I miss newspaper delivery mainly because I miss the bags; great for dog walks & the perfect size for putting between socks & shoes on days of a wet bike ride.
This is about when the transition to plastic bags happened in the New Orleans area, too. Rubber bands most days in the 1980s, then plastic bags every day by ~1991 or so.
It varied by paper and delivery method. The Register was delivered to the doorstep by a paperboy and was never bagged. But the Press was tossed randomly at the end of the driveway and started being bagged for wet days at least as early as 1973.
When we moved from point A to point B in the 80s we went from paper in the paper box to paper thrown onto the driveway. Initially only bagged on (predicted) wet days. Much later bagged all the time and double bagged on (predicted) wet days.
Note that point A would often have snowplowed piles of snow several feet high on the curb. Delivering a paper to a box behind that must not have been fun. OTOH a lot of people hired out to have their driveways plowed in the early AM. So a bagged paper tossed on the driveway could be easily not noticed by the driver and end up under several feet of plowed snow.
I delivered when I was 12, and we had to do the collecting ourselves, as well, for the subscription paper (I also delivered the free “shopper” paper that went to all 300 or so houses in my delivery area.) My memories are that we basically went once a month and we had something like a 4"x8" stack of subscription cards in a two-ring binder, and when we went to collect, we took the money and had them sign their card for the month. Or something like that. My memory is hazy. I don’t exactly remember how I got the money to the newspaper, though. That part I have no recollection of. We weren’t penalized or anything if customers went into arrears, but some customers would take a number of visits before I actually collected.
Personally, I didn’t mind collecting, because that’s when I would get tips, so I looked forward to it.
I still remember – I collected weekly for the Hartford Courant, and then each week paid my bill at the Courant office in West Hartford (at West Hartford Center). I had a small, about 5" x 8" 2-ring flip-folder like booklet that had each customer on a page, and small tearouts to hand when they paid. Like receipts, but it was more for me to keep track of who paid and who didn’t. I never got stiffed, but sometimes people weren’t home, and it was only a week so I’d be back the next week. Maybe they were hiding because they didn’t have the $1.50 for that week’s subscription.
And some of my customers paid directly to the office, so when I went in each week we squared up. I netted about $8.00 a week back then. Woo-hoo! But it was a good job, and it was my own money.
Just this morning my wife asked me why I get up between 5 and 6 each morning, without the alarm clock. It’s because the papers had to be delivered by 0630. 0830 on Sundays.
Good memories, and fortunately I didn’t get stiffed.
I delivered the Montreal Star (long defunct) in the mid 70s every day after school. No bags, not even in the middle of a Montreal winter. I just had to find some dry spot to put the newspaper. Often I put it through the door mail slot.
Oh, and I also had the joy of going back for collecting once a week, as others have talked about.