The Boy Next Door
The boy next door, Edward Strait, was my hero. I was twelve and he was fourteen. He was a paperboy for The Detroit News, the afternoon family newspaper, and every day after school he would meet The Detroit News truck there on the corner of Kercheval and Marlborough(Marlborough being the residential street where we lived and Kercheval the business street) and scramble for his load of papers along with the other boys. I ran with him and he showed me how to fold the papers into three sections and tuck them into one another, and stack them neatly into his wagon. And then he would begin the wonderful, breathless trip of delivering papers to every house on his route.
His wagon was beautiful; red wheels with great rubber tires and wooden varnished slats all around with The Detroit News in big red letters emblazoned on each side. I watched him in wonderment! He was like a ballet dancer as he ran, not missing a step, dipping down with a long swinging arm to pluck out a paper, sending it sailing with a baseball pitcher's precision through the air to land with a plump, neatly, right on the porch. He allowed me to deliver one or two papers toward the end of his route saying something like 'pretty good for a girl.' I pretended not to hear.
But then and there I decided to be a Paper Girl. My mother and father thought it would be a good way to add to the family weekly income, they admitted. And so my mother supplied me with a long white business envelope and a postage stamp. I showed her the letter I had written and she was impressed. I rode my bike down the street to the mailbox. I dreamed of the wagon and how I would fold and throw the Detroit newspaper onto the steps and porches. I spent the week checking the mailbox for my letter and then, one day, it came. A real business letter in a fancy envelope with a window on the front that my name showed through -Ruth Eva Belton. There it was, addressed to me. They were sorry to tell me that only boys were hired to deliver The Detroit News. Even at twelve, I was struck with the unfairness of it all, and slightly humiliated at being a girl. A helpful suggestion was added - why not try babysitting? Reminders again and again, even though our mothers had to wait until 1920 for the right to vote, we still couldn't be Paper Girls in 1934.
His wagon was beautiful; red wheels with great rubber tires and wooden varnished slats all around with The Detroit News in big red letters emblazoned on each side. I watched him in wonderment! He was like a ballet dancer as he ran, not missing a step, dipping down with a long swinging arm to pluck out a paper, sending it sailing with a baseball pitcher's precision through the air to land with a plump, neatly, right on the porch. He allowed me to deliver one or two papers toward the end of his route saying something like 'pretty good for a girl.' I pretended not to hear.
But then and there I decided to be a Paper Girl. My mother and father thought it would be a good way to add to the family weekly income, they admitted. And so my mother supplied me with a long white business envelope and a postage stamp. I showed her the letter I had written and she was impressed. I rode my bike down the street to the mailbox. I dreamed of the wagon and how I would fold and throw the Detroit newspaper onto the steps and porches. I spent the week checking the mailbox for my letter and then, one day, it came. A real business letter in a fancy envelope with a window on the front that my name showed through -Ruth Eva Belton. There it was, addressed to me. They were sorry to tell me that only boys were hired to deliver The Detroit News. Even at twelve, I was struck with the unfairness of it all, and slightly humiliated at being a girl. A helpful suggestion was added - why not try babysitting? Reminders again and again, even though our mothers had to wait until 1920 for the right to vote, we still couldn't be Paper Girls in 1934.
posted by your faithful correspondent at
1:38 PM
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