The Richest Poor Kid on my Block

By the time I was 10 I’d already been through quite a bit in life. When I was born doctors thought I would die within two weeks. However, the angels knew better. After three weeks it looked like I was going to make it in life and the doctors were bamboozled as to why. When I was seven, I spent a little more than a year in a wheelchair after a traumatic car accident.

So, by the time I was 10 I was on my way. The summer of 1969 I was 10-years-old living in Evansville, Indiana. I came from a poor family, but I didn’t know it. That summer I got my first paper route, and I got up at four in the morning and rode my rickety bicycle to the drug store on the corner. I had one large tire on the back and a small tire that I found on the front. I had no brakes so I would take my tennis shoe and put it between the forks to stop my bike. I wore out a pair of tennis shoes about every three months.

At the drug store was a stack of 67 newspapers lying outside the door wrapped in wire. I took my wire cutters and cut the wire then I put rubber bands around all the newspapers and put them in my paper bag and wrapped it around the handlebars of my bike. I would ride around the neighborhood throwing the morning newspapers on my customer’s porches. That is the way it was done back then. It took me about one and a half hours to deliver all the newspapers. Then I rode back home and ate breakfast.

At noon I rode my back down the street to a warehouse where I had a second job. I rode a three-wheeled bicycle with a big box on the front of it and it was filled with dry ice. Inside the box was ice cream and popsicles. The dry ice kept everything cold. On top of the box was a little bell with a string attached. I would ride around the neighborhood ringing this bell and kids would come running to me for ice cream. The bicycle was very heavy, and I was a scrawny kid. So, it took a lot of energy for me to pedal the bike all afternoon selling ice cream. However, I was very ambitious and really enjoyed making the money. At four in the afternoon, I would take the bike back to the warehouse turn it in and collect my small share of the money.

Then I rode my bike back to the drug store where I would deliver the evening newspaper. After I was done delivering the evening newspaper, I rode back to the drug store, and I would get a chocolate sundae. The drug store was operated by an old man and woman. She made the best chocolate sundae I ever had!  

At 6:30 p.m., I would ride my bike over to the baseball field where the Evansville Triplets played baseball. They were the triple A farm club for the Detroit Tigers. I would start my third job of the day walking up and down the aisles of the stadium wearing a big tray around my neck and selling peanuts and popcorn to the baseball fans. I really enjoyed this job because after my shift was done, I would go behind the stadium walls and collect baseballs that were hit over the wall during the game. Some of these were foul balls and others were home runs. I would sell the baseballs to boys in the neighborhood for one dollar.

During the day when I had a chance, I would take a penny and sit down by the concrete blocks where people would park a car. I would grind the edge off the penny. Then I would go to a Coke machine. They were 15 cents. I put two pennies in the Coke machine and got a Coke and a nickel back.

That summer at the age of 10 I had three jobs, and I rode my bicycle all over the city of Evansville. I never had any kind of problem and life was very peaceful. I would see the hippies sitting in a circle in the park and they were passing around a joint. I did not know what that was at the time, but I found out later it was Marijuana. However, everyone seemed so happy, and they were all singing. I thought it was very cool. They never bothered anyone. They just wanted to have fun.

I never realized then, but I was the richest poor kid on my block. I always had a few dollars in my pocket, and I was always happy playing football and basketball with my friends. I never had to worry about someone kidnapping me or abusing me in any way. Life was fun and enjoyable back then. Today a child could not even get a job like that and forget about riding your bike all over town. Some weirdos would throw you in a van or take your money.

It was strange. We were fighting one of the most violent and longest wars we had ever been in, and the music of the 60’s was awesome and everyone on the home front seemed so happy. However, I do remember seeing my 18-year-old cousin come home from boot camp in July of that year in his Marine uniform. I knew right then that someday I would join the military. He was on leave and then went to Vietnam where he was killed in action four months later. That was my saddest memory of that summer. However, life went on and we all endured. I still felt like the richest poor kid on my block.