Growing up, from about the ages of 6-13 I always had a paper route with my two older brothers. Six days a week we would rubber band and deliver the papers ourselves, rain or shine, in sickness and in health, uphill both ways...you get the picture. And I remember how the rubber bands would sting if they broke on your hand and how the ink would blacken your hands after rolling up a dozen or so papers. Six days a week we'd do the paper route ourselves, yet Sundays our dad would usually help us out. Apparently there wasn't a lot of news in our town until the weekends, as the Sunday paper was always guaranteed to be huge. Because of this, our dad's help was always appreciated as we sat in the foyer together, puffy-eyed and tired, adding inserts and stuffing the forty-some "Daily Courier" newspapers into weatherproof bags. Then we'd load them into the back of our old, beat up yet reliable Oldsmobile station wagon. The back door of the station wagon could fold down so we would sit on it, and as he drove slowly down the street we'd hop off and deliver the mountain of Sunday papers until it had gradually disappeared. Sitting on the fold-down door like that probably wasn't safe or even legal but the paper route was finished in record-breaking time. Afterwards we'd almost always drive to Rollin' Donuts and relax a bit after the early morning of hard work. To this day I still haven't had a better apple fritter. It's amazing to me how moments like this, when I was a child, seemed like they would last forever. But now, decades later, I sometimes wonder where the time has gone. I am thankful for these memories and the things I learned from them as remembering them helps me to appreciate the time now that I get to share with those I love.
What's one of your childhood memories?
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