When I was younger I delivered newspapers. At one point I delivered to a route in downtown Moberly Missouri, USA. I remember Sunday mornings I’d get up at 4 to go downtown to the paper office, get my papers, and deliver them. I remember the winters were cold and miserable and a lot of times the pressman in the paper office couldn’t hear me banging on the doors, or wasn’t there yet, and I’d have to wait on the street, in this little indentation where the front door was.
One Sunday, I woke up, rode my bike to the paper office, locked out, middle of the night, ice and snow everywhere. I got ready to hunker down in my cubbyhole when the wind began to blow. Except it was warm, like a tropical breeze. It was nothing short of spectacular! Imagine being braced for the coldest, nastiest, biting-est knife edged winter wind and getting a soft warm breeze. I remember the feel of it on my face. I unzipped my coat. I knew spring was coming.
Now that little town in Missouri has gotten 26 inches of snow. What fun it would be to be a 10 year old there now! I remember the good snows, sledding and frozen ponds.
Today is March 1st, spring will soon be here. This is winters final fling before spring up there in the north. Enjoy it! (I’ll be at the beach!)
since i grew up in wisconsin, i can relate to this. but i’ve also become ‘thin-skinned’ since living in texas all these years.
Ahhhh…the memories.
This was a good post. Now a days there are no more paper delivery boys on Bikes. It’s adults who do not have a job that drive and deliver one’s paper…
Oh boy, you sure had a good work ethic for such a young kid! I was born in the Highlands of Scotland, where winter 6ft snowdrifts were the norm – I am so glad my parents moved to Yorkshire, England, when I was 8. I truly cannot abide the cold, it literally HURTS me. You are now ideally placed in such a gorgeous climate, I can see you enjoy it to the full.
I have a memory of riding on a bike barefooted with my feet up in the air on the handle bars and feeling the cool spring breeze blowing between my toes…and laughing because I knew that was funny..