Hey! Paper Boy!

February was a bad month. Snow and ice storms everywhere. Some of the roads I drove on were so slick I couldn't stand up on them. Imagine if you will, driving a hundred miles every night on chains. My route was a hundred miles from the time I left home until I pulled back in my drive.

I lucked out on the snow and ice though. In January I had bought a 90 model Geo Metro. It didn't take me long to find out the little thing would go anywhere. I set the paring brake on the little thing one morning while I was waiting for the bundle hauler to show up (A bundle hauler is the person who hauls the papers from the printing plant to the designated bundle drops where the carriers pick them up) and we pushed it all over the parking lot like it was on roller skates. Sneakers were about the only kind of shoes we could stand up with but I could get in the little Geo and go where I pleased as long as I took it slow and easy.

The ice got so bad that it built up in the wheel wells to where I had to take a tire iron and chip it out so the wheels had room to turn. When I hit a bump the tires would rub on the ice in the top of the wheel wells.

The Democrat Bought the Gazette and combined the two papers. The management kept most of the old Gazette employees but the paper routes being contract routes and occupying the same territory as the Democrat routes left the Gazette carriers without jobs. This hurt a lot. Most of the people running routes were doing so because they needed the money badly. Some were working two jobs. Some were needing the extra income badly. Some had no other income. So naturally, I can understand their resentment. The Gazette went bottom up and left them in a clench. However, they had several months warning and most of them had found other jobs by the time the route turnover took place.

Now that years have passed and I have had time to think on the usbject, it would have been a perfect time for me to get rid of the route but at the time I was still new and didn't think that far in advance.

Spring came and my Geo finally thawed out. The darn little thing had a nasty habit. It would eat up the right front tire. I had several hundred pounds of papers that rode on the right seat during the week and I had the poor little thing grosely overloaded on Sunday. I made two and sometime three trips on Sunday to haul all the papers.

I finally figured out the Right tire problem was caused by the extra weight in the right front seat. I solved it by cutting a two by four block and placing it between the coils of the right front spring. This made the spring stiff enough to hold the tire upright. That and constantly rotating the tires. I almost wore out the lug nuts rotating those little twelve inch tires.

CARE AND FEEDING OF A GEO

A Geo Metro is a great little car. They have a 1.0 Liter three cylinder engine. Mine had a five speed transmission. Automatics just won't stand up to a paper route. To much stop and go. My Metro turned in 42 MPG on the route and 58 on long drives. Use only 5W30 Good grad motor oil. Rotate tires every month. It so happened that my paper route put three thousand miles on the little thing every month. I could change oil and rotate the tires at the same time. I always did all my own oil changes and brake jobs. About every 4 months I had to have a new set of tires and front brake pads. Changing brake pads is a snap once you learn the little secrets.