double header in August -- to come for the Royals.

“I just think you should root for the team that’s closest to where you grow up.”

Random thoughts from people our age

So my friend Ed sent this list of "Random Thoughts From People Our Age" ...

As I read some of these lines out loud to Kates it was amusing to note how many of them we could relate to and we agreed with. Some of them kept us laughing for awhile ...

I have no idea who wrote these, but they're pretty great observations. Here are our favorites ...

• I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.



• More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.



• Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.



• Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.



• That's enough, Nickelback.



• I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.



• Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?



• Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no Internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.



• There is a great need for sarcasm font.



• How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?



• I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.



• Was learning cursive really necessary?



• How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?



• I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!



• Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using "as in ..." examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes, that's G as in... (10 second lapse) ...um ...Goonies."



• While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it ... thanks Mario Kart.



• MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.



• Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.



• Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.



• You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.



• Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.



• There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.



• I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my 10-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.



• I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.



• Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.



• I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

Good-bye Muscles!

... So I just packed up my old M.U.S.C.L.E. figurines and I'll be shipping them off tomorrow morning ...

I've been digging out storage shelves and boxes lately, trying to get rid of, well, junk. Mostly trinkets that have me wondering why I still have the stuff.

The M.U.S.C.L.E.s, which had been stored away in an old checking book box probably since my junior high years, didn't make the cut. As a child I played with the thumb-sized, flesh-colored creations constantly. During my family's Friday night stops at Shopko, I'd constantly beg to get a pack of the figurines, and once we were back home I'd be setting up a WWF-styled wrestling match with the things. Looking back at my elementary days, I'd have to say they were one of my favorite toys -- along with the Construx, Masters of the Universe toys, Star Wars figures, MASK toys, Legos and Micro Machines, of course ...

(this guy's Web site devoted to the M.U.S.C.L.E.s is CRA-zy ...)

Now they're going away to some collector kid in Massachusetts, compliments of eBay. I had 15 of them and sold 'em for five bucks.

I'm kind of going to miss the little guys. I should have kept at least one to decorate my cubicle at the office. Darn.