Poll: ever sell newspapers door-to-door?

[franksolich]

Not a whole lot went on at the truck stop during the middle of the night, but sometime earlier in the week, someone had dropped off three bundles of the old Grit weekly newspaper, from 1961, 1962, and 1963 for me, my penchant for trying to keep up with the news being well-known here in the Sandhills of Nebraska.

So I pretty much spent the night reading Grit.

I dunno if Grit is published any more; it came out of central Pennsylvania, and had a nation-wide distribution of boys, and perhaps some girls, running around their town selling the weekly issue.  Apparently it wasn't via mail subscription; one had to get a copy from someone hawking them.

There was competition for Grit about this same time, Capper's Weekly, published somewhere in Kansas, which was sold the same way.  But for some really odd reason, even though Nebraska is right there on top of Kansas, this second weekly was never "big" up here like the Pennsylvania publication.

I don't think I've seen a copy of Capper's Weekly in my life, but it was in fact pretty popular in its time.

My older brothers sold Grit, but that was before my time.  Apparently about 60 copies of that publication were sent to them every week, for which they were to charge 15 cents, remitting 10 cents to the newspaper for each copy sold, and keeping 5 cents for each newspaper as their profit.

That was about the time the warped primitive (now circa 60 years old) was a little lass, and stubbornly refusing to drink milk at the supper-table, demanding soda instead.

This phenomenon of selling newspapers door-to-door is probably extinct now.

All of the brothers and all of the sisters delivered the regular daily, semi-weekly, and weekly newspapers in their own time; one of the most enduring memories of this childhood is the picture of all these white canvas bags, hanging in the vestibule.

One or two of them were still doing it as late as their last year in high school, but nearly all of them stopped at about 15 years of age, going on to other sorts of employment (physician's office, movie house, furniture store, grocery store, soda counter, town library, and somesuch).

I alone of all the children in the family never had a newspaper-route, either a regular one or this door-to-door selling thing.  I am not sure why; I was also never an altar boy or Cub Scout or Boy Scout or played competitive sports.  I suspect the parents thought it was something I couldn't handle, and perhaps probably the parents were right.

[thundley4]

It looks like Grit and Capper's share a website.  I know Grit is still around, my aunt (90 + years old) still gets it, but it's delivered in the regular mail. I still read some of the issues when I go to see her, there are some quite humorous articles in it.

[franksolich]

It looks like Grit and Capper's share a website.  I know Grit is still around, my aunt (90 + years old) still gets it, but it's delivered in the regular mail. I still read some of the issues when I go to see her, there are some quite humorous articles in it.

I checked out that web-site; if they weren't so ideological and hate-filled, it seems a perfect place for the rural and cooking primitives on Skins's island.

It looks as if Grit, in Pennsylvania, and Capper's Weekly, in Kansas did in fact merge, but "when" can be found only in obscure history books.

Capper's Weekly was operated by the late U.S. Senator Arthur Capper (R-Kansas), and had a big enough influence that it was widely quoted in newsmagazines of its day (say, circa 1900-1950), and is quoted in history books, a distinction that seems to have evaded Grit.

But for some reason, Grit dominated that market in Nebraska; as mentioned before, I don't believe I've ever seen a real copy of Capper's Weekly in my life.

I have no idea when Grit changed to mail-distribution only; it was probably perhaps during the late 1970s, the era when the Incompetent One was in the White House.  This was about the same time some prominent seed-company in Pennsylvania quit using kids selling seeds door-to-door, because too many "entrepreneurs" were taking the seeds, selling them, and keeping all the money, rather than sending the seed company its share.

Ethics and morality in America, already declining with the advent and influence of the hippies of the 1960s, nose-dived even further during the unhappy administration of the Incompetent One.

[Lord Undies]

I had a paper route (The Dallas Times Herald).  Does that count?  I remember the day I sat at the corner of Franklin St. and Illinois Ave. folding what seemed like an endless pile of papers headlined with a photo of Ari & Jackie O. tying the knot. 

Dailies were a dime and a quarter on Sunday.  If my route manager gave me too many on Sunday I would go bark them in front of Austin's Barbeque at Hampton & Illinois (they served breakfast).  If I sold four or five I could have a real sit-down breakfast at Chubby's in Wynnewood Shopping Village.

Chubby's was the best, and I always insisted on the best.   

[franksolich]

If my route manager gave me too many on Sunday I would go bark them in front of Austin's Barbeque at Hampton & Illinois (they served breakfast).

You know, that's a phenomenon I've seen only one time in my whole life, people selling newspapers walking up and down the sidewalk.

It was sometime in the mid-1980s, in late afternoon on a weekday, after the then-attorney general of Nebraska had been impeached by the legislature, and the state supreme court had convicted him.

It was weird.  This was downtown Lincoln, and people were leaving for home from work for the day.  There was one guy with a two-wheeler stacked about 5' high with the Lincoln newspapers announcing the conviction, and it didn't take him hardly any time at all to have an empty two-wheeler.

[Lord Undies]

Even in 1968, which it was, a quarter wasn't much to give up. I usually had no problem unloading my excess Sundays.  I was cute though.  I was 14, tiny yet chubby, and I could SMILE.  And I could sing.

If sales were slow I would start singing "Strangers In The Night".

I know you don't know that song, Frank, but it was a Frank Sinatra song about a hopeful sexual encounter between a man and a woman after a chance meeting.