Often ideas for my blog turn up in emails or texts. This week is no exception.
A friend in Tucson sent me a photo of her beautiful purple sage in full bloom. Along with that she sent a photo of a rainstorm with the sun shining through the raindrops. Seeing both of those made me homesick for Arizona. I mentioned that I miss the desert, but I certainly don’t miss the summer heat.
Which caused her to remind me of the way the desert smells during and after an Arizona summer rainstorm. I miss that, too. In Seattle when it rains, it’s just wet. You can see it and feel it, but you can’t smell it! And that triggered another remembered smell from childhood—the way clean sheets smelled after being dried on my mother’s clothesline in the sun. If someone could bottle those two aromas, I’d buy them in a down-home minute.
This week a fan asked me where I got the vivid imagination that fuels my books. The truth is, I think I was born with it. My mother used to tell the story of how, one Saturday morning while we were still living on the farm in South Dakota and I was about three, our parents loaded my two older sisters and me into the back seat of the family Ford and headed into town.
We hadn’t yet reached the county road when I burst out in a blood-curdling scream. My father jammed on the brakes, sending the three back seat passengers onto the floorboard. Then he turned around and demanded, “What in the world is the matter?”
“You forgot my Lamby,” I told him. Since Lamby was entirely imaginary, there was every reason for my parents to have forgotten him, but as you can see, I’ve been creating fiction from a very early age.
The last glimpse came from my brother, Gary, in Phoenix, saying that Phoenix’s only remaining major newspaper, The Arizona Republic, is going out of business in both print and virtual editions. The Busks in Bisbee had a very long connection to that newspaper.
For years the younger kids, starting with Arlan and Jim had five-mile-long bicycle routes in Bisbee’s Warren neighborhood. One was on the west side of Arizona Street while the other was on the east. Weekday subscribers usually numbered twenty-five to thirty while on Sundays that number swelled to close to a hundred each. On Sundays the folks drove around town to deliver those.
By the way, the inside sections of the Sunday papers—the comics, the want ads, the magazines—would be delivered mid-week and stored behind the front door in a four-foot-tall stack where they remained until the front sections with the late-breaking news arrived on Sunday mornings. At that point they needed to be assembled before they could be delivered.
By the way, Evie was always in charge of making sure subscription collections were made in a timely fashion before the carrier manager showed up on Saturday mornings to collect his toll.
Eventually, whoever was in charge of picking up the papers from the bus station and dropping them off to the individual carriers quit, so the Busk family took over that part of the job, too. Doing the auto route meant delivering papers to the individual carriers in town, but it also involved serving customers who lived in the boonies where bicycle routes didn’t exist.
As one kid after another got their driver’s license, they took over the auto route. When I was driving it, one of customers was Smithy Alford, my high school algebra teacher. She was fierce in her own right, but her two Doberman pinchers were even more so!
My most vivid paper route memory happened when one summer’s day I offered to give my brothers a ride rather than their having to ride bicycles on their routes. For that, I drove while Arlan and Jim were int the back seat with a stack of papers between them which they were rolling, rubber-banding, and throwing.
We stopped at a house where the paper was supposed to be delivered to a back deck built on top of a garage. At that point both of them jumped out of the car and simultaneously threw a paper. Oops! That meant we’d be one paper short, so Arlan climbed up on my shoulders and managed to make it onto the deck to retrieve the extra.
Jim passed away in 2000 at age fifty due to an undiagnosed heart ailment. I wish he was here so the three of us could have a good laugh together about that one.
Sisters, brothers, , neighborhood adventures, and fun…treasured memories.
Your Friday blogs usually stir memories for me. Today’s was the paper route. I also had one. I remember the Sunday paper needing to be “stuffed” with the comics/ads/etc. Mine was a bicycle route. As I remember it the monthly cost was such that I usually got a .25 cent tip. Once the price went up, so did the tip. Thank you again for the memories. So sorry your brother died at such an early age.
What beautiful thoughts and tributes, and memories of smells. One that brings me a smile and sometimes to tears is lilacs…I am transported to a small town in Ohio where a bush grew under my window. Ahh…
What delightful stories. Thank you!
Could not believe the Az Republic was closing so I checked.
No, the Arizona Republic is not closing. However, its printing operations are being moved from Phoenix to Las Vegas, which will result in the closure of its printing facility in Phoenix and the layoff of 117 employees. The final day of printing at the Phoenix facility will be October 5th.
The same thing is happening to The Arizona Daily Star…news will now be even more delayed. Originally, The Star and The Citizen were both printed in the same facility about 10 miles from my home. Then The Citizen went defunct and The Star moved its printing to Phoenix and now this!
Of course, subscription prices have increased substantially from approximately $300/year in 1979, to a whopping $854/year today, with a much smaller paper filled with ads and not news. May St. Francis de Sales, patron of newspapers, help us!
Your wonderful, normal memories of family, sure brings back sweet memories of my childhood & teenage years. Keep these coming, I do look forward to Fridays…. I also hope you can visit your beloved Arizona for a vacation, not just a book signing soon!
I grew up in the Seattle area and I disagree about the rain only being wet. I miss the Washington rain smell, before and after a shower. I read the first Beaumont book, and shared the fact that he frequented The Dog House with my dad. Dad was a printer and eventual production manager at the PI. They also went to The Dog House. He enjoyed Beau as well until macular degeneration took over. We tried audio versions but he said they didn’t hold his attention. I think that was code for, “I keep falling asleep.” We lost him this past April at age 97, almost 98. Very sharp right until the end. We are/were great fans.
Wait, what? The Arizona Republic is going out of business???? When did this happen?
Good morning. Thanks for the great memories. Reminded me of my newspaper delivery days and our hijinks. Just a minor correction. I do not believe the Arizona Republic is shutting down. It’s parent, Gannett, is shuttering the Deer Valley Printing plant which printed the Republic, several smaller papers and local delivery editions of the NYT. The printing is being consolidated in Gannett’s plant in Las Vegas.
Great memories of my son, Blaine’s paper route. He delivered his route on his bicycle except for Sundays. Then it was a family affair. His brothers and I would get up at 4 AM, put together and fold papers, then rain or shine, winter or summer, he would roll down the window and sit on the door, and throw papers. How he didn’t end up a pitcher I’ll never know. He could porch the Sunday paper from the car every time.
Blessings to you and Bill.
I could almost ride along with you. Thanks for sharing
Ahhhhh….the wonderful smell of those sheets dried on our clothesline every week in PA, 27 years ago.
Thanks for that memory, and for your imagination, JA. <3
My best friend’s very cool older brothers had paper routes and if we were very lucky we got to put the weekend stuff into each paper for Sunday delivery. It was a huge treat and we dreamed of having a shared paper route as soon as we were old enough. Sadly my family moved away before that happened and my newspaper career (albeit second hand) ended. I don’t think she ever hot her own route but she did become a very skilled operating room nurse as an adult.
Cheers,
Ceci
Dave’s (husband) mom drove him on his Sunday paper route also. He has lots of paper route stories also.
And, our two kids (now 53 and 51) had little local paper routes–once a week. And they had to collect the then $1 subscription price once a month. There were some subscribers that always gave them a tip and then some whom it was like pulling teeth to get even the $1 out of!! And then there was the older man who appeared to be poor who gave my daughter 25 cents each week in addition to his subscription charge.
What great memories. I delivered papers but, walked my whole route. The riding seems a bit more fun
I just love your stories. Highlight of my week.