Brothers Create Disastrous Paperboy Dynasty

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
May 5, 2004

As I deposited my first check for freelance writing for the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin earlier this year, I felt a twinge of guilt.  I had not come clean about my family’s dark past as employees of this newspaper.  So now, in the interest of full disclosure, I must share with you some painful truths.  If you lived on the West Side of Binghamton in the 1980s, chances are pretty good that you had one of the Mollen brothers as your paperboy.  I’m very, very sorry.

My older brother, Bob, started our black-fingered, wagon-dragging dynasty.  He quickly realized that the bulk of his work could be subcontracted out to some unfortunate, prepubescent soul with low self-esteem.  His younger brother, Dan, was already in the habit of following him around and agreeing with everything he said.  As long as he’s tagging along, Bob reasoned, why not load him down with a 75-pound bag of papers for a brisk jog through the yards of Crary Avenue and Rugby Road?  It was good for him.  Leaving all the paper-folding, hauling and actual delivery to Dan left Bob free to handle the complex administrative tasks of a modern paper route.  This included setting Dan’s alarm clock, yelling at Dan for missing the porch, and disbursing Dan’s weekly pay – a single, shiny U.S. quarter.  Life was good.

Then Mom found out.  This put an immediate end to Bob’s exploitation of the skinny, redheaded workers of the world.  Unfortunately, because of lax oversight in the paper’s human resources department at the time, another youngster with the same last name was soon given a route of his own.  An older, but not much wiser, Dan set out into the chilly Binghamton air, determined to be one of the all-time great paperboys.  Instead, he overslept and “forgot” his way into infamy.  His performance was so uniformly poor that his customers were unaware for years that the Press & Sun-Bulletin was a morning paper, not an afternoon one.  The annual Press Christmas calendar was received by Dan’s customers sometime between Arbor Day and Halloween.

Despite the complaints rolling into the paper’s offices, yet another Mollen was granted a paper route.  That was me.  My customers were initially heartened by my relatively reliable, timely deliveries.  Could this youngest Mollen throw off the shackles of badpaperboydom?  Alas, it was not to be.  I soon developed a distaste for getting up at the crack of dawn.  And for trudging through snow drifts.  And for Beetle Bailey.  This distaste manifested itself in my demeanor, which can only be described as extremely surly.  Soon, my customers avoided the sight of me.  But each one felt a cold shiver in his bed every morning as my grumpy boots stomped across their porch.

As I drive through the West Side now, I see that much has returned to normal since those dark days.  People seem more informed.  Less annoyed.  In general, the information distribution channels have been cleared.  But in some yards, grass still doesn’t grow on the strip of lawn that the Mollen brothers decimated with their 10-speeds, and people still say a prayer of thanks that there are no younger Mollens ready to take up the satchel.

For now.

© 2004 Tim Mollen

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