Paper route

So, at 58, I've finally taken on a job I have been dodging since I was about 12. I have a paper route. I may be the highest paid paper boy in Canada at the moment, in fact. Really, any job I can get at this age where I may be referred to as a "boy", I should be paying them.

All right, there may be some slight deviance from strict truth (my iPad corrected "deviance" to "Bianca"...I feel like I should immediately launch a class action suit on behalf of all those Biancas defamed by careless association. Actually, I'm not sure what a slight Bianca from strict truth is, but suspect it would be great to find out)  in there....it's not really MY paper route even though I do it very regularly, and my earnings are not from delivering thousands and thousands of papers, they're from my former job still paying me. Still, I'm dying for some smart mouth kid to say something to me about getting a real job, so I can hit him with my wallet.

Doug McKay delivered papers in my neighbourhood when I was a kid. It seemed like he did it for about 15 years, but that's probably a perception of time tinted by youth, when time moved very slowly and was in infinite, even painful, abundance. He probably did that route for about 8 years.  Where I grew up there were long winters, hot summers, cold and muddy springs, and perfect autumns. Doug McKay delivered papers through all of them, day after day, year after year, missing shinny games, getting his glasses all dotted with rain, not doing after school sports, lining up reliable sub contractors a couple of weeks a year when his family went on vacation, and acquiring a socially damning reputation as a reliable, mature young man. I remember he got a nice bike somewhere along the line, that he paid for out of a couple of years' earnings. I liked that bike...but Doug and his paper route taught me probably the opposite of the desired lesson. I LOVED playing shinny til dark, or shooting baskets, or riding bikes, or sitting around eating sunflowers, and even in Grade 8 missing out on all that didn't seem worth it, even though that was a really nice bike. I learned that hard work brings rewards, but that goofing off is pretty precious, too.

I don't know where Dougie ended up, but if there's a God of Industry he should be running a giant steel mill and driving a Ferrari. Me? I finally made it to paper boy. You tell me who got it right.