My Paperboy
Delivering the news was my husband's first job and might be his last.
Leslie Woods
At 2:30 a.m. my husband brakes by the Belfast Hannaford store. John opens the rear door of our Subaru Legacy as I leap from the back seat and fetch a shopping cart. Together we unload bundles of the Bangor Daily News. Nearby, a welder repairs the rusted car wash as the smell of gasoline floats from a truck filling tanks. As we pull away, we wave to the men repainting stripes on the store’s empty parking lot. We share in the camaraderie of Maine’s late-night world.
Finally off on our rural route, John strives for maximum driver-side deliveries. The police are few, the roads empty, and he swerves side-to-side or drives British-style for short stretches to reach his newspaper tubes.
Usually John delivers alone, but on weekends
[for the rest of this story, see the January 2008 issue of Down East]
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