Welcome to Arizona the Grand Canyon State

Oh, how I can remember how excited I was when the opportunity came my way, it was so long ago I can’t even remember how I found out about this opportunity. It was in 1965 or 1966 I was around 11 years old at the time and the news paper route for West Santa Fe Ave and West Aspen Street in Flagstaff came available, I lived at 407 West Aspen Street across street from the Federated Church.

The Daily Sun newspaper office was in the 400 block of West Santa Fe Ave, 1 block away from my home on Aspen Street and where the route started. I would go up Santa Fe Ave to N Thorpe Road around the corner and back down Aspen Street to North Humphreys Street where the route ended.

I remember start to finish I could complete this task in less than an hour when not distracted. That included the prep work at the Daily Sun newspaper office of rolling up each paper and securing it with a rubber band, and then placing it in the bag that we carried them in. You either carried your bag on your shoulders if you walked your route or wrapped them around the handle bars of your bike if you did your route by bike. I would do both depending on my plans for that day, walking would take about half hour longer, so if I had big plans that day, I would use the bike.

There were about 5 or 6 of us that pick up our papers right there at the office around back in the distribution room. We all were around same age and boys, so distractions came easy. There was the Santa Fe rail line right at the back of the building and placing coins on the rails anxiously waiting the arrival of the next train was a big distraction. Then of course we would have some pretty intense rubber band “wars”, boys being boys. And my favorite distraction, the printing press for the newspaper itself, I loved to watch and study how it worked. Aw but that is another story as over the 4 to 5 years I delivered papers I got to know a great deal about how it all worked.

I had been delivering papers for a little over a year when the bike in the picture showed up on the showroom floor at the local Firestone Store in downtown Flagstaff on Leroux St. I was a frequent visitor there as this is where my Dad worked as Credit Manager and often would spend my earning from the newspaper route on items they offered. They also functioned as a small department store with small selection, by todays standards, of household items and appliances.

This bike was my very first venture into the world of “credit”. As I remember it was about 6 months of paper route earnings and I most likely only had last months earnings on me at the time. Hence, nepotism came into play and my Dad set me up with a “account” there at the store and I was able to get the bike before I had all the funds to pay for it. As I was no where near the legal age, I am quite sure he put it on his account, with the owner’s permission, but kept close accounting of “my balance”.

Ah but back to “the bike” I don’t remember if it was exactly this model, “Swinger” but the color and many of the features are why I choose this picture. First it had 5 gears with the shifter located between twin rails that started at the handlebar neck and went all the way to the rear wheel. Then of course was the color purple, long time favorite color. Banana seat and ape hanger handlebars of course was the in thing at the time. I remember my “sissy bar” was about 2 feet higher on the back, I don’t remember if that was standard or something I added. And on mine, the rear tire was a fat racing slick to finish off the bad boy look! Oh, how proud I was of this bike!

Now the bike came along at just the right time for me as I had recently acquired the paper route adjacent to mine that started on West Park Street and ran over to West Summit Ave. Those streets however are very steep and my old bike was single speed, which meant I was really getting a workout delivering up and down those streets. However, with the new bike I could simply select the lower gears and breeze up and down the hills no problem. My first lesson I remember about having the right tool for the job.

It was not very long after this that the route adjacent to mine on the north side which was West Birch and West Cherry from Thorpe Rd to North Humphreys Street became available and I secured that route also. I don’t remember exactly how many papers this was, but it was the largest route at the time. I remember I could still complete the route in under 2 hours and for a young boy at the time had pretty good income. No allowance needed, Dad.

This was made possible by having the right tool for the job, that beautiful purple bike you see in the picture!