Quote Originally Posted by old guy View Post
Not a bad idea Jimaz. Never thought of it. If they would have had super glue back then, that would have been a good trick too.

I hear you on the paper route collection thing gnome. I remember seeing people sneaking a look through the blinds or the curtains moving and then nobody answering the door.
As far as the lawn mowing thing... wow. I hope when you got back from vacation there weren't a bunch of angry neighbors out in the street yelling, there's that little S.O.B. Let's get him.
No one knew about the broken lawnmower except he and I.

The whole thing was pretty darn sad. I cried like a little kid at his funeral. He was just a hell of a man and he treated me like a equal. He had been a lineman way back when and showed me some questionable techniques he used on opposing players, he made sarcastic comments about the neighbors ...especially the widows who were in keen competition with each other over petty things; he was just a good guy and by literally cutting corners I directly contributed to his death.

He had a heart condition and knew he should not be out their humping around a rusty reel mower, but he liked a shipshape lawn and didn't want to wait for me to get back from camping with my Mom and Dad.

It was just a shitty thing to do and experience. It goes into that bag of regrets that come out and visit at uncomfortable times.

That bag gets heavier every year.

So, ... Yeah, collecting from tightwads was plain stupid. The peeking through the blinds and turning off their tv and pretending they couldn't afford the .35 cents a week. Shit man, I was a kid, had bought the papers from the station manager, stuffed them in two massive bags and had to hump a mile just to start delivering their future birdcage liners.

i saw no future in the newspaper business; after a hot summer followed by a snowy winter, I gave up my media career. Rupert Murdock breathed a sigh at my early retirement.