Zen and a Paperboy

“Awake! ‘Tis time for you to rise! Awake! And open both your eyes! The day is here, the sky is blue, And all the World is calling you!”

Althea Randolph

Paperboy Routine

It is a cool Sunday morning in early June 1954, and I am once again preparing to peddle the Joliet-Herald News to my customers in Braidwood. During the weekdays, the bundled stacks of papers are dropped off at our house in the early afternoon for their delivery after school. On the weekends, the bundles are at our house before daylight. I like delivering the paper in the morning because the day is ahead, and I don’t have the weekday afternoon obligation.

I think back when Alec Cieslak was the Herald-News agent for our town. When fellow paperboys Pete Cinotto, Marty Kozlowski, and Louie Highbaugh were my bike companions. Papers were dropped off by Barnett’s gas station next to Joe Testa’s grocery store. Mr. Cieslak was always a good, but firm, man. Not given to any shenanigans. Just be on time and deliver the papers.

I open the fresh stack of papers and count out the 31 papers and then start folding them, made more difficult because of the size of the Sunday edition. I glance at the news about Communists and nuclear tests but am more anxious about the advertising and the comic sections which unnecessarily add to the paper’s girth. The fold is tight enough to withstand my underhanded pendulum swing that will float the folded paper to the porches of customers.

Within a few minutes, I stack the folded papers into my canvas bag and proceed to place it over my bicycle’s front fender with the straps extended tightly across the handlebar grips. Many a paperboy has holes in the straps for failing to have rubberized grips. With the extra weight over the front tire, it is important to have properly inflated tires, so I check the bike over and I am ready to go.

Solitude on a Sunday Morning

Early Sunday mornings in Braidwood are quiet except for the few cars travelling on route 66. We are now living on the East side of town, across the highway and over the railroad tracks, but my route today is over to Roundhouse Street and then crisscrossing over Main Street. The route includes papers to people whose names I have heard since early childhood. Kilpatrick, Hynd, McHugh, Trofimchuck, Mahler, Oswald, Girot, Grinchuck, Stonich, Bottino, Martinetti, Berta, Nielsen, Agamy, Nahas, Higgins, Adams, Jones, Rink, Carpenter, and Edmundson.

No need to hurry while my town sleeps. I alone am awake.

Today is especially noteworthy because I had just graduated from St. Rose and will be going to high school in Joliet. I would rather be attending Reed-Custer, but Mom convinced me to “give Catholic High a try” even for a couple of years. But it will mean getting on a bus every morning for the hour-long, monotonous ride through Coal City, then Wilmington, and past Elwood.

We had rain the last two days and the early morning sun, coupled with the greening of trees, bushes, and grass, make my hometown fresh and new. The captured rainfall sits in ditches and puddles, adding to the freshness of the day. For me, summer is officially underway, with high school miles away in three months. 

For the next several minutes, I am in a zone, aligned with all that matters; comforted in the silence; and enhanced by the familiar. Even as I peddle, time stands still and nothing else matters. 

"God's in His heaven-
All's right with the world"

The Rare Feeling of Universal Harmony

There are few Zen-like times in our early lives when crystalized moments can be recalled later without hesitation. The magic years between eight and fourteen are stages when a boy seeks reasons for his existence, and questions the directions for his future. Between those years there are brief intervals when his young universe assures his connection to the world, moments when he is in communion with all that surrounds him. Time slows while the glow that is you adds splendor to the commonplace, transforming it to a paradise. Braidwood and the boy are one. The sleeping residents are noble. Dawn is harmoniously, celestially shared. 

Never again will these crystalized moments of serenity, solace, and solitude reoccur despite exotic travels and life’s experiences. But they are preserved in the recesses of memory and can be recalled with vivid accuracy, conjuring up specifics and feelings. 

The same feeling of oneness with all, even after decades of living. “And All’s right with the world!”

"The year's at the spring.
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-sides dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven -
All's right with the world!"
(Robert Browning, Pippa Passes)