There’s been talk in our household lately of our first jobs. Joseph just secured his first job. He’ll be helping in the fight against world hunger by feeding students at a university burger shop. It’s perfect for Joe as he’s right on the university campus and allows him to save up for that coveted possession – a new guitar.

It brings back memories of my first job. My goal wasn’t to buy an electric guitar. I had my sights set on a Schwinn 10-speed bicycle. A Schwinn Varsity Sport … the slickest thing moving on two wheels in my opinion. The only problem was that it was outrageously priced at $103. I could have bought the standard of the day – a three-speed bike – for half that price. But no, I had to have a 10-speed and it had to be top quality. Only a Schwinn would pass muster for me.

I didn’t flip burgers. I had a paper route. In those days, we didn’t bring up the news on a tablet. We read it on paper and ink. But I didn’t have an easy going after-school route. I delivered the St Paul Pioneer Press – the Wisconsin morning edition. And my customers wanted their paper the first thing in the morning as they drank their coffee. So before my first chin whiskers appeared, before my voice deepened, before I reached puberty, I was already a working man. It was 1971 and I wasn’t even a teenager.

Every day at 5.30, I’d crawl out of bed and get dressed in a somnambulistic slumber. I quietly creep up the steps so as not to waken anyone and hear my brothers and sisters breathing heavily in deep sleep. I’d open the garage door and behold the behemoth. A massive bike that could haul a hundred pounds of Sunday newspapers and plow through the deepest snow. It was a big blue single speed girl’s bike with fat tires and equipped with rear baskets for the papers.

I probably wouldn’t open my eyes until I reached the end of our driveway and start down the hill on Deronda Street for downtown Amery. I’d check that the little generator rubbing against my front tire was working as that would power my headlight. Then the fresh, cool morning air would wake me up and I’d come alive. I’d coast down the hill and slowly warm up my legs and then I’d gun it on the flats down Harriman Avenue and past South Twin Lake. And by then I was happy and wide awake.

I had the whole town of 2,000 people for myself at that hour except for a few bakers. Of course I was a townie; my mates on the farms would be up as well milking cows. I’d drive that big fat blue bike down Harriman singing out loud well aware that no one could hear me. But when I arrived at the Dairy Queen on Amery’s main street – Keller Avenue – the singing stopped and the work began.

As I pulled up to Dairy Queen I’d see each morning’s challenge sitting there in a pile. There’d be two piles of bound newspapers. My mate, Steve Bieniasz, did the south-eastern quadrant of town. His route wasn’t as big as mine so he’d get to sleep in a half hour later. But I had 55 customers and had a lot of pedalling to do each morning. It was always exciting to rip open the bundle of papers each day. I’d be the first to read the daily headlines. And sometimes, I forgot I was supposed to deliver the papers and not read them. I don’t remember all of the headlines I’d read … only one sticks in my mind for some reason. ‘Nixon Re-elected in Landslide’. It was 8 November 1972 and Nixon beat McGovern for the Presidential election.

In the movies, you see boys on bikes driving through neighbourhoods and throwing papers into lawns. That’s not the way we did it. No one wanted to walk out in the snow in their slippers and bathrobes to retrieve the paper. I had to stop my bike at every house and try to get it to stand up with the weight of the papers. Then I’d walk to the door and place the paper between the screen door and main door … and then peddle on to the next house.

I’d peddle that big bike laden with papers up Baker Street, then turn down Elm Street and past the vacant Amery Swimming Beach. Then I’d zoom past Water Street and Soldier Field and really get busy on South Street where I’d pass the homes of my classmates – the Conrads, Foys and Fredericksons – and my Civics teacher, Mr Buhr. Then I’d pop in the Golden Age Manor and deliver a few papers to some senior citizens and then over to the Amery Hospital where I left five papers in a stand where you could buy one of my papers for a quarter. Then off past the Ennekings and Leadholms and my backyard neighbours, the McCullums, whose son Sam would play as a wide receiver with the Minnesota Vikings a couple of years later. Then back up Harriman, past the Ericksons, Sondreals and Isaksons and up Cherry past the Wheelers and past my sixth grade teacher, Mr Clark, and then around the bend toward home back up the hill on Deronda Street.

I’d finish the route just as my brothers and sisters were getting up and getting ready for school. I’d take a quick shower, down a bowl of Cap’n Crunch breakfast cereal and then jump on the bike again and ride to school. Or in winter, I’d slip on my cross country skis. I’d ski down the hill, through Leadholm’s yard, then across the frozen South Twin Lake and then traverse the railroad tracks to North Twin Lake and finally to Mr Cerrato’s back yard where I’d leave my skis and walk the final 20 metres to school.

Sunday was hardly a day of rest for a paper boy. Sunday was the day to dread. The day of the massive Sunday edition. These monsters would easily weigh a couple kilos (five pounds). Jammed packed with sports, travel and leisure, real estate, jobs, the Parade magazine and even some news. Then all of that was covered with the funnies … Peanuts, Doonesbury, Archie, they were all there. I had 50 customers on my Sunday route. You do the maths. That’s a hundred kilos of newspaper to tote on my big bike. I filled my baskets and then lashed another 15 or so papers on top of the baskets. Then I slung two newspaper bags each with 10 or so papers bandolier style across my chest. And then I tried to peddle my bike. I didn’t have any hills on the early part of the route so once I got some momentum I was OK. The problem was getting off the bike. The feeble kickstand wouldn’t hold the bike up so I had to lean it up against a tree or a house each time. By the time I peddled up the hill to reach home on those Sundays I was exhausted and would crawl back to bed.

Winter presented the greatest challenge to a paper boy in northern Wisconsin. I didn’t change my routine and still drove the bike across the snow and ice. Mornings were dark, frigid and lonely. There were some mornings at 30 or even 40 degrees below zero (Celsius or Fahrenheit … it doesn’t matter, they’re the same … impossibly cold). My eye lashes would literally freeze together when my eyes would tear up. I had to cup my hands around my face and blow to thaw out my eyes which were the only part of my body exposed to the elements. I’d break the icicles which formed outside of my balaclava around my mouth. Walking on the frozen snow on those frigid mornings made a deafening sound in the stillness of dawn. Crunch. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. I’d peddle past warm, cosy homes with their plumes of smoke or steam coming from their chimneys and just wish I was inside snuggled up in bed. But I had a job to do.

There were so many times I struggled to get out of bed but the prize lurked in front of me. I had to have that Schwinn 10-speed. I made about $13 a week so I had a long way to go.

Christmas was my favourite time as a paper boy for two reasons. First, there was the Christmas bonus. Every fortnight I would go to all of my customers and knock on their door to collect their subscription fee. But at Christmas there always was a card waiting for me with an extra dollar tucked inside. On my first Christmas I made $33 in Christmas bonuses. I felt wealthy.

But it was the second reason why Christmas was so special for me. Under the tree would be one envelope with my name on it in my step-dad, Ralph’s, handwriting. It was the best gift. Inside that envelope were the most valuable coupons a paper boy could ever want — 10 ‘free ride’ coupons. There would be days that I just couldn’t do it … the snow was too deep, it was pelting down rain, I was sick or I overslept. On those mornings I’d go to my drawer and carefully rip one of the valuable coupons and creep up the stairs and into the master bedroom. ‘Can I cash in one of my coupons?’ I’d ask. Ralph would be sound asleep but I never heard a moan or a groan and he’d always honor that special coupon. He’d look for his pants, slide on his boots and grab a hat and then warm up the Oldsmobile while I downed a quick bowl of Cap’n Crunch. I loved being driven around in that Oldsmobile on those early mornings and having quality time with Ralph. If I were sick, Ralph would walk the papers to the door for me. I only had 10 of those coupons each year so I used them wisely.

It was indeed a special day when I had earned enough to buy that Schwinn. Ralph drove me into Minneapolis because a fancy bike like a Schwinn 10-speed wasn’t available in small town Wisconsin. The Schwinn shop had one Varsity Sport and it was Campus Green and that was great for me. I spent a bit extra and bought it with fenders, which was rare for a bike like that, but I didn’t want to get mud streaks up my back when I rode to school in the rain.

I had the biggest smile on my face as we drove home with that Schwinn in the back of the station wagon. Ralph taught me some basic bicycle maintenance but I was on my own to figure out the fancy stuff on a 10-speed.

I felt like the king of the road when I would drive through downtown Amery. I was sure everyone was looking at me as I peddled that fancy bike through town. Ten-speed bikes with racing handlebars just weren’t seen in rural small town Wisconsin in those days. I’d park it in front of Danielson’s Drug and explain to passers-by how a 10-speed uses a derailleur to change gears and boast about how much of my own money I spent to buy it.

Eventually I wore out the tires and popped into Coast to Coast to buy a new set. I had to drag ole Earl Isakson out to see the bike … he had never seen those special 27-inch thin tires. That would have to be a special order he told me.

Once I had the bike I needed accessories – pannier bags, super light camping equipment, toe clips – the costs kept piling up so I kept pedalling Big Blue every morning for a few more years to support my addiction to gear. By the time I was 15 I was no longer a paper boy. I graduated from the news industry and moved into the motion picture industry and got a job as a projectionist at the Amery Theatre.

I don’t know what ever happened to that bike. I rode it while in high school but by the time I went to college I had lost interest in cycling. I suspect it was sold for $5 at a garage sale eventually. But for a number of years in the early 1970s that bike was everything for me … perhaps not so much for the bike itself but because it represented a goal I had set for myself and eventually achieved.