Highways and Byways: Fresh Papers

By Maik Strosahl

A few years back, a friend of mine interviewed me for an article in the local paper. I wrote a short poem to be included with the article, but always felt there was more to be said on the subject. I was a newspaper carrier for five years in Moline, Illinois. During the winter, I always found it interesting that the bundles were warm when I slid my freezing hands between the copies. I imagined this was because they were “hot off the press” and used that to build the short poem. That poem appears in paragraph 5 of this expanded prose piece that hopefully shares one of those cold snowy days in the life of a paperboy.


At 38^th Street and 5^th Avenue we waited, braced away from the whistle of winds as they whipped down the straightaway, hidden in the evergreen wrapped round twin pines – salvation amongst the thorny branches where we looked out for the truck to arrive.
    They were always late on days like this, when we would rather be home, the news already scattered, with hot cocoa to thaw our limbs. But we were still bound by our daily duty to those who were shut-in by the snow, those huddled down to weather this storm and cold snap, Zack from 36^th to 39^th Streets, me crossing the highway and on to 41^st.
    Already, the news was going stale – the families had long ago been notified, meetings were adjourned the night before, items had been discussed all day on news-talk radio WOC. Yet the presses were turning, the papers were folded, the stacks were bundled, rolling out the chutes, thrown in the back of trucks and down the road to us carriers.
    When the driver finished throwing them from his door, we raced from our refuge, loaded them into our bags, left for our routes.
    Alone now, I forced my hands between the copies finding them somehow warm inside, fresh ink still pooling into clever headlines or a shocking scandal, last night’s scores and Beetle Bailey running from the Sarge – down the newsprint and across the fold, drying into a little box on page B-7.
    I trudged through that snow, creating new paths between the houses, through backyards, across the alleys, winding my way through 62 customers, working my way home to the steaming mug that awaited me, sipping chocolate and reading the funny pages that kept me warm.

Copyright © 2021 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.