Did you ever have a newspaper route? I did.

I know new ways to obtain news is quickly taking over the traditonal morning delivered newspaper. Very few get the newspaper anymore.

It's saddening for me to see something this traditional slipping away. Kinda represented simplicity. Guess I'm just old fashioned.
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How about in the old days when there was an evening edition of the paper.
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Or when milk came in glass bottles by the milkman. Not that old just saw it on tv.
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I was an "alternate" paper-boy. I would do the route for three guys who had three different routes if one of them was sick or on vacation. Remember delivering during the blizzard of 1977... 3 feet of snow with some huge drifts.

I haven't taken the paper in 6 years or so...
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I still like to buy a newspaper on the weekend when I have time to read the whole thing. But most of my news comes from newspaper Web sites these days.
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I do remember the evening newspaper. Now I'm even sadder.... :-)
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Our city paper where I work used to be thick and huge back in the 50s and such (I looked at the archives). Now it's about 3 pages of worthless crap.
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I only delivered a couple of times when my brother was not able to do his route. It took me forever since I did not know the route and it was on a Sunday with the huge paper.
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Yes sir I do remember the milkman. I actually collect milk bottles from my grandmother's dairy:
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I tell my kids about riding my bike through rain and snow on my bike with bag strapped on filled with newspapers and making 2 trips on Sundays due to the size of the papers.

My mom only felt sorry and drove me on a very rare occasion of a blizzard.

More than once, I wiped out on ice and had to pick up scattered papers off the road and put them back together and I remember a particularly mean German Shepard that never quite caught me although he tried for years.

I knew all my neighbors by name and for a 12 year old, the money was pretty good.

My newspaper route, shoveling snow from driveways and hot walking horses at the racetrack after they ran excercises at 5 am, I believe, gave me the work ethic I carry today in my 40's and probably explains why I feel that today's youth is lazy and has no idea what growing up really means...
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Here! Here! Brother!! Preach it!! :-)
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There is a country store up by me that has a huge collection of old glass milk bottles. You can see some of the bottles on the shelf top right of the picture. There are hundres of them around the store.

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I still occasionally buy a Sunday paper, but otherwise rarely read a paper. By the time I get today's newspaper, the news is a day old. I can get "fresh" news on the internet.
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I had two huge routes before the internet existed obviously. I'm shocked there are any left now to tell you the truth - I literally only buy them when I need more fuel to light my charcoal.
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With the advent of the Internet it was only a matter of time before newspapers became obsolete. In the world now, people need everything now including the news. Throw in the economy and newspapers simply cannot make enough money to produce the paper form everyday.
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Newspapers in NC went up to 75 cents today. I hate to see them fail, but...
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It would be interesting to see if the papers make more advertising money with paper or internet.
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I may be wrong, but I think most papers make more revenue from their internet sites than the papers.
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That is what I would guess also.
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I used to deliver a free, local paper in my neighborhood on my bike. It made money from advertising and I got paid a couple cents more per paper when there were inserts. Luckily, it only came out once a week so it didn't take up that much time. :-) I lost my job when they decided to find delivery people who could cover more area in a car. Anyway, I still get the paper every day and enjoy reading it more on paper than I do online. Gotta like the ability to write on it and take it with you wherever you want (read: easy to toss after sitting on the throne a while - a place you might not want to bring a laptop or 3G phone :-)). That said, unless it can reinvent itself, I think it's just a matter of time before old media dies out. :-)
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