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Confessions of a seventy year-old paperboy
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April 3, 2015
Langbank
by: Timothy W. Shire
Langbank
by: Timothy W. Shire
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The story begins when I was in grade 6 at the ripe old age of eleven. Though we had moved to Langbank in 1952, my last school year was in the tiny hamlet of Vandura, about seven miles to the east. It was a big deal to return to Langbank after spending the year attending a one room school and having been snowed in from October until April. Father was the new CNR foreman and we moved into the section foreman’s house, close to the railway tool shed and with our front door facing the track where trains rumbled by each and every day at all hours.
A Man with a beat up, really dirty car, wearing a black topcoat and clothes that looked like he had slept in them for several weeks, ask my mom if I would like to become a paperboy. No, I have never really thought about becoming a paperboy, because I never even heard of one before, but my father thought it was a good idea, it would give me an opportunity to earn some money and some responsibility, so I was signed up as Langbank’s Winnipeg Free Press paperboy.
Langbank is a little Village in south eastern Saskatchewan, only four miles away from its neighbouring community of Kennedy and located on the CNR Cromer subdivision that connected Regina to Winnipeg. In the fall of 1956, Langbank had two passenger trains each night, the westbound train arrived somewhere in the early morning, between four and six and east bound train arrived just before midnight, this provided the little community of 82 people with passenger service to Regina, Brandon and Winnipeg.. One would assume that the people of Langbank would have associate themselves more closely with Regina, the capital of the province, but that wasn't the case. In 1956 Langbank is only about 40 miles from the Manitoba border and the TimeZone change is at Broadview, so for part of every year, we were on Winnipeg time and part of every year on Regina time. It was no stretch to sell Winnipeg newspapers in this southeastern corner of Saskatchewan.
The messy Free Press guy provided me with the brand-new paper bag and a small black ring binder which was used to hold the weekly tickets for subscribers. The paper bag was really something, it was white canvas with the words Free Press blazing across the main part of it and the strap that went over your shoulder was almost 6 inches wide. In the years that I would lug that thing around, though my mom washed it now and then, the Free Press name faded from it and it became a dirty grey and picked up some decorations. Among the decorations was a broken can of orange spray paint which left an indelible mark on the bag and then there was the day in the post office lobby, at the end of the school year, when my ink bottle broke open flooded the paper bag and the floor the post office and I was ushered unceremoniously out of the post office lobby by Ted Burnett the postmaster.
A Man with a beat up, really dirty car, wearing a black topcoat and clothes that looked like he had slept in them for several weeks, ask my mom if I would like to become a paperboy. No, I have never really thought about becoming a paperboy, because I never even heard of one before, but my father thought it was a good idea, it would give me an opportunity to earn some money and some responsibility, so I was signed up as Langbank’s Winnipeg Free Press paperboy.
Langbank is a little Village in south eastern Saskatchewan, only four miles away from its neighbouring community of Kennedy and located on the CNR Cromer subdivision that connected Regina to Winnipeg. In the fall of 1956, Langbank had two passenger trains each night, the westbound train arrived somewhere in the early morning, between four and six and east bound train arrived just before midnight, this provided the little community of 82 people with passenger service to Regina, Brandon and Winnipeg.. One would assume that the people of Langbank would have associate themselves more closely with Regina, the capital of the province, but that wasn't the case. In 1956 Langbank is only about 40 miles from the Manitoba border and the TimeZone change is at Broadview, so for part of every year, we were on Winnipeg time and part of every year on Regina time. It was no stretch to sell Winnipeg newspapers in this southeastern corner of Saskatchewan.
The messy Free Press guy provided me with the brand-new paper bag and a small black ring binder which was used to hold the weekly tickets for subscribers. The paper bag was really something, it was white canvas with the words Free Press blazing across the main part of it and the strap that went over your shoulder was almost 6 inches wide. In the years that I would lug that thing around, though my mom washed it now and then, the Free Press name faded from it and it became a dirty grey and picked up some decorations. Among the decorations was a broken can of orange spray paint which left an indelible mark on the bag and then there was the day in the post office lobby, at the end of the school year, when my ink bottle broke open flooded the paper bag and the floor the post office and I was ushered unceremoniously out of the post office lobby by Ted Burnett the postmaster.