Tuesday, July 5, 2011

JR. HIGH SCHOOL

I don't remember ever going in Middle School.  Back then in the '70's, we went from Elementary School to Jr. High School.  Jr. High School sounded very grown up, even though we were just 13 or 14 years old!


When we weren't in school, we played all kind of games around the neighborhood, like Capture the Flag, and we also worked around the neighborhood.  Part of our growing up was learning responsibilities from delivering newspapers and mowing lawns.


I never remember my parents saying that I had to go to work, but I followed my two brothers' paths of paper routes and lawn mowing.  My older brothers had morning paper routes, but for some reason, I ended up with an afternoon route.  


I have distinct memories of riding my bike to the "paper stop" and loading the papers in my bicycle basket.  The papers were packed in a plastic band that I cut and then put in the basket.  Every paperboy with an afternoon route also had to deliver the Sunday morning papers, which had bigger sections of papers that we had to put together as a bundle.


That was one thick paper to fold, rubber-band, and throw on every porch!  I remember sometimes folding and rubber-banding at the paper stop, and sometimes folding and rubber-banding as I steered the bike. I think I had over 100 houses to deliver the paper to, so that was a lot of folding and rubber-banding!


Going to Jr. High School and delivering newspapers were just a natural part of growing up as a kid back in the 20th Century!  We were the young Boomer generation growing up and learning how to work!  It was a natural!



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