Letter: North County’s first paperboys reflect on life in 1950s Paso Robles
To the editor,
– I go to Starbucks most mornings and whip out my wallet looking for three dollars to buy my small coffee. Seems I’m here most mornings and as I walk in I recognize all in the corner at the tables of knowledge. There are six or eight there most mornings guaranteeing all is well in the USA.
I find fifty-three dollars available to me this day and for reasons unknown, I ponder my fate with that much cash to squander. There was a time when that would have been considered a fortune. So, for just a moment, let me tell you about that.
In 1953 at 10 & 11 years old brothers and I sold papers our Dad brought home from the local paper where he worked as a printer. It was the Paso Robles Press located at the corner of 12th & Pine across from the park. The paper sold for a nickel in those days and we went door to door in Templeton and had them all sold before dark. We soon became Templetons first paper boys.
Five cents was a lot of money to us. You could not only buy a paper with that you could also get a Coke or candy bar which would brighten any day. Our family car back then was a 1937 Plymouth four-door, standard transmission, with four pedals on the floor. They were all in a row left to right with purpose as follows; clutch, brake. Gas pedal, and starter pedal, and somewhere in the middle a gear shift handle reached up through the floorboard right of and next to the steering wheel. Seemed like a lot of business to make the car go but it was routine for Pop.
A few years later we’re North a full five miles to Paso Robles, in high school, and now Bearcats. School was located at 24th and Spring St, Hwy 101 in those days. Across the street was Smith’s Drive-In, the real deal.
We washed dishes, pots, and pans, and peeled a million potatoes every Summer. Ninety cents per hour was our pay which produced a twenty-dollar paycheck each week. So each payday we thought we were millionaires.
A cup of coffee cost a dime with free refills and all the cream and sugar you could fit in a cup centered on a glass saucer. We were up for coffee only because the café waitresses were some of our classmates, and it seemed ok to stare at them there at work behind the counter.
My transportation was a 1952 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 that cost me one hundred dollars and when I finally got it running a dollar’s worth of gas would last all week. Trips to school and up & down Main Street were a full day’s travel.
It’s a wonder searching for three dollars in one’s wallet could conjure up these tales but that’s what happens when an old mind wanders its way back to San Luis Obispo, California.
-Rocky Weber, Class of Paso Robles High School 1960
Note from the editor: This letter was hand-delivered to the Paso Robles Daily News office with the following note:
ABOUT 70 YEARS AGO BROTHERS AND I WERE THE PASO ROBLES PRESS FIRST PAPERBOYS TO DELIVER THE PRESS IN TEMPLETON. WE HAD SIXTY CUSTOMERS WHICH WAS MORE THAN 10% OF THE TOWN’S POPULATION OF 600. THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS REFLECTION.
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Great nostalgia. I was my friend’s substitute/backup in Sacramento for the Bee which was the afternoon paper circa 1957 or so. We had our Schwin bikes loaded front and rear with papers. I remember folding them on the hot lawn in the afternoon. Great memories of a time gone by. Thanks.
Great story! I lived a block away from you on 18th street . In 1954 I was making 25 cents an hour babysitting and I even did their dishes. I really enjoyed this.
Great nostalgia. I was my friend’s substitute/backup in Sacramento for the Bee which was the afternoon paper circa 1957 or so. We had our Schwin bikes loaded front and rear with papers. I remember folding them on the hot lawn in the afternoon. Great memories of a time gone by. Thanks.
Great story! I lived a block away from you on 18th street . In 1954 I was making 25 cents an hour babysitting and I even did their dishes. I really enjoyed this.