Since the Tampa Tribune ceased publication last May, I am reminded of many memories of my newspaper years. I worked for the Tampa Tribune for 39 years from 1975 to 2013. I started as a newspaper carrier, then became a district supervisor, and finally an advertising consultant. I retired in 2013. Here are my memories:
If you asked me in high school about a career, well, a job in the newspaper industry would be farthest from my mind. I had planned to be a school teacher. I was in Future Teacher’s and even did some classroom aide work. But somehow I never went further with teaching. Looking back, much of my later supervisor work was a form of teaching after all, just not in a classroom.
In early 1975 I answered a newspaper ad. They needed another newspaper carrier in growing Spring Hill. It seemed simple enough. I lived in nearby Weeki Wachee and the hours would work out perfectly. I could complete a route in the early morning while my husband babysat our sleeping 3 year old. Paper routes are not the easiest things to learn. Delivery directions were put on a cassette tape. Then you listened to it on a portable tape recorder in your car. The recorder was about the size of a small shoe box. Tapes were good for just a short while. Customers changed daily. You finally had to memorize the route order. Part of my new route territory was from Spring Hill Drive down Deltona Blvd. Houses went up there by the dozens, street after street. People were moving in all the time. New cars. New deliveries. I remember the unpaved roads. The trip from the corner of Deltona and Northcliffe out to Mariner was a dirt road. So was the rest of the way to Springstead High, all dirt in the 1970’s. It seemed like such a long trip in the middle of the night and no houses out there in between!
I enjoyed my route for 2 years. My customer base grew from 144 to 400 papers. I met interesting people. I put money aside. I had both home delivery and single copy. That meant I also filled the news racks in my area. The newsstand price was 15 cents daily and 35 cents Sunday. I rolled the coins and that was my gas money. Gas was under $1 per gallon. Some customers mailed me checks every 8 or 9 weeks. The subscription price was just $1.10 per week. Some people sent their money downtown and I received credit that way. More customers meant more profit. The most memorable night on my route happened near the end of the second year. One night in January 1977 there were snow flurries across my windshield. It was 1 a.m. and I was on the way to my bundle drop. By the time I started delivering there was a layer of light snow on the ground. Newspapers landed with a dusty plop on each driveway! Kids stayed home from school. I can remember making snowballs.
When I left the route I didn’t think I would come back to newspapers. However, my former Tribune supervisor talked me into it. I figured I could do his type of supervisor job for a few years and see how things went. Little did I know that it would be my life career. Each supervisor had a district. My first one went from Hudson to Spring Hill. What did a supervisor do? You made sure the carriers showed up, delivered papers on time, and you handled any customer problems that came along. Back in those early years there were no computers or cell phones. Everyone had a home phone. Notes and carrier mail were handwritten. Route paperwork (hiring a new carrier) could be done by hand on the hood of a car. Later on everything was computerized. It was even later that cell phones became common. Over the years I had several different districts and worked other offices besides just Brooksville. For 6 years I handled some seasonal routes in Zephyrhills. Those routes grew in the winter with “snowbirds” and went down to almost nothing in the summer. It took a special type of carrier to adjust to all the starts and stops. I also saw what it was like to deliver in hurricane season. I can remember flooded streets, pouring rain and no power. Nothing would stop us. I also remember getting stuck in sand or bogged down in mud. Somehow there was a way out and the papers got delivered. Whoever wanted to ride could go along with you on the route. My two children each went with me when they were young. They thought it was an adventure, not work at all. They helped out with papers for a while and then just fell asleep and took up car space. One night we even picked up the dog for a ride!
The newspaper was always big on promoting itself. I remember watching or participating in many Christmas parades. We had big floats including our delivery trucks and a pirate ship. I also worked at the county fairs. We gave away many things including sample newspapers, books, pens, key chains, and other gifts. I helped with other things like Gasparilla and the Super Bowl. The Tribune was a family back then. We had a good time in the bureaus. I can remember big holiday dinners, birthdays, or other occasions. Everyone had a special food they made and we certainly ate well. The main office in Tampa was our hub. Everything started there and came out to us. The Tribune had a big reach. The papers were sent as far as Valdosta GA. They also were delivered to the government offices in Tallahassee. It took a large group of employees to get everything done in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
In the later years things started changing. Papers moved from bundle drops to large distribution centers. Many were big warehouses that could hold 50 or more carriers under one roof! And we delivered a lot more products. There were Wall Street Journals, Investor’s Business Daily, special weekly magazines and other alternate products. To save money some jobs were consolidated. Other duties were eliminated. Newspapers were having trouble meeting budget. The cost of producing a newspaper kept going up. The Internet took a bite out of advertising and news both. In 2005 I decided to change from circulation to classified advertising. I would have a desk job. And for the first time in nearly 30 years I would have quieter holidays, a good night’s sleep, and uninterrupted weekends.
The last few years I worked presented the biggest challenges. The economy was in recession. Real estate and automobile markets took downturns. Less people believed in print advertising. The Internet had taken some of our revenue away. Much of my work centered around legal advertising, especially publishing foreclosures. By April of 2007 we faced company layoffs and employee buyouts. Every year that followed brought still more layoffs. Friends started leaving the company. Products were discontinued and bureaus started closing. Somehow I made it to my chosen retirement date. A year after I left they closed the Hernando Today bureau. That ended the local section. Later I heard that the main office building in Tampa had sold. They would put condos there later on that valuable Tampa real estate. I knew that was the beginning of the end, only a matter of time. But I hated to see the Tampa Tribune close like it did without a final edition or some goodbyes and fanfares. I miss the paper. It had a long run. There were good times and hard times along the way. Good memories come to mind about our days in the bureau and my extended family.
I picked up the Thanksgiving paper this year. It was heavy and I could imagine trying to throw it from a car window. It held pages and pages of those Black Friday ads. I remember what it took to put a paper like that together. I remember the sorting, bagging, loading, and throwing. All that work to get a paper out to the customer. I’m sure many don’t give newspapers a second thought in this digital age. But this former newspaper carrier still does.