Dawg Story #1

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Dawg story 1 (Most of ya’ll have read this, but what the heck?)

The Winter of '94


(Originally posted on Talkback)

The Winter of '94
Reader post by: B-Dawg82
Posted on: Thu, Sep 20, 2007, 12:21 AM EDT

Just this week it finally got out of the '90's, which is unusual.
It's been a hot summer in Virginia, but whenever people complain, I
tell them,"It's summer, it's SUPPOSED to be hot"-- of course they'll
turn it around and use it against me when winter comes along. At
least it's not as bad as Pennsylvania. People there thrive on the
cold. The nerves in my fingers are so shot, they go numb below about
50 degrees (frostbite, too many burns). I can't even touch cold water
without some pain in my fingers.
But what I was gonna talk about was my experience delivering
newspapers from December 1993 to the end of February '94. At that
point, I was trying to get my business going. I'd been welding for a
few years, but hadn't really found a niche to set me apart. Building
race cars was part of the plan (and I've done some of that, as you
know), but to pay the bills, I started foolin' around with the idea
of building tables to add to the family business. That winter, to
make some extra money toward an ESAB MIG welder that I wanted (a
$4200 machine), I was coaxed into becoming a carrier for the
Philadelphia Inquirer. I say coaxed because I am not a morning
person. The ad said $1500 a month, so I said,"Why not?" Then before I
could see what the job was about, they knocked it down to $800 a
month (!). December 14th I drove the route for the first time. Did I
mention I had to go ten miles just to get the papers in the first
place?
Pushing aside any reservations, I started delivering papers on the
15th. They said you work from 4 to 6 AM, then have the rest of the
day to yourself. Yeah, right. You're too dang tired to be productive
the rest of the day. Then we had an ice storm on Christmas Eve. It
went downhill from there. It was the coldest winter I can remember; a
lot of mornings I'd have to push my car (a 1986 Chevy Sprint two-door
hatchback; I'd paid a guy $200 for it) down the driveway and jump in
to bump-start it. I'd never seen 8 below zero, but did that year (-8
degrees is a light snack in Idaho, I know, but it just does not
happen in PA).
The whole family got involved, helping bag papers, and even
sometimes helping deliver them. Sundays were the worst. We'd bag the
papers at the Inquirer's warehouse, put 'em in the car and go. On two
occasions, the hatchback flew open, and papers went flyin' out the
back. One time, when my mom was helping, the papers flew out in the
path of a snowplow.
Then there were the complaints. Every day we got what they
called "galley cards" which had the list of complaints from the day
before. Things like "Our paper was ten minutes late" (I'm drivin' on
a sheet of ice, sorry to be so rude as to look out for my own safety.
How childish of me.);"Our paper was not on the front step" (If the
ground wasn't packed snow with a layer of ice on top, the frickin'
paper would BE on the step, turkey);"Why didn't you put our paper on
the shelf next to the mailbox?" (After the plow truck knocked your
mailbox down, it wasn't my job to put it back up, unless you pay
me);"We don't get enough glossy circulars in our Sunday paper."
(Ooooo-kay, we just took circulars from three or four extra papers
and put 'em in theirs. Solved that problem).
Then there was the billing. Did I get a monthly check from the
Inquirer? Heck no, I had to bill the customers myself and pay the
Inquirer. The customers could use coupons and stuff to weasel out of
their end of the deal, but I had to pay, no matter what. I think the
Inquirer changed their billing policy the next year. One of the
county's biggest car dealers (and one of my customers) still owes me
about $34 for two months of papers. Another avoided a $17 bill with a
coupon for a free month of papers, courtesy of the Dawg.
Then there were the wrecks. I hit everything in that area about
twice, and wound up putting screen wire over the headlights of the
car to keep from bustin' them out. Again. I even did a head-on deal
into a guardrail...in front of the rock salt storage facility. One
day, I slid through an intersection and plowed into a snowbank. The
kids waitin' to get on the morning schoolbus got a good chuckle as I
crawled out with my shovel to dig out. Ever freeze your jacket to the
asphalt? I did at least twice, tryin' to get the exhaust system off
the car after it had been ripped loose on the ice.
Might I add this was the winter of the Tonya Harding -- Nancy
Kerrigan disaster. It was critical that folks got their news on time
if for no other reason than that.
Also, I was taking a night course to get a MIG welding certification.
Papers and winter crud in the morning, welding in the evening, the
rest of the time -* ? *.
Right near the end (Thank you, God, it did end) I was headed toward
the house, done for the day, when I hit ice on the road. I was still
in a daze, but knew I didn't want to slide across the road into
somebody, so I aimed for the side of the road, did a 180-degree spin,
shot a 20-foot gap between a telephone pole and a guardrail, and
barrel-rolled down a snow-covered embankment. It ended up resting on
the driver's side. I crawled out the passenger side window. Somebody
stopped and asked if I was alright, and I just cracked some joke
about Daytona. There was a muffler shop next door, and some of the
guys there helped me get the Sprint on all four (and they gave me a
6.2 on my wrecking performance), and helped me get it bump started
for the ride home. It was about six years before I told my folks
about that wreck.
I retired from the newspaper at the end of February.

I still have that Sprint, and am currently turning it into a pickup
truck (I'll explain later).

I'm perfectly happy here in the Old Dominion.

I hate winter. :)


This was posted and reposted on Talkback at least five times, and now
it's here . Next stop: Random House, then MGM (does MGM still make movies?)....