Loving to Laugh

I opened today’s Lewiston Tribune and was given some great opportunities to laugh. I take no credit for these humor points. I do give credit to whoever wrote them and put them into the Tribune.

Under the heading, “The Bible as told by Sunday Schoolers.”

“Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn’t have cars.”

“Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name is Charlton Heston.  Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharoah after God sent 10 plagues on Pharoah’s people.  These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.”

“There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don’t have to worry about them.”

My favorite, “After the Old Testament came the New Testament.  Jesus is the star of the New.  He was born in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, ‘Close the door! Were you born in a barn?’ It would be nice to say, ‘As a matter of fact, I was.’)”

“During his life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.”

What was that?

With warmer, dryer weather, my paper route has begun to pick up on night movers.  Things that move that I was certain wasn’t suppose to move. As I rounded a corner this morning I saw something in someone’s yard that I hadn’t seen there before. It looked like a yard sign of sorts and because I hadn’t seen it before, I jumped to the right a bit. I kept looking at it because it resembled a skunk.  As I took a few more steps away from it, it moved! Sure enough, it was a skunk!  Moved faster. Fortunately it moved fast too and in the opposite direction.  Now I am kind of bummed because I anticipate with the forthcoming weather changes, (to the good, of course), there will be other varments out there, trying to share space with me.

Ten Papers Short

Ever wake up and feel something is missing? Gone through the day and felt something wasn’t quite there?  Gone into a grocery store with a soda in your hand, throw it away while your in the grocery store and after shopping feel like you left something in the store only to remember it was your soda that you threw away?  Ever been woken up from a dream you wish you hadn’t been woken up from? Have you ever delivered newspapers only to come to the end of your route and your ten papers short? 

Me!  That happened to me this morning.  I was to deliver 79 papers this morning only to get 69 papers.  Its agitating because I have to wait until five in the morning to call it in and then wait till my papers arrive.  I know what your thinking.  “Wait until five in the morning? Are you kidding me?” Yeah, I’d like to think that too. That I am not up at five in the morning. But it’s true. Everyday.  Deliver those papers. 

My point today is simple.  Any day you take away something important to your life, like say reading the Bible, praying to God, having coffee with someone on a regular basis, or you fill-in-blank, it will definitely make you feel like your “ten papers short.” So here’s my simple blognote today.  Take time right now to pick up your Bible and read it, or say a little prayer or long one for that matter, call a friend and go out and have a cup of coffee. Or call me. I have the day off and I will chat with you or meet you for coffee.  Have a great day.

First Snow and 19 Degrees

As I write this, it is windy and cold and I am preparing myself to go out do my paper route in just a few hours. Sundays are always more difficult because the papers are huge and I can only get about 20-22 in my bag.  So I have to break up my route into four parts and return to my house three times to get more papers. Myleen prepares my carrier bags as I am out doing my route. I am told by the weather report that it will be 19 degrees outside when I start my route. Boy am I ever excited.

Well its Sunday morning and I’ve delivered my 90 papers and I did so in weather that said 19 degrees but I am sure it was much colder than that. The wind blew and it snowed into my face. The lady who dropped off my papers at my house had to stay longer at her stop at the hospital just to warm back up.

I was all bundled up. Wearing long johns and a long sleeve shirt with my Cougars hoodie and my Rain Forest Cafe bomber coat. Along with my Cougars stocking cap. Just right.  Its hard to fold papers with gloves so I just kept putting my hand in my bomber coat.  If you’ve ever had to work in cold weather you know what I am talking about. It usually takes about an hour and twenty minutes to do my Sunday route.  Today it took me almost two hours.  Nice slippery, sliding time.  And… guess what?! It’s still snowing. My kids are loving that.

Back on the paper route

I didn’t take much of a break from delivering newspaper. In need of more income, I took on a new route. This time its right in my neighborhood and they offered to have the papers dropped at my house. I trained a week ago Sunday morning and had one more training day then I went on my own again.  Its about the same amount of papers as my last route, but can be done much quicker due to being right in my neighborhood. This morning I forgot to deliver one paper and realized it when I was almost done. At first I couldn’t figure out which house I missed and started to doubt that I missed any and was about to rejoice that I would actually have a paper for myself, when to my own dismay and elation, I remember which house it was. The one furthest from where I was walking. So I jumped into my car and drove down to deliver it. Dismayed because it was at the other end of the route. Elated because I would have a perfect delivery day for the seventh day in a row. I am in the running for carrier of the year.

100 Days

Well I did it. I have stopped being a newspaper delivery guy.  It was fun while it lasted. Only good memories. Seeing lots of wildlife. Like deer, skunks, and raccoons.  I am a pretty trivial guy so I counted how many days I actually delivered the newspaper.  It was all of July (31 days). All of August (31 days). All but one day of September (29 days).  Eight days in October, and my actual start day was June 30th.  I am pretty bad at math. Did I add up the days right? Imagine that. Exactly one hundred days.  One hundred dark mornings waking up sometimes as early as 2:45 a.m. Driving down to the Dairy Mart, one mile away from my house. Picking up as many as 95 papers and as few as 82 papers.  Putting them into my car and driving to my first stop. The hospital. One hundred days. Not in a row. But almost. I had my brother Kevin and his daughter Audrey fill in for me one day while I attended a campout with my son Isaac.  Have you ever knowingly did something for at least one hundred days straight?  I am told, and you will likely concur, that a habit takes 21 days to form.  Give or take a few days, I’ve heard.  Well this was a good habit and I can really vouch that it had become a habit. I could deliver a paper to one house and almost automatically just go to the next house and then the next house and then the next house. It was weird. If there was a day that I had to do it different, my body would turn the wrong way which was actually the right way, but wrong on the days I had to do the route differently. Suchas Sundays when I drove most of the route or on Wednesday’s when the papers are too large to carry more than 40 at a time. Then I would drive part of it and then walk and this meant doing the route differently.  I think I sound like a teacher.  If Johnny delivered 31 papers and Betsy delivered 29 papers and Stevie delivered 31 papers, how many papers did Ivan deliver?  You know what I mean.

Well I don’t plan on delivering papers anymore. But never say never. I am keeping my carrier bag. Who knows, maybe I will use it as a prop in a skit for a sermon in the future. At any rate, I hope you enjoyed the newspaper delivery stories.

One Rainy Morning

I wasn’t sure what to expect on my first full-blown rainy newspaper delivery day. It had only rained on me once while I was out on my route. Got soaked that day because the rain drops were the size of golfballs.  This time, I had to change some things ups.  I brought my papers home and Myleen and I stuffed them into poly bags.  All 87 of them. Minus two that are flat paper deliveries.  Then I headed out and since I was now behind by 20 minutes I did all my peripheral deliveries by driving to them. It had stopped raining at this point.  I prefer walking but to make up time I can deliver about 20 papers by car then start my walking.  As soon as I loaded my carrier bag and started delivering, it start to rain again. I had my WSU Cougars baseball cap on so that helped me keep moving.  Everything was pretty normal except that I wasn’t folding papers as I go this time. They were all in poly bags.  When I got back to my car for the second half it had stopped raining. But that would change a bit later on.  As I headed north along Prospect Avenue and it turns into Prospect Boulevard, I encountered a skunk. He must have seen me first as he was in high gear, heading towards me!  Between him and I was a basketball hoop with a large base standard. It must have been over a hole because the skunk disappeared below it. Whew!!! I would have hated finishing my route smelling like a skunk!  I had about 12 papers left to deliver when it started to rain hard. I was not completely soaked by the time I finished but close to it.  All this made me reconsider how to deliver in rainy weather. I can say this, apologizies to the Seattle Times, PI and Everett Hearld, no way I would deliver papers there with all the rain Seattle gets.

Three Raccoons In a Tree

This morning, (Sunday) as I was delivering newspapers with my wife Myleen while our children were being watched for by my niece Audrey, we were strolling up one of the streets that I deliver newspapers on and soon heard some scratching sounds that sounded like a squirrel climbing a tree.  As we got closer, we saw movement made by something larger than a squirrel. I was wondering what a squirrel would be doing up in the dark.  We were surprised to see a small raccoon climbing a tree.  We crept closer and saw not only one raccoon climbing the tree, but three raccoons climbing a tree. At this moment I wished I had my camera.  The got up to the first set of limbs which were quite large and about 15 feet off the ground and peered their heads over the side. The house we were near had a large lamp post that lit up the area so we got a great look at these “bandit” looking animals. It was probably the coolest thing I’ve seen on my paper route.  Too cool to really give a great description on what we saw.  We were able to catch the owners of the house whose tree was being invaded by the raccoons and told them we had been watching three raccoons in their tree. I don’t know where they were going at 4:45 in the morning but they pulled their car around for a look-see.  I am still amazed that raccoons are the only animals that have the bandit or robber looking stripe across their eyes.  Pretty cool, don’t you think.  I also think it’s been pretty cool to see the night life of God’s creation roaming the streets (and trees) in the dark.  I will eventually give up my paper route and move onto a more lucrative money making job (still looking), but until then, I plan on keeping my eyes peeled to the sights and sounds of the early mornings. Oh and I plan on taking my camera with me the next time. I will add any pictures if they turn out okay.

Top Ten House Descriptions on My Paper Route

It was difficult to learn which houses I was to deliver newspapers to.  Maybe harder than you’d think.  I had four days of training by my sister-in-law whose route I took over. Her daughter would describe houses like,
“the royalty house,” because it had red carpet in the hallways.  Or “Maddie’s house,” because a golden retriever named Maddie was always out when they’d deliver there.  So now that I’ve been doing this paper route for over a month now, I have my own list. 

10.  “The Scary House.”  Because this house serves as a moderate “halfway house” for people trying to make a rebound in their lives. Scary because I think many of them have a long way to go before they  “rebound.” I’ve encounter a few drunk people on the steps. It’s loaded with cats that slink or run in the dark. There is even a gray cat that sits inside a window and tries to jump up the sides of the ledges surrounding the window.  I’ve encounter people coming and going at all times during the wee hours of the morning and its mostly dark when I go there to deliver two papers. 

9.  “The Hospital.” Yep, every day I go to the hospital to deliver A paper.  As in one paper.  Its the hospital I was born in so that makes it kind of cool. 

8.  “The Asian House.” My wife and I call it that because we see Asian artifacts and Asian language symbols around the home. We have no idea if the owners really are Asian but we call it “The Asian House,” anyway. 

7. “The Flat Paper House.” This house only wants their paper flat. Not folded and not rolled up.  Its the only house on my route that demands it gets the newspaper lying flat at their doorstep.

6.  “Invisible Dog” house.  This house has a “beware of dog” sign at its front gate. But there is absolutely no dog around. Ever.  The first time I delivered there I didn’t know that so I was cautious about opening the gate and so cautious I closed the gate behind me as I entered. Had there actually been a dog, I would have been in serious trouble. One thing this invisible dog house does have is an occasional visit by the hissing cat.  Pretty funny stuff when I see it. It arches its back and I guess it seems to think that by chance I might actually get scared and run off. Maybe that is what happened to the dog.

5. “The Rich Guy’s House.”  We only call it this because it’s huge and it has a cool pool in the back yard with a French and Hispanic twist to the grounds surrounding the pool.  Plus the fact that the guy has all the toys. A huge RV, a really cool golf cart that is street legal with headlights and tailights.  I’ve met him on occasion when he’s come out to get his newspaper. 

4.  “The Inside Barking Dog” house.  No matter what I do, this dog hears me and starts barking. I am glad he is inside. I’ve met him and his owner once and he is a very active dog. Struggled with the owner to get a piece of me.  Cracks me up when I get off the porch and heading across the street and he will start barking.

3.  “The house with a gate but no fence.”  Interesting that someone would have a gate to open and not have a fence attached to the gate. I’ve started to just step around the gate and deliver the paper. The cool thing about this house is it looks like a castle and has an awesome view of downtown Lewiston, the Clearwater River, and the hills surrounding the valley.

2.  “The Chanandler Bing” house. If you’ve never seen the episode of “Friends” where Rachel and Monica are playing a game with Chandler and Joey and the question is asked of the girls, “What is Chandler’s last name?,” then this comment won’t mean much to you.  The girl’s answer, “Chanandler Bing.”  Chandler say’s, “Chanandler?” And of course the girls give themselves away because they’ve been stealing his magazine that has inadvertently misspelled his name.  I share this because I deliver to a house that I have to put the newspaer in a mailslot in the side of the house that simply say’s, “Chandler.” 

1.  “The orchestra and old muscials” house. Most every day when I approach this house, I hear either orchestra music playing inside or they are up watching one of the old musicals like “Dancing in the Rain.” 

Hope you enjoyed the read.

“Oh… skunk!”

I got my newspapers twenty minutes late this morning and that put me in a rush rush mood.  So I scrambled through my own route. I got lucky when I grabbed too many papers and started walking my route. I ended up with more than I needed. But since I was behind already, I was panting hard and then I came upon a skunk. He or she was between me and the house I needed to deliver the newspaper to. It wouldn’t have been too big of a deal had I just been able to toss the paper over his head. But no. Not this house. This house requires that I go up the steps and put the paper in a special black box labeled “Tribune.” They don’t want the paper anywhere’s but in the box.  My dilemmna  was that at that moment I really didn’t know what skunks did when approached by the human-type.  Do they automatically go into spray mode? Do they screech? Do they run towards the intruder?  I really needed to deliver this paper and fast. So, since I didn’t know what they did, I tried approaching the varment. I startled him. Not sure that was a good thing. But this time it was. He twirled around real fast and went beside the steps and into the bushes. I waited until I knew he had gone along side the house and ran as fast as I can and delivered the paper and high-tailed it out of there.  Things that go skunk in the night aren’t good things.