I carried the Roanoke Times and World News for six years, and I will be the first to admit I was not the best paperboy Montvale ever had. The first one was Harold Obenchain, who was it when we moved to the village, and from the stories and tales I have heard he was a good one. There were a lot of different ones but I succeeded Punk Hatcher, who to me undoubtedly was the best. Punk's dad worked at the airport and Punk had to give the route up when his father changed jobs. But I will tell you of some of my trials and tribulations during my six years.

When I got too busy in high school to carry them the route went back to the Obenchains, Bobby and Danny. But it was Bobby who initially took it from me and the Obenchain boys delivered papers for I do not know how many years. And from what I have gleaned, they were much better than I. Carrying papers back then was like slave labor, for if a person took the paper six days and Sunday, they paid 45 cents a week. The paper boy got to keep a dime. If they only took the weekday paper, it was 35 cents and the paperboy got five cents a week. And only the Sunday gave you a nickel. When I first took the route it was 25 cents a week for all seven days and the paper boy got either five or eight cents. I forget which, but it was not very much.

I think, very strongly I think, that carrying papers was very instrumental in making me the cynic I am today. Why? Because of the upstanding citizens of Montvale and on my routes who would try very hard to cheat you out of your paper money. First off, every Monday the Route Manager would come around and collect cash money for the papers you had received, and if you were not paid, that was tough for you were expected to pay him cash money each Monday. So if I got stiffed 45 cents, that meant my profit from three and a half other customers had to be used to pay for the piker's papers I delivered.

And the poorer they were, the more likely they were to pay for their papers, maybe a little late but they would pay. It was the others the ones who could pay and who made a point to cheat the paperboy that I remember. And being from a very religious area, it was not the sinners who were the ones about whom I speak. Even over 50 years later when I go back to the village and drive past a house I get mad and remember them cheating me.

The first one to come to mind was a man whose daughter was a classmate of mine. He was a harder worker and drinker, then he got religion. Well each week I would go and try to collect for the paper and he would say, "Been off work Buck, but I will catch up, the Lord knows I will," and so it went till he owed me $6.30 for fourteen weeks of papers. Now this man had religion and yet I finally stopped giving him a paper and never got my money. Often I wondered if he was such a Christian if he gave to the church or took money out of the plate. Most people paid their bills and everything was fine, but the ones who always tickled me were the ones who swore they paid and had not. Oh what they would not do to cheat a kid out of 45 cents. What I should do, but it would be stupid, is to list all of the good citizens of Montvale who cheated me so their kids and grandkids would know, but that is just spiteful. They know.

Now a big problem with the paying was I did not do like others and that was to on Saturday and chase down each and every one to get my money. Some lived three or four miles off the road and I would only go see once a month. But I did collect enough to pay my bill. My fault and it shows that I was a dumber kid than I thought I was. But it taught me a lot about life. It seemed the poorest customers always found a way to pay me, and pay me on time. But enough about that and I will just say, it was an interesting and learning period for me.

Now the morning route was from the store, down the hill to Mr. Thomas', then up the back road, and then over to the Buford's. One paper three quarters of a mile further to the box of Mr. B. B. Brown. Six miles in the morning and about ten in the afternoon. The Buford's paper was normally picked up by either Jim Buford or one of them early on, cause they were early risers. So I had to go about two miles each way, twelve miles a week for one paper.

Robert Hartberger didn't have a driver's license so once I was going some place, to a debate or convention I think, so Robert was going to deliver my papers for me while I was gone. Well he had done it in the past and everything was fine, but this one day he picked up the papers and started out. He saw that Claudie Ruff, a Deputy Sheriff, was following so he parked the old car on a side road and walked up the road, and delivered the papers. Then got in and started out up the dirt road. Claudie nailed him for driving without a license. Dag nab it, we had to come up with ten dollars. Seems Claudie had noticed what Robert did so he just checked. Well we split the ten dollars. If I remember correctly Roger Grant who was dating Robert's sister and he loaned us the money till we could pay him back.

If you can remember back to the winter of 1948-49 you will remember we had the worst snowstorm of a long time. Matter of fact when I went to Laramie, Wyoming to school, Russ told me about how bad it was in Laramie that winter and it made our four or five feet of snow look like a dusting. The thing I remember about that snow was of course you could not ride a bicycle, so I walked and durn the snow was deep. Heck nothing could move but the papers were delivered from Roanoke. Anyhow the big thing I remember is how much hell I got because I missed a couple people.

What I do remember is coming home and my mother putting my feet in a big dishpan, and then she poured hot water on my boots so I could unlace them and get them off. Heck during that big snowstorm school was closed for two weeks. But that was for snow. Heck, I remember once school was closed for a week in the spring because of mud. The roads were so muddy the busses could not run, so school was closed down.

After school I would pick the papers up at Buford's, and of course I was always hungry. So, if I had fifteen cents I would buy myself a cheese sandwich. Now they did not charge extra for a toasted cheese sandwich, but they did charge a nickel more if you got pickles, and I loved pickles on my cheese sandwich. Heck even today if I have a cheese sandwich, it has to have sweet pickles on it. Well the ladies who did the cooking in the restaurant knew me and I would always try to get them to add a few pickles or maybe a loose slice of ham and not tell cause I only had fifteen cents. Usually they would put a couple on it and tell me to get to my paper route.

Once time I remember I had gone up Caldwell's hill and then cut through by Mrs. Gray's, then down the hill and around through the wood to the tracks and was going up toward where Prince Tucker used to live. It had started to rain and it was a real thunder storm, and as I walked through the woods the thunder and lightening was all about; but just as I crossed the road and head up the path to Prince's house lightening hit a tree oh fifty or a hundred yards ahead of me and there was the brightest light when the lightening flashed and the loudest noise I ever heard and pieces of wood flew all over the area. It hit a big tall pine tree and decimated it. Scared me to death it did, for when I saw that big flash and heard the tremendous kerwhack as the lightening struck that tree, it did it really scared the heck out of me. Don't know if it, ah well, don't matter anyhow. And when I walked past that smoldering pine, the stump was way up there where the lightening hit but the top which was knocked off lay on the ground still smoldering and smoking, just like in a movie. From that day on when a thunderstorm hit, I found me a place inside till it was gone. Didn't even bother me to miss supper cause that lightening strike sure did scare me.

One day I had stopped and was talking with Benny Curtis when another friend of his decided he was going to whomp me. Well I was not a fighter and as Richard Pryor used to say, "I had a good run." But this big guy started to tell me what he was going to do and I just grinned and as soon as he put his hand on my chest, there was a growl and a noise and old spark plug jump at him, hitting him in the chest with both paws. The boy fell and spark stood there with his teeth showing and growling. Needless to say I just said, "Come on Mister Plug," and we left.

People knew me and my dog and he didn't like blacks, except for a few. If you left him alone he was fine but don't bother him and especially don't bother me, regardless of who you are for about 90 pounds of dog would be in your face with his mouth open. Funny he thought it neat to run and jump on someone and when he did he would plant his front paws in their chests and most of the time they went down. Funny how Mister Plug and I had no problems at all; well but every once in a while someone would not believe me, and they found out the hard way. It is so funny that after all these years there were a couple people in the village I still very much dislike even though they have been gone a long time. And Mr. Byron Boyle was one of them. He didn't not and would not take the paper but every morning he would come over to the store, and take a paper out of my bundle, and read it then put the paper back in the bundle. And he didn't refold it neatly. The papers were dropped off on Mrs. Bromena's store, front porch about one in the morning and then she would take her paper out, and Squire Biggs would get his, and usually Jim Buford and Mr. McKee and Elmer would get theirs before I got up and started to deliver the rest. But Mr. Boyle would always take a paper and read it. Once he said something to me and I replied and did not say "sir " to him. He looked at me and said, "Boy would it break your jaw to say sir?" Then he told my mother and I got a whipping for it.

She said, "You sir the person not the man, and I don't care how much you dislike a person or what they are, you will say "sir" to them," as she gave me a real good whipping. Needless to say I "sirred" him after that but under my breath I added a prefix and suffice. Funny that one man really got to me and others who were worse than he I ignored. But I will say that I really enjoyed watching Mr. Boyle shoe horses and mules. Ah well, maybe if I didn't write stuff I would have forgotten him by now.

When I took the paper route I think I was eleven, but what I do remember and will gloss over is that I had heard and read about temptation, but being a paperboy was really nice. For I was offered a lady's favors in lieu of the bill, or offered produce and so forth. And of course the paper boy would show up to collect at the wrong time for I think some ladies thought it funny to open the door and try to embarrass or show off their wares to the paper boy. I remember once I went to this house and before I left the main road to go up to the house I could tell she was cooking cabbage for supper for the areas reeked with the awful smell of cabbage. What they did was to put a chunk of cabbage in the pot with a piece of salt pork then let it boil till the cabbage turned near purple. Got it stunk. But anyhow this lady must have been bathing for she came to the door, opened it and I got me a first hand look at the largest bare breasts I had ever seen. She smiled, said, just a minute and disappeared. In a minute she came back with a slip on and gave me my money. She smiled and asked if I wanted a drink of water and her son who was a friend of mine was gone. And I always wondered why so many people took naps about the time the paperboy came to collect?