Lots of memories in old newspaper building

Phrase got here final week that the constructing the place I spent a great portion of my youth was lastly about to be repurposed. Quickly, the Portales Information-Tribune constructing might be house to an insurance coverage firm.

As soon as we moved to city in 1970 I figured I wanted a job and the one factor accessible to a younger man was newspaper provider or paperboy. The one downside was a paperboy needed to be 12 to get on on the Portales Information-Tribune. I utilized anyway.

I talked to a bespeckled man named Lewis Toland who gave me his time, then identified I wasn’t sufficiently old for a route. A while later, however nonetheless nicely earlier than my birthday, I acquired a name from Mr. Toland eager to know if I had been nonetheless desirous about a route. I jumped throughout it.

Quickly I discovered Route 27 was not the decide of the litter. All the way in which on the west finish of city previous the college, the clientele was younger and cell and a slippery lot when it got here to paying their invoice. I realized shortly and acquired routes nearer to house with clients who tipped higher and I ended up reporting to the alley door on the PNT each afternoon after college and finally on Saturday nights.

There have been a bunch of boys there each afternoon and solely a modest quantity of supervision. New youngsters had been initiated with what was often called a “pink stomach.” You chased down the brand new man, threw him like a calf at branding time and pulled up his shirt. Every participant acquired 10 slaps and your stomach was very pink when achieved.

One “pink stomach” day we chased a man proper into J.C. Penny on the sq.. My grandmother and one other man’s mother labored there and so they had been neither one too proud of us for disrupting enterprise. The customized got here to an finish quickly after we initiated the primary papergirl.

We rolled our papers up with rubber bands and had rubber band fights. If somebody stepped out of line they acquired stuffed right into a No. 2 mail sack.

We drank ice chilly come out of a machine the place the bottles dangled in rows contained in the cooler and also you moved them round inside till you bought your choice to the mechanism.

At some point on a dare I wager a coke that I may drink a gallon of water in quarter-hour. I managed to get about two-thirds of it down earlier than I spewed all around the little toilet.

Later I used to be a mailroom employee and I realized to reply telephones within the night and on early Sunday morning, taking what we termed bother calls. Mainly you needed to take heed to somebody let you know how lengthy that they had been taking the newspaper and ranting about getting missed. It was good coaching for all times.

Saturday nights within the mailroom weren’t precisely choir apply. We managed to remain forward of the difficulty for essentially the most half and didn’t fall off the evening we climbed the water tower.

We pulled loads of pranks just like the evening we borrowed the stuffed badger from the workplace up entrance and posted him within the dim mild of the hallway by the timeclock. Then we advised the brand new man to go forward and clock out.

A lot of recollections in that outdated constructing.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]