Mark Bishop
Singing News Article
March 2006
I have very fond
memories of growing up. When I remember what my boyhood was like,
I recall some very happy times. We weren't well-off but I don't
remember being aware of that as a kid. I guess I do remember that
some kids had more "stuff" than we did but I don't remember being
envious.
We rode the school bus to school. That's something that my girls
don't know anything about. We have always just taken them to
school. Everyday after riding the school bus back home, when I was
young, we played outside until we were made to come in. Warm
weather or cold, we had rather been playing outside with our
neighborhood friends than to be inside watching tv.
And we rode the school bus home everyday. We just didn't do all
the stuff that my kids can do today. There weren't practices,
games, recitals, concerts, scrap booking, meetings and clubs to
get to. Nope. We got off the school bus, took our books and papers
in the house and ran back out to jump on our bikes. Then off
through the neighborhood we would go.
We had paper routes that had to be attended to first though. On
Wednesdays, you had to insert all the store flyers inside the
Richmond Register before you could deliver the papers. I always
dreaded Wednesdays because of that. It cut into the play time I
guess. It only took about an hour and a half to deliver all the
papers on any given afternoon. The Richmond Register came out six
days a week. There was no Sunday paper to deliver.
Sometimes the papers were so thick that you couldn't carry them
all in one trip. The paper bag was only so big so on those days,
Wednesdays mostly, I would have to double back and pick up the
other half. If I delivered Green Briar subdivision first, I would
be closest to the house and then I could get the papers for
Robbinsville and Richmond Road Loop for the last leg of the trip.
It was a pretty miserable job if it was raining. I tried to keep
the papers dry best I could but sometimes it was hard to do. It
was a cold job too on those snowy days of winter. I remember being
frozen to the bone after coming home after my route some days, but
there was a real sense of satisfaction whenever the task was
completed.
One year we got a new neighbor next door. Ron Barger was a couple
of years older than me and being from Colorado, seemed to be a man
of the world. He had his drivers license and was one cool guy. He
had a motorcycle and sometimes I could talk him into taking me on
my paper route. I could finish the route in forty minutes on those
days.
He also owned a green Volkswagen Bug. I started riding to school
with him. I still had to ride the school bus home though because
he had a girlfriend by that time and he didn't want some kid
around to cramp his style.
My kids have their friends and they have their favorite things to
do. They are making their own memories right now and as far as I
can tell, they should be good ones. Which reminds me...
Thanks mom and dad for giving me the best gift a person could ever
want. Wonderful memories of youth..
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