The Paper Route Dynasty

Kids seem to need money. It helps them feel like an adult. If they earn their own money, it helps them feel like they have status outside their home. So it was with us Kerbers, certainly it was with me.

Delivering newspapers brought in the first regular income to all ten of us Kerber boys. (Sorry, no girls need apply – we’re talking the 1950s and 60s.) My oldest brother Dan got his first route in the early 1950s, delivering the Dayton Journal Herald, a morning paper. His route was a twenty-minute walk or a ten-minute bike ride from home.

The rest of us boys followed in his footsteps, often literally. When Dan eventually got an evening Sidney Daily News route, Bill, the second oldest, took over Dan’s morning route. This turning over of routes from one brother to the next continued through Gary, the last born.

This wasn’t as smooth as it may seem. Lots of boys wanted paper routes, not just us Kerbers. Those first SDN routes were acquired through regular channels, by being on a waiting list until one became available. I suspect, but don’t know for sure, that John and I got our routes with the help of a phone call from Mom. By the time I stopped delivering papers at the start of my 11^th grade—when I got a job packing groceries—Mom, via the telephone, lobbied the circulation manager to let John carry both routes with a little help from George, Mike, and Fred (brothers # 5, 6, and 7). I also had a JH morning route at that time, which I passed on to George, who passed it on to Mike who passed it to Fred.

When John graduated from being a paper boy to being a grocery packer, Mom “talked” the SDN circulation manager into splitting John’s route into three and giving them to George, Mike, and Fred. A precedent had been set and eventually the routes trickled down to Alan, Joe, and Gary (brothers # 8, 9, and 10).

The route passing was an ongoing negotiation between Mom and the SDN circulation manager. We Kerber boys were reliable carriers, Mom saw to that, so keeping it in the family worked well for the SDN, too. But it was also favoritism, which is never good for a small-town business.

But their most memorable clash came over the rubber bands used to fasten the papers into a roll. The bands came in a Kleenex-sized box, and when a carrier ran out, he’d call the circulation manager. Once the manager harassed a Kerber carrier for ordering a box too soon, implying that he was wasting rubber bands. (We did have rubber-band wars, but always picked up (most of) the ammo when we were finished.) He insisted that a box contained so many bands, and that they should last a certain amount of time.

Mom, never one to back away from someone challenging the integrity of the Kerber family, decided to count them. Spreading a box of bands out on the dining room table, she had us kids count them. She was right; there weren’t enough bands to last as long as SDN said. Her call back to the circulation manager vindicated her accused child, and that’s the last we heard of that issue. I don’t think she ever lost a fight with that poor manager.

In the end, Kerbers delivered newspapers for twenty-plus years. Carrying papers gave us kids a little spending money, and it taught us responsibility, punctuality, simple mathematics, and other skills. I also learned that having a supporting authoritative person in the background (Mom) makes life a little easier.

This particular legacy is a mixed bag for me. What makes one a “mama’s boy”? Where one’s battles are decided by the adult in the background. And where is the line between “supportive” and “pushy”? I’m sure Mom stepped over that line whenever she felt she had to; and I can’t picture her stepping over it only because she knew she could. In the end, all I really know is Mom was Mom, and I am me.

        --Bob