By kiki
Sitting in bed this morning reading the Los Angeles Times, my mind raced back to my days as a newspaper-selling kid in the late '40's-early '50s. I used to sell three now-defunct evening newspapers: the Daily Mirror, the Daily News, and the Evening Herald-Express (morning papers were the Los Angeles Examiner and Los Angeles Times) at the corner of Washington Blvd and Maple Ave in Montebello, about a mile north of the Simons Brickyard. I had to fight the Simons bullies for the best corner a few times. The corners were on a first-come-first-served basis. A few times after securing the best corner by arriving early, one of the bullies would try to run me off. We would have a scuffle and get my butt kicked, but I would keep the corner by not backing off.
The best corner for the evening newspapers was the eastbound corner of the intersection. The evening eastbound traffic was heavy and the commuters making their way home to the many suburbs sprouting up all over the Southern California landscape were great tippers.
The papers at that time sold for 7 cents a copy, and we kids would get 2 cents per paper sold. But we made more money on tips. In all, we made enough money to go to the picture show where we would hold hands with any girl that wanted to…Nowadays, where you can read all the newspapers on the web, I still need the feel of the paper in my hands to read a whole article. I've tried reading newspapers online, and it's not the same as this old newspaper kid; that's why I still subscribe to the only major newspaper in LA., the Los Angeles Times.
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