Paperboys remembered on Redlands Daily Facts’ 124th birthday

Oct. 23--On the Redlands Daily Facts' 124th birthday, I think it's worth talking about one of the most iconic aspects of this newspaper: the kids we used to hire as paper carriers.

Boys and girls would ride their routes on their bicycles with full RDF bags, tossing papers they rolled themselves. They knew their customers, because they would take a ledger book door-to-door every month to collect payment.

I am rarely in a room with people over 40 without someone eager to tell me about having thrown papers for the Facts. Heck, even soccer star Landon Donovan was one of our paperboys.

In honor of today, I interviewed former carriers from different decades.

"Being a paperboy was a big part of my life," said Larry Munz, who started the post as a 12-year-old on June 1, 1952. "I was still in the sixth grade at Kingsbury, but I had been friends with a couple of fellows (who were paperboys). Donny Chaves had taken me with him on his route all the way out to Crafton Hills. The route was about 11 miles long and it was hotter than blue blazes."

Munz later got Route 11, which ended at his home on Pacific Street.

"I had all of Crescent Heights, up into Mira Monte, Cedar, around Crown. I remember Bill Valkenburg, circulation assistant to circulation manager Orville Sherrard, took me out in his car to show me the route."

He worked until his junior year in high school, in 1957.

One of his colleagues was Perry Hayes, who worked from November, 1953 (age 12), until June of 1958.

"I had two routes. Route 2 went out to Tri-City Drive-in -- 13 miles, six days a week because there was no paper on Sunday," Hayes said. "It didn't take me long to figure out I didn't want to drive to Tri-City Drive-in. In those days the ocean-to-ocean highway was still coming through town, Highway 99. 1956 was a particularly wet year, and I decided I didn't want those semitrucks coming so close to me, so I put in a request and changed to the route that had Prospect (Drive) and Fountain (Avenue). It was four miles uphill and then six miles downhill to Smiley Heights. I had Mrs. Shirk at the Kimberly Crest, Jimmy Sloan on Prospect right across the street, Ben Robe, the Jacinto family, the Gregory property, John Pike up on Dwight Street."

Munz and Hayes, both in their 70s now, sat in my office to share their memories Wednesday (separately). Munz brought a page from the Nov. 16, 1953, Daily Facts, which featured caricature drawings of all the carriers at the time.

"We had bags that said Redlands Daily Facts on them and racks on our bikes for the bags," said Munz. "We would all buy leather straps for them. You knew you were really in when you had the leather strap."

Having 'tweens and teens as employees worked well for this community and the kids.

Troy Clarke, who started at age 10 in 1980 as a substitute got his own route at age 12 also.

"It taught a great lesson. Sometimes it was raining or you didn't feel like getting up," Clarke said. "We had to have the papers delivered by 7:30 a.m. on the weekends. It taught responsibility."

The kids worked hard. Munz described hours after school in the basement of the Daily Facts when it was on Fifth Street and Citrus Avenue, where Redlands Jewelers is now.

"We would roll the papers into what we called stickers. The ends were cut like a triangle and we would roll the papers into them. We didn't use rubber bands very often; they were too expensive," he said. "If it was more than eight pages, we had to stuff one section into another. We hated to stuff papers."

Furthermore, it was perilous. They didn't wear bicycle helmets or throw from the safety of a car.

"I would have 80 to 120 papers, so it was a little bit heavy," said Clarke. "We hung the bag on our handlebars, so we had to be careful because of the weight or if it was raining. When you turned, the load would shift and you could topple over."

"I got bit by a dog once. I think I still have the scar on my ankle," said Munz. "It was the Lukis' dog. Luki was a Realtor here in town and his daughter Charlotte was in my class. That dog used to chase me. Finally, whenever I saw him coming I would grab a paper and give him a whack."

But they still had their fun.

"Part of the initiation for new paperboys, we would haze them by pouring paste down their pants," said Munz. "They would have to pedal their route with this gooey mess in their pants. I escaped. I was terrified I was gonna get pasted, but I had a couple of friends that were paperboys and they spoke on my behalf."

Craig Huston became a paperboy for a summer while a teenager in 1986, and was proud of his aim.

"People used to whine if it wasn't in a particular spot, so the people that were nice to me, I would nail the spot every time. The ones that weren't, I would make them walk a little farther every day. Be nice to your paperboy," he said via Facebook Wednesday.

Hayes had good aim, too, no matter what you hear from his customers.

"I remember out on Park Avenue, just off of Tennessee Street, there was a particularly elderly lady. In those days we could roll the papers real tight and throw them quite a ways. Well, the paper rolled off the porch and this old lady couldn't find it. I went out the next day to take her another one and saw it. I said, 'It's just right here behind the camellia bushes,' and she said, 'You just planted it there!' "

This, Hayes said, was one of only two times he got a complaint.

"I was pretty proud of my customers. I had a lot of really neat people. There was a lady out on Highway 99 by the drive in, Mrs. Blanchard. She made the best divinity and at Christmastime I got a pound or two with some cookies."

Of course they weren't just working for sweets. In the early '50s carriers got about $7 an hour, per Munz, and Clarke said in the '80s he got about $1.25 per house.

Glen Johnson, a friend of mine, whose funeral, very sadly, is this week, carried papers from the ages of 12 to 18 starting in 1972 with his friend Mike Sundquist. His widow, Kathy, came into my office last week and told me that he saved all his Daily Facts earnings, about $8,000, which later exclusively funded a land purchase in Northern California. He recently sold it for enough money to buy a condo for his daughter to live in.

The other carriers I talked to spent it as they got it, mostly.

"My son asked me how I had any money to date my wife, because we started dating March 5, 1954," said Hayes. "Movie tickets were 35 cents and popcorn was a dime. Coca-Cola was 5 cents. I think we got $5.40 a week. Either Bill or Orville brought the little paper envelope with cash money. It was the good old days."

Munz' family benefited in an even greater way--more than $2,000 in medical care.

"My brother Mike also carried the paper. He got polio in 1954. Because we had paperboy insurance, we paid 50 cents a month for health insurance. It was mandatory. It paid for all his doctor bills and everything else. He had nurses for half a day, physical therapy."

"Sometimes they paid us in a little envelope with coinage. Then they went to checks," said Munz. "When they went to checks, I walked across Fifth Street to Red Fed (Redlands Federal Savings) and opened a savings account. Here was a 12-year-old boy opening an account with no parent signature. I saved it up and went to Grisamore's Sporting Goods and bought a new bike."

Grisamore got a lot of business from the paperboys when the Facts was on Citrus.

"Once I was riding up Valley Vista and I broke the crank (on the bike), so I thought I'd just get it to the top and coast down. But Chet Hardly saw me and insisted on putting it in his trunk and hauling me out to my house on Clay Street," said Hayes. "I went to see Elza Grisamore, right next store to the Facts office. I think I had $30 to put down on a Schwinn Traveler, and he let me pay the rest off $2 at a time."

Hayes said the biggest dividend was social.

"I didn't realize at the time that it was going to pay the dividend that it paid. I was a shy kid in junior high school, but I'm a people person," he said.

Then he told my favorite story of the day.

He was at church about 10 years ago, and a longtime friend said, "Do you know how long I've known you?"

He answered, "Well, since I got into the insurance business."

She smiled.

"No, you were my paperboy in 1954."

Toni Momberger is the editor of the 124-year-old Redlands Daily Facts. She can be reached at 909-259-9323 or [email protected].

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