You can take the boy out of the paper, but …
The confessions of a once-and-future paperboy
By Jock Lauterer
As veteran Chapel Hill journalist Roland Giduz reminded me last week, I began my newspaper career by hawking his short-lived but zesty Chapel Hill News Leader around town at the tender age of 8. (The irony is, the News Leader was published out of the present location of Sid’s Surplus, right there in Carrboro! Feels like déjà vu all over again.)
As I grew older and stronger, able to tote more papers, so grew my paper route. By the time I “retired†at age 15, I had three paper routes — prompting legendary Chapel Hill Weekly editor Jim Shumaker to quip memorably, “Jock, you’re making more money than my reporters!†(which was probably truer than I suspected at the time.)
But that would not be the end of my “newsboy†days. By my 20s I was a co-founding editor-publisher of a pair of community newspaper in Western North Carolina. But don’t think for a minute I had turned into what my mama used to call “Mr. Big Britches.â€
As any small-town editor/publisher knows, when Aunt Sadie calls up and says she didn’t get “her paper,†you’re still a paperboy, regardless of your Rotary Club status in town.
Not long ago, as I hit AARP age status, I began to get this premonition that I’d be delivering newspapers again some day. But it wasn’t until last week that I “returned to my routes,†as it were.
I’m gonna lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of Robert “Bubba†Dickson of Carrboro, who along with editor Kirk Ross last week launched The Citizen, a new community newspaper for Carrboro.
Since I’m all about community newspapers, I had to be there. I couldn’t stand NOT witnessing just a little of the insanity of a start-up; moth to the flame, I had to get my fix of that crazy energy. So I stopped by The Carrboro Citizen office at 309 Weaver Street last Thursday, expecting to just take photos of the happy publisher returning with his inaugural run of papers. I even thought it would be cool to accompany Dickson around town as he made his first deliveries.
Sure enough, when Bubba arrived from the printers, loaded with papers and grins, it was a treat to watch the high-fives and hugs, the happy exclamations of joy and relief that Vol. 1 No. 1 was finally out, by golly, after several sleepless nights. I know that feeling so well, and I count myself fortunate to have been there last Thursday to witness the party.
But then it was time to get down to the practicality of delivering the papers. Kirk was carrying bundles here; Bubba was heading out there. And it became instantly clear to me how I could best help this fledgling start-up: I would deliver papers.
It’s important to know that The Citizen has a fairly unique home delivery vision. If you want free home delivery, you have to ask for it. (Carrborocitizen.com and click on the top right saffron box.) This delivery model may strike some as bizarre, but it fits with Bubba and Kirk’s vision of The Citizen being a “sustainable community paper,†which is to say, one that reflects the environmentally conscious nature of Carrboro. So, with The Citizen there will be no “driveway rot.â€
That’s all well and good, but who’s gonna figure out where those first 20 readers live?
Moi, that’s who, I decided, rolling up my sleeves and wrapping newspapers with rubber bands for the first time in, oh, say, 30 years. I know it may sound sick, but I do dearly love the scent and feel of good old honest printers ink on my fingers.
“Betcha never thought you’d be delivering newspapers again,†kidded James Harris when I stopped by the Town Hall with a stack of Citizens under my arm. Nor did I expect I’d get help from the affable director of economic and community development, who along with Drew Cummings, assistant to the town manager, helped me track down unknown street names.
And into those streets I went, wishing I were aboard a Schwinn instead of a Honda, reminded of how rich a community’s life is when witnessed from the unique perspective of a paperboy quietly plying the backstreets of his community. Vignettes of Carrboro flashed before me at every turn:
Kids shooting hoops on Lynn Drive, young mothers out walking their toddlers in strollers along Hillsborough Road, women jogging confidently along Greensboro Street, school kids walking home along Shelton Street, a funky jazz band wailing on the Weaver Street Lawn, a couple working in their yard on Rainbow Drive. Everywhere the peaceful rhythm of a community winding down on a lovely spring afternoon.
Maybe I should have been back in my office at the university. I’m sure there was some academic proceeding that I was missing. Perhaps I should have been doing some research on journalism, or writing a scholarly paper on the decline of the American newspaper industry.
No, I think I should have been delivering papers.
Jock Lauterer teaches at the UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication where his Community Journalism class produces the Carrboro Commons, an on-line lab newspaper at carrborocommons.org