The United States in the 1940s and 1950s was a far better place than it is today. There was a homogeneous population and, thereby, far more social cohesion. Pre-puberty kids, and everyone else, were far freer than they are today. On weekend days, we disappeared all day on our bikes. There were no cell phones with which to communicate with us. We even biked at night to watch Atlanta Crackers baseball games. Our bikes were always there when the game was over, and we biked home without being captured and sold into child prostitution. Our parents had no cause to worry about us.
For pocket money and to build up savings, we had paper routes. After school we delivered to nearby homes the Atlanta Journal. The Atlanta Constitution was the morning paper, delivered before or as people woke up. It was the breakfast paper that men read before they went off to their jobs. This paper was delivered by grownups. But on Sundays the papers were combined, and they were heavy. We pre-puberty kids had to get up at 4am, collect our heavy newspapers–if you put them in the front basket without stabilizing the bike, the bike would tip over–and after delivering them return home to get ready for Sunday school at church.
On Friday evenings you knocked on the door of your customers and collected 25 cents, a quarter dollar, for the week’s delivery. To cut down collection work, we endeavored to convert weekly payers to monthly payers, which was one dollar. It was difficult, as a dollar was real money, not like today. The point is that no one worried about pre-puberty kids being out delivering newspapers in the early morning dark hours or collecting from their route customers in the evening.
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For pocket money and to build up savings, we had paper routes. After school we delivered to nearby homes the Atlanta Journal. The Atlanta Constitution was the morning paper, delivered before or as people woke up. It was the breakfast paper that men read before they went off to their jobs. This paper was delivered by grownups. But on Sundays the papers were combined, and they were heavy. We pre-puberty kids had to get up at 4am, collect our heavy newspapers–if you put them in the front basket without stabilizing the bike, the bike would tip over–and after delivering them return home to get ready for Sunday school at church.
On Friday evenings you knocked on the door of your customers and collected 25 cents, a quarter dollar, for the week’s delivery. To cut down collection work, we endeavored to convert weekly payers to monthly payers, which was one dollar. It was difficult, as a dollar was real money, not like today. The point is that no one worried about pre-puberty kids being out delivering newspapers in the early morning dark hours or collecting from their route customers in the evening.
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