We moved from Iowa to Michigan in the late 80’s, assuming we’d be back in our native state within 5 years. Sigh. Forty years later we’re still in Michigan. Now our kids are grown, married with children of their own (blessing us with 4 grands, one great and another on the way) so there’s no talk about moving. Most of their lives have strong attachments to Michigan, this is where they grew up-I get it. Iowa however, conjures up strong emotions for the Hubs & I when reminiscing about our home town and state. Both of us still support our Hawkeyes, but mid-Michigan is where my heart resides.

When we moved, Shannon had just turned 16 (tough time for her. She had oodles of friends in Iowa and was pretty serious about a guy in her Davenport Central class). In Jackson, she was finishing up her sophomore year and discovered she was far ahead of most of her peers that there weren’t many classes she had not already taken and aced. She spent most of her junior & senior year doing independent studies in a room-by herself. The school did encourage her to take classes from the local junior college, which really helped when she started at MSU as an almost incoming sophomore.

Joshua was 12, a laidback kid who made friends easily. He was into skateboarding and all sports. He adapted great. Adam was almost 8, and didn’t appear to have any issues with the move. We lived in the outskirts of town, on a very long, oval street with 60 homes, many wth children.

Shannon immediately got a job at “The Parlor” although at the time I think it was called “Loud & Jackson.” (Both Loud and Jackson were dairy farmers who merged) An iconic business serving their own brand of ice cream in delectable flavored desserts including their famous ‘Dare to be Great’ which included a dip of every ice cream flavor. It was humongous!

Joshua had a friend named BJ, who lived a few doors away (each property/home on our big oval was an acre). They started their own business mowing neighbor’s lawns. Which left 9-year-old Adam broke and business-less. He questioned everyone on how he could make money. Those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles weren’t gonna pay for themselves-and Adam needed EVERY SINGLE ONE.

We had subscribed to the daily paper (Jackson Citizen Patriot) and I noticed they were advertising for a paper carrier for a small route about a half mile from our house. A conglomerate of townhouses, not all of whom subscribed to the paper, but 25-30 of them did. Perfect. The Cit-Pat was hesitant to give Adam the route because he was so young (and little) but they took a chance that his mom was a halfway responsible-person-hahaha.

The daily Cit-Pat was dropped off for afternoon delivery except for weekends and holidays which worked well for us as we did the route after Adam got home from school. But really, what sane mom wanted their 9 year up at the crack-of-dawn on Saturday & Sunday? Not this mom, so I did most of the deliveries on the weekends. I was up anyway and valued those quiet morning hours by myself religiously.

At the time there were no pay-in-advance by the month or year for the newspaper. We had to collect a couple times a month. Knocking on doors, hearing some lame excuses, “I have no cash on me,” “um, the wife’s got the checkbook,” “are you sure I owe? Seems like I just paid you guys.” Or the dude we nicknamed ‘The Worm‘ because we could see him walking around inside, but he wouldn’t come to the door when we were collecting. Jerk.

But there were some neat, friendly customers on our route too. An older, gruff guy named Charles who always paid on time. A guy who reeked of alcohol every time he answered the door but was friendly and never stiffed us. A young Michigan State trooper who was polite and friendly. Incidentally, he was killed in the line of duty right after we gave up the route and moved 175 miles away. He had stopped someone on 94 and was struck by another car.

And our favorite customers although I cannot remember the wife’s name. An older couple who had recently moved to Jackson from Washington State and spoke often of the Puget Sound with reverence. His name was Jack and one day after being our customer for a couple years, presented Adam with a pencil sketch of him and I-delivering newspapers. I had it framed and it still hangs in Adam’s home-35 plus years later.

Adam had a Cit-Pat employee liaison named Jackie in case he had issues or we were going to be gone for a few days. The pay for such a small route was a pittance, just ‘change’ actually for each customer but Adam got all the money and bought his beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. With any leftover money he bought baseball cards-we were big Cubs fans back then. Since the route was so small, the Cit-Pat offered him an incentive. A 50 dollar savings bond (which cost them 25 bucks) every month ‘they’ didn’t get a complaint from one of our customers. This was money I refused to let Adam spend. Although he had wait for the bonds to mature, ten or 12 years I believe, he had about $2,500. when all had matured while he was in college.

I’d like to take credit for instilling Shannon, Joshua and Adam’s life-long commitment for their work ethic and the importance of saving money but I cannot. That was formed, all on their own when they were young. Even in our littlest paper boy…