I discovered a book, Paperboy by Vince Vawter. In reading the book this weekend, it took me back almost 4 decades. In 1980, I delivered the afternoon paper in Knox County, TN on a bicycle as a high school student. Back in the day, Knoxville had a morning paper in the defunct Knoxville Journal and an afternoon paper in the Knoxville News Sentinel. So, I was an employee of the Knoxville News Sentinel before probably any current KNS employees.
While, Paperboy is a work of fiction. It is very much a biography of Vince Vawter who became a paperboy for one month in Memphis in the 1950’s for his friend Rat. The Paperboy has the speech impediment of stuttering as did Vawter. The people on the paper route really allowed the boy to come to age.
As I spent a few hours in the world of Paperboy, I could not help reflecting on my own career as a Paperboy and the customers that allowed this Boy Scout to come of age. From learning how to interact with adults, manage a business of just less than 100 customers that relied on me for their daily paper and I relied on them to collect their payments. Christmas time was extra special, from gifts to gifts of cash.
I now see how that job helped me in more ways than just providing me a job that kept me from bagging groceries at the local grocery store.
Vawter went on to being a newspaper man, retired after 40 years as a newspaper man, most recently as president and publisher as the Evansville (IN.) Courier and Press. In those 40 years, Vawter served a stint as Managing Editor at the Knoxville News Sentinel. Vawter makes his home in East Tennessee on a small farm in Louisville, TN.
