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.

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 11th 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.

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.

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.