I used to be involved in the industry associated with the sales and distribution of printed materials.
More precisely I was involved in the sales and distribution of newspapers.
Even more precisely I was a newspaper boy.
I spent my grade school years in University City, a near west suburb of St. Louis. When I say near west I mean on one side was the city and the other side was the suburb.
U City was a heavily Jewish community. Jewish temples, delis, and bakeries were everywhere.
Down the street from me was a small orthodox temple. I learned that if I would hang around there around sundown on Fridays they would pay me a quarter to turn on their lights. I used to ask my Mom why they just didn't do it themselves. Later on I realized orthodox Jews weren't allowed to operate things like like switches from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. I have no idea who turned the lights off but it wasn't me.
I attended Delmar Harvard grade school grades 4-6. It's still there, I looked a few weeks ago, at the northwest corner of Delmar and Kingsland. My newspaper stand was on the northeast corner.
Back in the day, maybe 1963-66, St. Louis had two newspapers. The Globe Democrat published in the morning and the Post Dispatch in the afternoon.
The corner of Delmar and Kingsland was busy after school. A street car line ran Delmar at first and was replaced by busses taking commuters from the downtown offices back out to the "suburbs."
I would get two deliveries of papers, about 55 each time. The last delivery was the 3 star and it had all the final stock prices in it. Often a bus would stop and a guy would holler out wanting the 3 star and I would sell it through the bus window.
The paper sold for 7 cents and I received 2.5 cents per paper sold. Can you imagine that? The company was profitable on 4.5 cents per paper. So I could make a couple of bucks a day, a lot of money for a kid in the sixties.
Fortunately or unfortunately there was an ice cream store on that very corner called Martha Washington's. Much of my profit never left that corner.
After the sixth grade we moved to the Normandy district and I met a friend named Vince Painter. It was through Vince that I met Leonard Sterling.
Leonard weighed 400 pounds. He was Jewish. He wore thick black framed glasses. He had a high pitched, whiny, nasally voice. He and his Dad Irving owned I&L Delivers, meaning Irving and Leonard's newspaper route.
Leonard had a truck about the size of a UPS truck only shorter. It had sliding doors on both sides of the front. The side panels were cut out and replaced by heavy rollup plastic and canvas.
On Saturday nights Leonard would pick up Vince and I. We sat in the back and rolled the Sunday edition, all 1000-1200 of them. Leonard loved country music and would sit in the front singing along to this godawful scratchy AM radio in the truck.
That voice was like fingernails on a chalk board.
To roll a fat Sunday paper you take the closed end and place it in your lap near your belly. Roll it tightly and take it through a figure 8 in the string tying machine. Then you slam it down in order to trigger the tying and cutting mechanism of the machine. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
When we were done we got to stand in the passenger front door opening and throw. Leonard would say 'Okay, Smithmier, corner house, skip 2, 3 in a row, skip 1, hit 2." He had the route memorized.
There was an art to throwing. You needed to hit the sidewalk. You needed to get close to the door. However if you threw it too flat and hit the sidewalk it would skid and tear. You needed some loft. Kind of like a short iron to the green.
We had a run at midnight and a run at 3. Between runs Leonard took us to Pratzel's Bakery on Eastgate, this fabulous Jewish bakery. He knew the owner and they would open the back door for us and let us get free freshly baked pastries at 3AM. OMG, the greatest things I ever tasted.
Somewhere along the 2 years I worked for Leonard he decided to go on a diet. I think he just quit eating. He said he dropped to 160 but I swear he didn't look it. But being the kindhearted teenagers that we were Vince and I would wave donuts in Leonards face, come on Leonard, we know you want this, we know it, watch this Leonard, and then we would shove an entire donut in our mouths. Never fazed him.
Leonard was a good guy. Once in a while we would roll on a weekday and he would take us bowling. He only paid for one game but he didn't even have to do that for us.
Leonard Sterling is another one of those people in my past that deserved better from me.
You might think that I'm wrapped up in regret over people like Arno and Leonard. Nope.
Remember this: There's no reason to feel bad about how you used to be. Just feel bad if you don't change.
KS
More precisely I was involved in the sales and distribution of newspapers.
Even more precisely I was a newspaper boy.
I spent my grade school years in University City, a near west suburb of St. Louis. When I say near west I mean on one side was the city and the other side was the suburb.
U City was a heavily Jewish community. Jewish temples, delis, and bakeries were everywhere.
Down the street from me was a small orthodox temple. I learned that if I would hang around there around sundown on Fridays they would pay me a quarter to turn on their lights. I used to ask my Mom why they just didn't do it themselves. Later on I realized orthodox Jews weren't allowed to operate things like like switches from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. I have no idea who turned the lights off but it wasn't me.
I attended Delmar Harvard grade school grades 4-6. It's still there, I looked a few weeks ago, at the northwest corner of Delmar and Kingsland. My newspaper stand was on the northeast corner.
Back in the day, maybe 1963-66, St. Louis had two newspapers. The Globe Democrat published in the morning and the Post Dispatch in the afternoon.
The corner of Delmar and Kingsland was busy after school. A street car line ran Delmar at first and was replaced by busses taking commuters from the downtown offices back out to the "suburbs."
I would get two deliveries of papers, about 55 each time. The last delivery was the 3 star and it had all the final stock prices in it. Often a bus would stop and a guy would holler out wanting the 3 star and I would sell it through the bus window.
The paper sold for 7 cents and I received 2.5 cents per paper sold. Can you imagine that? The company was profitable on 4.5 cents per paper. So I could make a couple of bucks a day, a lot of money for a kid in the sixties.
Fortunately or unfortunately there was an ice cream store on that very corner called Martha Washington's. Much of my profit never left that corner.
After the sixth grade we moved to the Normandy district and I met a friend named Vince Painter. It was through Vince that I met Leonard Sterling.
Leonard weighed 400 pounds. He was Jewish. He wore thick black framed glasses. He had a high pitched, whiny, nasally voice. He and his Dad Irving owned I&L Delivers, meaning Irving and Leonard's newspaper route.
Leonard had a truck about the size of a UPS truck only shorter. It had sliding doors on both sides of the front. The side panels were cut out and replaced by heavy rollup plastic and canvas.
On Saturday nights Leonard would pick up Vince and I. We sat in the back and rolled the Sunday edition, all 1000-1200 of them. Leonard loved country music and would sit in the front singing along to this godawful scratchy AM radio in the truck.
That voice was like fingernails on a chalk board.
To roll a fat Sunday paper you take the closed end and place it in your lap near your belly. Roll it tightly and take it through a figure 8 in the string tying machine. Then you slam it down in order to trigger the tying and cutting mechanism of the machine. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
When we were done we got to stand in the passenger front door opening and throw. Leonard would say 'Okay, Smithmier, corner house, skip 2, 3 in a row, skip 1, hit 2." He had the route memorized.
There was an art to throwing. You needed to hit the sidewalk. You needed to get close to the door. However if you threw it too flat and hit the sidewalk it would skid and tear. You needed some loft. Kind of like a short iron to the green.
We had a run at midnight and a run at 3. Between runs Leonard took us to Pratzel's Bakery on Eastgate, this fabulous Jewish bakery. He knew the owner and they would open the back door for us and let us get free freshly baked pastries at 3AM. OMG, the greatest things I ever tasted.
Somewhere along the 2 years I worked for Leonard he decided to go on a diet. I think he just quit eating. He said he dropped to 160 but I swear he didn't look it. But being the kindhearted teenagers that we were Vince and I would wave donuts in Leonards face, come on Leonard, we know you want this, we know it, watch this Leonard, and then we would shove an entire donut in our mouths. Never fazed him.
Leonard was a good guy. Once in a while we would roll on a weekday and he would take us bowling. He only paid for one game but he didn't even have to do that for us.
Leonard Sterling is another one of those people in my past that deserved better from me.
You might think that I'm wrapped up in regret over people like Arno and Leonard. Nope.
Remember this: There's no reason to feel bad about how you used to be. Just feel bad if you don't change.
KS
