Andre James - My First Job - News Call Bulletin Delivery Boy - San Francisco - 1960
In 1960 I applied for my first job. I had one problem. At ten years, I was not old enough to work. In San Francisco, you could not deliver newspapers until you were twelve.
After school I used to hang out with the newspaper boys on Scott and Fulton, the News Call bulletin paper drop. I would help the paperboys fold their papers and stuff them into the carrying bags. Carrying bags were shaped like canvas saddlebags you throw over the back of a horse. Only the paperboy was the horse. So they cut a hole in the center band so you could wear a bag of papers in the front and back.
The paperboys welcomed young guys like me to help in folding papers. Some guys preferred the dynamite stick fold. I preferred the tomahawk. This was form of origami (my ancestors would be proud) where you folded the newspaper into a square, then into a triangle, folded the triangle into the shape of a flat ice cream cone. This left a point of the triangle above the cone which you tucked into the cone.
For you math geeks, the result was a right-angled triangle. For you professionals this was the Tomahawk Missile, the most efficient projectile for targeting doormats, typically elevated twenty or more steps above street level.
Frenchy arrived with the paper bundles every afternoon at 3PM. He was our News Call bulletin route manager who covered the southeast quadrant the Western Addition. We knew our neighborhood as the Fillmore District, home of the Federal Projects and many working class families.
Throughout the ‘30s, it was the home of Isei, and Nisei, first and second generation Japanese. During the war, the Fillmore was repopulated by southern blacks who were seeking jobs and a better life. Of course the evacuation of Japanese in ‘42 made more housing available for this migrant population.
In this seven by seven square mile city, there are many diverse neighborhoods, stacked imperfectly on top of each other. Western Addition newspaper boys could start delivering in a low rent welfare block of rentals and end their route throwing tomahawks onto the doorsteps of 18th century mansions where third generation San Franciscans enjoyed views of the city. From the much photographed Painted Ladies on Steiner Street to the infamous Scott and Fulton Victorian where many a john visited our local house of ill repute, our routes circumnavigated Alamo Square, introducing us to many different worlds, all in one day.
During that summer of 1960 I dreamed of having my own bicycle. I remember TV images of the Tour de France bikers moving like a flock of birds, weaving in and out of the French mountain ranges. In my neighborhood there were cyclist on ten-speed bikes flying up and over the Fulton hill, on their way to Golden Gate Park. Many were wearing racing clothes, bent over their ram horn shaped handlebars. Once they hit the downhill past Alamo Square they could outpace the cars on the way to the Golden Gate panhandle. Who needs a car. I just wanted my own bike.
In May Frenchy, lost his paperboy who delivered route K17 on Hayes and Scott. On mon deu!! This meant he would have to get out of his car, take off his beret, put down his coffee and cigarettes to deliver papers!!
Even though he knew I was too young, his options were slim. He decided I was worth a flyer to see if I could show up every day to get the job done.
My first job. I was motivated. I had already picked out a bike. You see, every Saturday I would walk 12 blocks to Stanyan Street Cyclery to check out the used bikes for sale. In the back, they had a black three-speed Huffy on sale for $37. A three-speed with straight handlebars. Not exactly a racing bike. But it had great potential.
After my first six weeks of deliveries I had collected and saved enough money, tips included, to buy the Huffy. I counted out my dollars, dimes and quarters, all $37 laid out on the Stanyan Street Cyclery counter.
I proudly walked my bike out of the shop and continued walking my Huffy 12 blocks home.
Now, I just had to learn how to ride.
Andre James, February 07, 2022
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