Without carriers, Appeal wouldn't get to your door

My first job was delivering newspapers. It was an afternoon paper and I'd meet the bundle truck on a corner not far from my house.

I had somewhere around 60 customers on my route and after a few months knew each of them by name. It became almost robotic, as I paced off a precise number of steps between each customer on a block.

Two hundred feet, white house on the left and watch out for the flower bed, toss. Fifty feet more, turn left and put a paper in Mr. Smith's doorstep because he can't walk so good anymore and he always tips at Christmas.

I remember a little brown and white dog that would go nuts behind the sliding glass door as I propped a newspaper there each afternoon. He didn't much care for that and would try to bite through the glass to get at me.

One day I was collecting (back then carriers collected the money each month) and the dog was out front with his owner.

"Don't worry," said the man. "He doesn't bite."

The man didn't realize that his dog and I had a love-hate relationship (he hated me and would love to see me out in front with no glass between the two of us). As soon as the dog spotted me he pounced, grabbing my leg as if it was the last Milk Bone on earth.

"I don't understand it," his owner later said, shaking his head. "He's never done that before."

I bring all of this up because National Newspaper Carrier Day arrived on Saturday, Oct. 14. I didn't even know they had such a thing.

Times have changed since I delivered papers. Most newspapers today are published in the mornings and are delivered before 6 a.m., unless the press breaks, or inserter machine throws a spring, or there's a flood, or myriad other things that can and generally do go wrong as you try to make deadlines 365 days per year.

And because this world doesn't seem to be as safe for kids as it once was, parents don't really like their children out delivering newspapers in the dark and cold. Too many predators. Too many crazies. Too much insanity.

So the folks who deliver the Nevada Appeal today are adults. For many of them, the routes are a way to make a few extra bucks at a second job. Their work day begins at 1 a.m. or so, when they pull up to our back dock to collect their newspapers that should be on the press by then.

The first ones out the door have the furthest to go, with routes in Topaz, or Yerington, or Reno, or Lake Tahoe. The pickup system then works its way closer and closer to the Nevada Appeal building on Bath Street.

These people who deliver our newspaper 365 days a year are the unsung heroes of our operation. You won't read their bylines on page one. You don't generally even see them, unless, of course, the press breaks, inserter machine craps out, or some other calamity keeps them from completing their rounds by 6 a.m.

Soon their rounds will become more challenging, as snow, ice, sleet, freezing temperatures and all the rest that comes with winter rolls into our area like an in-law's visit.

I must apologize to these fine people for missing National Newspaper Carrier Day on Saturday. I should have known that and I should have celebrated it.

To that end, I'd like to thank the following Nevada Appeal carriers for all that they do 365 days per year:

Tony Vitone, Steve Anderson, Barbara Dinsmore, Margaret Orci, Lester Fitzhenry, Gil Jewell, Les Wells, John Eiche, Evelyn Anderson, Robert Dillon, Heather Anderson, Niki Cruzan, Donna Hendren, Ed Gansberg, Jane Guasch, Chuck Horn, Paul Buchanan, Michelle Tucker, Herb Kurtz, Chris Stearns, Dion Olsen, Robert Mercer, Robert Rengler, Baron Stanley, Sandi Stocz, Troy Tackett, Danielle Kiechler, Monte Turkovich, Raol Valdez, Prisca Watson, Shawna Martin, Angela Munoz, Steve Quiring, Alice Valdovino, Kevin Gray, Thelma McSweeney, Lynette Bondietti, Louise Jewell, Debbie Beccard, Shirley Dobbie, Krista Whitney, Tara Whitney, Wayne Petersen, Artist Ferrin, Dawn Busch, Heike Ness, Paul Charbonneau, Ethel Ann DeMarre and Art Kramer.

A belated National Newspaper Carrier Day to each and every one of you.