GATES OF HORMONE HELL
CHAPTER 59 1955
Ronald Tipton (pictured left) and I were hanging out together in the middle of December 1955. We had been spending more of our weekend free time playing pinball at the Farmers’ Market and less riding into the hills. Some of this was due to the arrival of winter and cold weather. Some was we were changing. He said he was giving up his paper route. He didn’t say why. His reason was more emotional than reasoned, a sudden peculiarity of puberty, the sudden idea you are too old for what you’re doing. It was not delivering papers that he believed he’d outgrown; it was the bicycle. Like I had come to the conclusion that big boys didn’t wear shorts, he decided big boys didn’t ride bicycles. It was a time where you seldom saw an adult riding a bicycle and those who did were usually considered to be a bit strange.***
*** The picture of that small man next to a large bike covered with baskets is of Willie Minor. I never knew Willie personally, but as a boy living in Downingtown I did sometimes see him peddling along on that bike. He would put piles of newspapers and rolls of string in those baskets and his vehicle was festooned with lights and horns.
The Larry and Gladys Polite Family, who owned the place, looked after Willie. He was so friendly and outgoing and such a familiar sight that he earned the unofficial title of “Exton’s Ambassador”. Willie died in October 2011 at the age of 89.
Ronald’s only miscalculation was being a bit premature. He wasn’t old enough yet to drive a car so he was giving up his prime method of transportation, and in turn, the job he enjoyed. After this he worked weekends at the Farmer’s market and at cleaning Guindy’s offices during the week.
He asked if I had any interest in taking over the paper route. I said I did.
He said he was going to finish out the year and then quit after New Year’s Day. He got extra tips at Christmas and he wanted to collect those before he quit.
Our Ditching Club period left my old bike pretty banged up. I had asked for a Three-Speed bike a year ago for Christmas and gotten it. It had skinny tires, but I never did really like the gear shifting after I got it. I told Ron my bike didn’t have a basket. He said I could buy his bike. I did. I paid him out of my first earning.
During the last days of his delivering and collection he took me along. He introduced me to each of his customers. Most of them were very complimentary of Ronald’s service. I constantly heard, “Oh, we’ll be so sorry to lose you,” and directed at me, “If you’re half as good as Ronnie we’ll be happy.”
He left me with a lot to live up to.
When I returned home from hiking the Mason-Dixon line over the weekend of January 7 it was still extremely cold. School was closed due to ice. On Tuesday, January 10, 1956, I went to Ronald’s home and he introduced me to the lady that would be collecting from me, a Mrs. Linderman. She interviewed me for the job and gave me some forms my parent’s had to sign. She explained how I must collect from my customers and then turn over most of the proceeds to her. I forget the exact breakdown, but she got about the same as me. She was the Supervisor and I wasn’t her only route, so she was collecting an equal percentage from several boys. (There may have been a Papergirl somewhere, but I never saw a girl delivering papers anywhere in those days.) The smallest share went to the truckers who dropped the bails of newspapers daily and the newsstand owner for being the drop off point.
I worked seven days a week, rain or shine and no holidays off. The six-day daily paper cost a nickel. The Sunday edition was fifteen cents. I think the split on the dailies was one and a half cents for Mrs. Linderman, one cent for the truckers, one cent to the newsstand and one and a half cents for me. However she doled it out, my commission was just under $12.00 a week. I started with 98 daily papers, somewhere around 60 Sunday editions and one Saturday Evening Post magazine. I received a nickel for each Sunday edition, so 60 papers times $.05 was $3.00. 98 daily papers at $.015 each came to a $1.47 a day for 6 days, which is $8.82 a week, plus the $3.00 for Sunday, so I earned $11.82 a week.
I went about one day each week and collected from my customers, except for a couple who paid me once a month. I generally had no difficulty collecting, although there was one customer who kept avoiding me. I had to get rid of such people as fast as possible because it didn’t matter if I got my payment or not; I still had to pay Mrs. Linderman for those papers. If you stiffed me you didn’t hurt the Bulletin, you hurt your paperboy. Remember too, the fee being paid for the paper wasn’t how the Bulletin made its money. Their revenue came from the advertising printed in the paper. The fee from the customer paid for the delivery people.
I picked up the dailies on the front stoop of Sam Charles’ Newsstand every day after school. (The picture on the right was the future site of Charles’ Newsstand as it looked in 1900.) The Philadelphia Bulletin was the afternoon paper. The Philadelphia Inquirer was a morning paper. I didn’t do any Inquirers. When I arrived at Charles’ Newsstand there would be bundled stacks of the papers already waiting on the front stoop of the store. There were several newsboys doing other routes in town showing up, too. Whoever arrived first cut the twine and undid the bundles. We boys counted out our papers for the day, over counting by a few copies just in case. I picked up the Saturday Evening Post there as well. It had nothing to do with the Bulletin. I think it was just a courtesy from the Newsstand and I didn’t get a commission, but I got a tip from the customer. The magazine cost fifteen cents at the time.
The truck dropped off the Sunday edition right at my house curb early in the morning. This is probably why I got five cents for each paper, a three way split between Mrs. Linderman, the trucker and me. There was no newsstand fee involved.
It took me an hour a day to do the dailies and 45 minutes on Sunday.
On January 15 my mother took Ron and me to the movies in West Chester. Sometime in the preceding year she had learned to drive and gotten her license. We went to the Warner Theater, but I don’t remember what we saw. It began to snow sometime in the night and I started my first day as a paperboy in a blinding snowstorm.
And I loved it.
My route ran from Charles’ Newsstand in downtown Downingtown, east along Lancaster Avenue. I did a house or two on Uwchlan, and then went down and back the length of Washington Avenue. Finally I had a few deliveries out past Pillsbury, which had a plant a few blocks south along Whiteland Avenue at Acorn Lane. The last deliveries were down on Lincoln Avenue or Woodbine Road. Woodbine Road back then was like a country lane. I delivered to a somewhat run down house on that street and I think this was either Franny Henderson’s house or his grandmothers. I also believe it was there I delivered the Saturday Evening Post.
I took the long way up Chestnut to Acorn Lane and then over to
Whiteland from then on.
It snowed a good bit that winter, but I didn’t mind. I loved the cold weather and the challenge of the snow. I would pretend as I did my route that I was a character in a Jack London novel. I was mushing some arctic trail trying to survive a blizzard.
It was on a snowy day I came down Acorn to the loading dock for Pillsbury. An 18-wheeler pulled in to get loaded. A forklift appeared, took a bump or something, and some cartons of “Oven-Ready Refrigerated Biscuits tumbled to the street and split. Cylinders of biscuits rolled around my feet. The guy on the forklift said I should take some. “They’ll just be tossed out now anyway,” he said. I stuffed as many into my basket as possible, thanked the man and headed off with my treasure. This arctic musher had struck gold.
The customers need not have worried about losing Ronald. I matched his conscientiousness and they were happy with me. In no time my tips were near matching my commission and I was pulling down an average $18 a week. That came to $2.67 an hour. $18 a week was a fortune for a fourteen year-old boy in 1956. Eighteen dollars a week in 1955 was equal to earning $175.69. a week in 2021 dollars. If I could get that job today as a retiree, working 7 hours a week, one hour a day, and be paid $175.69, my life would be almost on easy street, of course these days of having ALS would prevent me from such a job.
What made Ron and I such beloved paperboys was a shared flaw. Neither of us could fold the papers for throwing. I would fold up a paper, tuck the sides as I had been shown, but when I flung it toward the target it simply unwrapped and became sheets at the mercy of the wind. Since we couldn’t toss our papers we took them to the porches. I always put my paper in a secure spot, between front and storm door or under the welcome mat. One windy, rainy day I got an angry call from a customer saying they hadn’t gotten their paper. Yes, they had. I had put it safely under the doormat to keep it dry. They just hadn’t notice. They apologized and thanked me, and probably gave a bigger tip that week after I showed up at their door to point out the paper..
Being a Bulletin paperboy was the bestest job in the world!
My grandfather had bought the family’s first TV in 1950. It was such a novelty at that time I would get up at six o’clock in the morning and watch the test pattern. Television did not broadcast around the clock. It went off overnight. At six o’clock it would begin its day. There would be snow on the screen before that hour. Then this pattern of varied lines of different thickness appeared for a few minutes, followed by the playing of the National Anthem with a picture of the flag waving in the wind. Each station, all three of them, did this. One channel followed the Anthem with a show called, “Thought for Today”. This featured a Priest or Pastor giving a brief “thought” on some Bible verse. All this was in glorious black and white. (Although the earliest coast-to-coast TV broadcast in color had occurred on New Year’s day in 1954 (Rose Bowl Parade), the cost of sets was pretty prohibitive for several years. Very, very few homes had a color TV before 1963.
In those early days we watched everything. We watched a lot of roller
derby and wrestling. Wrestling must have been easy to broadcast because there was a lot of it on. My parents took it very seriously, especially my Grandmother. She would get so mad at the referees when a Villain pulled something from his shorts and rubbed it in the
Baby Face’s eyes that she was ready to climb in the ring and show ‘em what for! My family’s favorite was Argentina Rocca, but mine was Ricki Starr. He was British. Real name was Bernard Herman. He died in 2014 at age 83.
TV shows bloomed like dandelions between 1950 and 1956. It was on all the time in my home. My grandmother and mother (when she wasn’t working) couldn’t miss their “soaps” during the lunch hour. There were
four soap operas popular in my boyhood. Their titles together sounded like a plot summary: They “Search for Tomorrow” through “The Secret Storm” until “The Guiding Light” leads them to “The Brighter Day”.
At night my family camped in the living room around the TV like pioneers around the campfire. If my father was home we had to watch what he wanted, which was mostly Westerns. Beginning in 1955 Westerns began to dominate the programming, beginning with the best, “Gunsmoke”. My mother and grandmother preferred the variety shows and sitcoms, “Ed Sullivan Show”, “Bob Cummins Show”, “I Love Lucy”, “The Honeymooners”, “Your Hit Parade”, “Burns and Allen”, Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett”, “Jimmy Durante Show” “Red Skelton” and “The Jack Benny Show”. They also never missed “Candid Camera”, “What’s My Line?”, “Death Valley Days”, “The Big Story”,“Lawrence Welk” and of course, dum de dum dum, “Dragnet.” Every one lived in suspense week to week to see how contestants would do on “The $64,000 Question”. We didn’t watch “Twenty One”. My grandmother liked Milton Berle, but my grandfather hated him.
My folks didn’t like “Your Show of Shows”, with Sid Caesar and
Imogene Coco. My grandmother complained Coco was too silly, but I really think Caesar’s humor went over their heads. It was too intellectual for their tastes. Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Howie Morris, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon all wrote for that show. It did a lot of dialect humor, which may be something they couldn’t do today due to political correctness, the modern version of McCarthyism.
One of my favorite shows was “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, something that would influence my writing. I liked “The Cisco Kid”, “Truth or Consequences” and “Annie Oakley”. I had moved away from “Howdy Doody” and a lot of the children programming I had watched in Grade School.
Sometimes I watched “Kukla, Fran and Ollie.” I watched “The Mickey Mouse Club”, but mainly when it had the “Spin and Marty” serials. Everybody always talks about Annette Funicello, but the Mouseketeer I had my crush on was Darlene Gillespie (pictured left). I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She and her husband went to prison in 1998 for a check-kiting scheme. (Her mugshot on the right.)
She doesn’t do so much for me today.
Having lived so many years it is interesting to hear the misinformation about times I have lived through. This makes me wonder how much of the history taught me was similarly wrong. For instance, if you go to a 1950s themed party or restaurant you will see women wearing Poodle Skirts. These skirts are often referred to as a symbol of the early Rock “n’ Roll era. My wife and I were both teenagers of the beginning
Rock “n” Roll era. She lived near Philadelphia and I was in the suburbs and country thirty miles away. Neither of us ever saw anyone wearing a Poodle Skirt. Reason being is that by the early 1950s the Poodle Skirt had peaked and was on its way out. A former actress who became a fashion designer named Juli Lynne Charlot (pictured left) designed the Poodle Skirt in 1948. “Teen” and “Vogue” magazines featured it on the covers in 1950, but by the early fifties it was out of fashion. Poodle Skirts as a symbol of the 1950s is not right. It is more appropriate symbolizing the period 1948-1952 after the Bobby Soxers. It should be associated with Vaughn Monroe and Johnny Ray more than Elvis Presley.
Elvis is another example of a distortion in popular culture. Today
commentaries on the 1950s and Rock ‘n’ Roll make it sound as if Presley was the creator of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Elvis Presley didn’t have his first hit record until February 1956 with the song “Heartbreak Hotel” and Rock ‘n’ Roll had a pretty good grip on the music scene by then. Elvis may have become the biggest star of the genre in the late ‘fifties, but people like Bill Haley, Joe Turner and Ike Turner were the true pioneers. There are those who say Presley’s 1954 recording of
“It’s All Right, Mama,” was the first Rock ‘n’ Roll song. This is ridiculous. Big Joe Turner had already topped the charts with “Shake, Rattle and Roll” by then. Probably the first recognized record as Rock ‘N’ Roll was “Rocket 88” by Ike Turner released in 1951. (Chess credited Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats on the label. The Delta Cats did not exist and Brenston was the Saxophone player for Ike Turner. Brenston did do the singing on the record. They may have done this to get White radio airplay. Jackie Brenston was White. Ike Turner was Black.) Gunter Lee Carr had a dance novelty in 1951 called “We’re Gonna Rock.” “Moondog’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Party” began broadcasting on radio in 1951 as well, and “Bob Horn’s Bandstand debuted in 1952. Presley can’t even lay claim as the first “white” star of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Bill Haley’s “Crazy Man, Crazy” had charted in Billboard by 1953.
The other big fallacy perpetuated today about Presley is that his first
TV appearance was on the Ed Sullivan Show in September 1956. Sullivan garnered a lot of publicity with that silly ban of not showing Elvis from the waist down and now people associate that with it being Presley’s first TV performance. Presley’s first Television performance was on “Louisiana Hayride”, March 5, 1955. That was a regional TV show, though, not national. Sullivan was not the first national appearance either.
The first time I ever saw Elvis Presley was on January 27, 1956 on the nationally broadcast “Stage Show”, a TV show produced by Jackie Gleason and starring Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey (picture left). I sat up and took notice. My grandfather took notice as well; he wanted to turn the TV off or maybe throw his shoe through the screen. Presley appeared on national TV shows three more times after that
before he ever appeared with Ed Sullivan. He was on The Milton Berle Show twice, once in April and once in June 1956. This gave my grandfather even more to rage about since he also hated Milton Berle. Elvis did his version of “Hound Dog” for the first time on that June’s Berle show.
Elvis appeared on “The Steve Allen Show” singing “Hound Dog” to a Bassett Hound in July 1956. Allen didn’t think Presley had any talent and played his appearance for laughs.
Sullivan had actually totally banned Presley from his show, but when he saw how popular Elvis was getting he had to relent. He showcased Presley, at least his upper half, in September 1956. He had him on again in October and in January 1957, when he actually “dared” to show Presley had a pelvis.
Stuart’s plan’s for a Rock “n” Roll band may have ended on a sour
note, but he and I weren’t through with music by a long shot.
In 1955 I wrote possibly my first non-parody poem, “Goodbye at Sunset”. It is a somber subject for a 13 or 14 year old, don’t you think? So, what was my state of mind…
GOODBYE AT SUNSET
When parting At sunset
Separate Roads We go
Lives Never to be met
On some road We know
Tallying Under moon glow
Totaling Our final sum
We gave less than We owe, but
All Our earning’s done
When parting at sunset
Pulling shut the last gate
With the last look we get
At this time and this date
Our setting sun won’t wait
When it’s time we should die
Chiron’s boat shan’t be late
You shall go So shall I
When parting at sunset what will fading be like?
Do you feel? Do you fret?
Do you burst like a dike?
Or like a wheel-less bike
STAND
In one place turning pedals with all your might?
Is parting cold Or burning?
Let’s hope when daytime’s done
(Despite odds opposing the bet)
There are new roads to run
When goodbying at sunset
1955
You could read this in different orders, by the way.
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