My 1985 LinkedIn Profile Would Have Said "Media Distribution Manager"

First jobs are fun, right? Right? In this big 10th episode extravaganza, Scott tells the story of his first steps to the exciting world of business and high finances.  Also, he (literally) stumbles upon on a mystery of architecture and city planning in front of a seemingly innocuous Central Oklahoma single-family home. Or is it?

From the episode! ToddDankerCarpentry

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Original music provided by a few of the gentlemen of Supernal Endgame 

Transcript

Thank you for calling the Norman transcript. you know your party's extension, can dial it at any time. Or the operator, press zero. Thank you.

Norman transcript, how can I help you? Can I get copies of the more monitor or more American at your office? I don't believe so. okay. Well, the website points to you. It looks like your company bought the paper around the time people and more quit, quit buying the paper. So I don't know if that makes sense. Let me see if we do. It's the Moore what? Yeah,

That tells me what I need to know. Thanks. Sorry about that.

Scott (00:03.182)
Good afternoon, Edward. Not much before we get started. We hit a milestone this week with listeners. Thank everybody for their support. It's just fun to do. And Edward, you have killed it as co-host. I appreciate your work here.

Eddie (00:04.735)
What's up, Scott?

Eddie (00:17.319)
It's great to work with you.

Scott (00:19.0)
Well, thanks to everybody for listening again. And it's overwhelming, the support. I appreciate it. Today we're gonna talk about.

Eddie (00:26.312)
Which country are you biggest in, Scott?

Scott (00:29.46)
Well, biggest in the US, but I've got listeners in Brazil.

Eddie (00:35.417)
Brazil. I knew they were going to love you down in South America. I knew it.

Scott (00:37.614)
Mexico. Well, my Portuguese is rough, but I'm well liked. We've got one in Japan, and I think that's because it's probably a sumo culture and fat guys are, you know, they pay by the pound there.

Eddie (00:57.78)
Wow.

Scott (00:59.948)
Got Wales, we've got Germany, New Zealand, couple of listeners in England. That part's been surprising and probably user error.

Eddie (01:14.08)
my, honey, I picked the wrong podcast again.

Scott (01:18.318)
Yeah, I was gonna do an accent but I'm not gonna cursing cursing their old ham radio. My podcast comes up for some reason.

Eddie (01:32.592)
And the Germans are about the bomb as well, so they've got a lot of issues going on.

Scott (01:37.142)
I don't think I understand.

Eddie (01:40.326)
Ham Radio, I figured you were doing an older joke and I took it back to the 40s. So maybe we could edit that out.

Scott (01:49.4)
Maybe. I don't know. And editing's hard and I'm lazy, as you can tell listening to the podcast before. All right. So today is about

Eddie (01:50.24)
Okay, alright.

Yes. All right. Back on track.

Scott (02:04.814)
this pause will certainly be edited.

Scott (02:12.482)
All right. So this should be really familiar to most people listening. I think most kids in our generation had youth time jobs. I worked at a pizza place down in Norman when I got my driver's license. But before then, before it all started, my professional career, I had a paper route. Yes.

Eddie (02:30.214)
a paper route. I think I'm one of the few people that made it through life without a paper route. I had to fill in for my buddy a couple times and that involved giving up at like, what, four or something? And I was like, I'm not doing this. This is not for me. Yeah.

Scott (02:41.466)
Yeah, it's a tough life. It's a tough. It's akin to being a chimney sweep. One of those orphans in London.

It might not be that bad.

Eddie (02:52.48)
Did you dance like Dick Van Dyke when you were delivering your papers? Yes.

Scott (02:57.544)
Yes. So I don't, I don't think it, like you mentioned, I don't think it makes me unique by any means. think there are probably Moore paper routes than there were kids in America at some point.

The town paper in Moore, Oklahoma was called the Moore Monitor back when I was paper route age, which by the way, I don't think there's a paper route age. Like when I was in college, there was this old wino that drove a convertible. They would just fling them out of his car and he'd like, so I don't know that. I don't know that state a kid's job. So anyway, I called.

Eddie (03:26.367)
Nice.

Scott (03:37.228)
the Moore Monitor's office and it now ring, that number rings to another local paper, the Norman transcript. And so obviously it was purchased at one time. There was no big deal about it because they were unaware that the number even rings to them. So it's out of business now. It's that.

Eddie (03:57.416)
so they don't even know that they no longer exist.

Scott (04:00.886)
They don't know that it ever existed. The guy was, yeah, the person I talked to seemed unimpressed with any of my queries into the paper.

Eddie (04:03.037)
Okay.

Scott (04:16.482)
But you know, and that's weird because it, you would think it would stay in business just for the important, you know, people want to know what the school lunch menus are that week. And if there's any lost dogs and banner headlines, "Brave Boy Saves Cat".

Eddie (04:28.126)
Very important. Yeah, super important.

Eddie (04:36.208)
Or if Uncle Ralph got picked up again for driving while intoxicated.

Scott (04:41.774)
Right. my gosh. I forgot that. Yeah. And it was full of local ads for joints that aren't even in business anymore themselves. a previous episode where I talked about Jerry's foods that became a funeral home. they, they were a staple in the Moore Monitor, which became the Moore American, I think after like high school years. And then it's, it's out of business. So

That's a sad story, but you know, you got to.

Eddie (05:12.8)
Now, what level of involvement did your parents have in your paper route? Did your dad have to wake you up and go to the paper place, or were you 100 % autonomous on this?

Scott (05:23.95)
I would like to say I was 100 % autonomous. I was not. It's, yeah, let me get to that here in a minute. That's fine. It's a great question. And you'll have questions about that. I'm pretty sure. So I was excited to get the paper route. We lived in the north part of Moore at this time. We moved out of the house that we moved to when we first moved to Oklahoma. It was on the south side of town, which that's

Eddie (05:34.687)
Okay, I'm sorry.

Scott (05:53.608)
not at all relevant. So the route was in my own neighborhood. I remember the lady from the newspaper that she came and brought a stack of papers and she sat down at my dining room table and showed me very intricately how to fold these things. By the way, I was talking about buddy Jed, recently he works with geriatrics and so they all get newspapers.

Eddie (06:22.026)
Of course they do.

Scott (06:22.91)
Yeah, he brought one to the house and whether you, if you wonder whether or not I still have it, I folded that dude the way it should be hurled off of a Huffy bicycle and it's tight. It's like a drumstick. So I, I've still got it.

Eddie (06:39.71)
You know, what about Sundays?

Scott (06:43.33)
What about Sundays?

Eddie (06:44.488)
Well, where I came from, the Sunday paper was always thicker and bigger than the regular weekly. So I was just wondering if that... Okay.

Scott (06:49.548)
Yeah. Look, that's the big time. That's the big time. man. That's the daily and Sunday, Oklahoma. I, I threw a paper for a weekly newspaper, that came out in Moore. And like I said, you know, that it wasn't, there was no movie ripped from the headlines of the Moore American.

Eddie (06:56.202)
Got it.

Eddie (07:13.364)
Wait, so you're telling me this was only one time a week? God, all right. Okay, keep going.

Scott (07:16.097)
one time a week.

All right, back, back to the gripping story. She sat at the dining room table and showed me how to fold these. And like any kind of job I've ever had, we've worked together in a professional setting. I started daydreaming. It was my very first work meeting and I don't know how many thousands of these I've had to endure in my professional career. So I'm doing what I do at work meetings. start daydreaming. I'm thinking about football and my bike and

I'm not really paying attention to how to fold the papers. Let me just say it. This would improve. This will be important later. She shows me how to do it. She doubles it over and rolls it up real tight, puts a rubber band around it and easy as pie. And I'm sitting there thinking, okay. So I think it was a Wednesday morning when these things were delivered to my house. If I remember right, not sure. It could have been Tuesday, possibly Thursday, Monday.

Eddie (08:03.103)
Hmm.

Eddie (08:15.456)
Scott (08:16.838)
Person certainly not Sunday. That was the daily Oklahoma and possibly possibly though Friday. I don't remember. So she showed, well, she showed us how to fold it because my mom would stick her head in there real once in a while. You're just making sure, you know, everything's going okay. And so she got a map out and showed me the paper route in exactly where I go. there's a circle. lived in a cul-de-sac.

Eddie (08:19.636)
Yes. Yes.

Scott (08:45.486)
And so you'd go out the cul-de-sac and turn left on my bike. And then you go up another street and wind toward my elementary school, back up to a street called Nail Parkway. And it was a long street that went all the way up to 27th street. Well, after, after a curve and they, well, let's see, there was a huge Baptist church across the street from that, but it wasn't there at the time. So once again,

background that doesn't matter.

Eddie (09:18.11)
Ooh, yeah, did they give you a bag? That's what's important. Okay.

Scott (09:20.878)
They did. They give me a big gray canvas bag stained with the ink of important stories of Northern Cleveland County.

Eddie (09:32.232)
and the sweat of the 13 year old boy that had it before.

Scott (09:35.822)
The blood, tears. So I remember the first morning I was so excited man, because I had a job. I went to, I think, was that the middle school yet? I might've been elementary.

yes, I was. So I take the bus, I get up early and get all the papers folded, but I didn't remember how to fold them, you know, because it was a work meeting and they suck. And so I wasn't paying attention. So I just kind of rolled them up poster style. no, you would think they do. They do not. So I rolled them up kind of poster style.

Eddie (10:09.194)
Those throw better.

Eddie (10:14.107)
OK.

Scott (10:18.958)
My sister, she used to roll papers back in that era as well. It was just different. Right. That was no help. And so I rolled these things up, rubber band around them, and they were just tubes at this point. They were, they were not properly folded newspapers and those didn't fly out of my paper boy bag. just, you know, it hang it from my handlebars and most of them wound up like rolling down the sidewalk.

Eddie (10:23.444)
We're talking newspapers, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Scott (10:48.599)
or that Oklahoma wind, I'd throw it and it would just like land in the neighbor's yard. you got a paper today,

Eddie (10:55.232)
And old people, want their paper the same way every time.

Scott (11:00.48)
Eduardo, you have no idea. It was, it was tedious. It was like rolled up blueprints, these papers. And so I had to go back to the house to get my second bundle because they all wouldn't fit in my huge canvas bag.

You know, because I had them folded like a dork, like I had just bought, you know, the Cheryl Teagues poster at Spencer's had a bag full of them. And so I started it. Imagine like you suggested, I started getting complaints. So the newspaper lady called the house that night. My manager, she said, Hey, Scott got a few complaints about the delivery. You're inaugural delivery. It didn't, it didn't go well, did it?

Eddie (11:24.981)
Mmm.

Scott (11:49.214)
I said, I forgot how to fold them.

Eddie (11:52.754)
Scott (11:56.716)
And they don't throw very far. Like you said, they would. So I just, you know, I told her, I just drove up the driveway and put them on the porch sometimes. And that's hard. And I'm lazy, you know, like I mentioned earlier about the editing. but I found, yeah, I found a different way to do it. So I just started throwing them and they go up one side of the street and the driveway, the parking lots and you know, back on the other side. So.

Eddie (12:09.79)
Hmm. Yes.

Scott (12:29.088)
Excuse me. So they would fly like straight up like an airplane and come right back down or just like, like I said early, the Oklahoma wind would just roll them into the gutter. So that the first, the first week was rough. She said, she said, well, it's okay. Like through gridded teeth, she was so patient, but you know, her job was to manage a bunch of 12 year old kids on bicycles. So she needed to be patient. She said, why don't you bring your mom by the office? So we'll go over it again.

I'll show you how to fold it. We'll set expectations for the job. Maybe not knowing what "set expectations" means truly in the business sense, like not knowing I was, I was about to get my first pip at 11.

Eddie (13:08.297)
Right.

Eddie (13:11.72)
Yeah. Well, you deserved it.

Scott (13:14.126)
I did. So we went, they were very serious about their $40 a week paper boys.

So I'm there with another couple of imbeciles that went to different schools. I didn't know who they were. And we all didn't know we were in trouble for the crab job that we did. So he sat there. We learned the fundamentals of rolling a newspaper, which I could have learned at my dining room table. But again, you know, work meeting, not paying, I'm not going to pay attention.

Eddie (13:42.526)
Were you paying attention in this meeting? Yes. Okay. And your mom was there too?

Scott (13:44.748)
Yes. Yeah. Because mom was in the lobby with the other board moms of stupid children that just will not learn the first time. So I got it. I got it down. You fold the paper over the, you roll it up real tight, put a rubber band around it and that thing will fly. so I know what to do. She said, well, so

Eddie (13:51.968)
Eddie (13:56.96)
Hmm.

Eddie (14:07.69)
Got it.

Scott (14:14.31)
We went into logistics after that. And I missed about half the houses too, by the way, my first, my first week. She said, Scott.

Eddie (14:20.8)
Man, the only thing worse than getting a paper that's not folded right is not getting a paper at all. Man, you suck.

Scott (14:26.574)
That's a good point. Where are my Buchanan's coupons, Scott? I'm going to play full price for cheese.

Eddie (14:33.032)
Yes.

Eddie (14:37.438)
You know, they must have been desperate because they probably should have just known after the first week that you just weren't cut out for this.

Scott (14:44.206)
Well, again, they're, they're managing a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds. So I think the fact that, you know, any paper at all got delivered.

Eddie (14:59.396)
so you've twisted this to the fact that it's not that they didn't get their papers, they should be delighted when they do get their papers, considering the source of who's delivering it. Got it.

Scott (14:59.436)
But I got, what's that?

Scott (15:08.158)
absolutely over, overjoyed that that kid with the, Aerosmith concert shirt with the hole in it and a backwards Atlanta Braves ball cap got them a newspaper at all.

Eddie (15:24.476)
okay.

Scott (15:27.586)
So again, I missed half the houses. So I'll take another stab the next week, Tuesday or Thursday or Wednesday. Again, I don't know. They brought the papers back and there were two bundles every week. And so if I got up early, I, you know, snap the ribbon on the thing and start rolling them before school. I think that next morning I got a pep talk from dad and I rolled them up.

I might have helped me that morning. It was like five 30 in the morning that he said, you ready to go? So yeah, I think so.

But he wasn't real keen on me getting out at, you know, five 30 in the morning on my bike before school. was dark.

Eddie (16:12.864)
So he drove you?

Scott (16:14.177)
No, Lord, no.

Scott (16:21.998)
Yeah.

Scott (16:27.758)
I placed in my notes because the very thought of the Mick driving me like no.

Scott (16:42.958)
please.

Scott (16:56.268)
You could hum something.

Scott (17:00.695)
This will be cut.

Scott (17:18.776)
Hang on.

All right, I'll get through this.

All right, take two.

Eddie (17:27.348)
Let's do it.

Scott (17:28.396)
So I hit the bus and when I get home that day, you know, throw the Braves cap on and cause people need to know when the scholastic book fairs are and when it's tater tot day at school. So it's a big deal. I get them, I get them all loaded up and I'm thinking about it at school all day and on the bus ride home. I'm a working man. I had some problems last week. I got this, I could do this. So hop on the bike and I'm holding.

I'm holding the steering, I'm holding the handlebars and kind of wobbly. And so I get them delivered. got this rhythm. I'm shooting like shortstop flips over second base. I'm hitting all the driveways.

Eddie (18:14.56)
Let me interrupt, where are the papers supposed to go? Are they at the front porch or is it driveway?

Scott (18:18.446)
She said I need to this. This is where it's their fault. She said you need to attempt to porch every paper.

Eddie (18:32.766)
You need to attempt to porch. That's nebulous.

Scott (18:33.388)
Now, very Bill Clinton, like, what is your definition of is newspaper lady with attempt? So I'm riding my bike and some of my buddies like are out there riding next to me. He's like, what's up, paper boy? Like, okay, fellas, I'm work. I'm working. I'm very important here. This is, you know, a show on my press pass. I have the right of way. So

Eddie (18:41.088)
Yes, okay. Attempt the porch. Okay.

Eddie (18:53.779)
Of course they are.

Scott (19:02.862)
I'm riding bikes.

I'm delivering papers and this is my second time out. It's mostly to the wrong addresses, almost exclusively the wrong addresses. So then I get a call and it's her. says, Scott, where are you delivering these papers? And I described the streets. I don't know. She was like a city planner or what, but the girl knew the neighborhoods, like the back of her head. She said, that's not your route. And it's me, it's around my neighborhood. So she said, that's Jimmy's route.

I don't know who Jimmy, I don't know who Jimmy is by the way. I still don't know.

Eddie (19:36.329)
Jimmy

Eddie (19:41.214)
Okay, let me take a step back. What time are these people, because old people are creatures of habit and they want stuff the same time exactly when it's supposed to be there. So what was the expectation is when these papers were supposed to be delivered?

Scott (19:57.198)
early evening. So you give me time to get home from school, do my social studies homework, watch the Brady Bunch, chug down some cereal and get on my bike and go to work.

Eddie (20:00.135)
Really?

Eddie (20:10.014)
Nice.

Scott (20:11.352)
So here's the deal. She said, Scott, I gave you the map. And so I got the map out and I said, I'm looking at it. And again, I'm not belligerent. I'm a kid. I'm respectful. I think I know I'm in trouble now. And she said, well, where do you start? And I told her and she said, Scott, turn the map over and tell me what you see.

And I see a red marker across some of some other streets in my neighborhood. And she said, I'll turn that map back over. What do you see across the entire map? A big X. And she said, yeah, I Xed out the one that means no, these are double sided just so we can say, we can print just a few of these and give them out to the kids. And she said, so, so I didn't figure out the X, you know, by myself. She said, it's all right.

That's my fault. She said that's my fault because it's easier than, right? She, I gave you a map. she said I drove through the neighborhood and the houses that had two papers of the driveway, they were both properly folded. So I know you're doing that right.

Eddie (21:10.046)
Yeah, that is her fault.

Eddie (21:25.736)
my god. That's a backhanded compliment there.

Scott (21:29.966)
Yeah. She said, did you notice that some of these houses had a paper in the, in the, on the porch already? And well, not really. Cause I'm not hitting the porch. You know, what do you say? Yeah. I just thought they were like newspaper enthusiasts. They wanted double coupons for Sonic.

Eddie (21:49.908)
They were on vacation, they weren't home last week.

Scott (21:52.398)
So, I was a terrible paper boy. I did get better though. I got better. I started delivering by like week four or five. I got my route down. Yeah, it is finally. I get the folding system down. I got my mom and dad to take me to the mall and to Sears and I bought myself. Well, I couldn't afford a Walkman on my salary. Was it crazy expensive back then?

Eddie (22:04.36)
Nice.

Scott (22:21.1)
So I got an AM radio that was shaped like a Walkman.

Which means it was needlessly large for an AM radio. Those little transistor radios in the sixties would fit in your shirt pocket. This one was obnoxiously big. I think they wanted it to look like a Walkman, but remember it was 10 bucks. I got it at Sears and I was so excited, but you know, it was the mid eighties in Oklahoma. So there was no real political commentary yet. Limbaugh hadn't been around. So FFM

Eddie (22:54.272)
So there were headphones came with it too? Okay, got it.

Scott (22:57.294)
Yeah. Big, not big headphones, the Walkman headphones with the foam that went over the wire. So there was a pretty prominent rock station in Oklahoma City that still had an AM presence back then. they called it the KATT there, 100.5 on FM, but back then they had an AM station. It was staticky and crackly, but if you squint, you could make out that it was Zeppelin.

Eddie (23:02.836)
Yes. Yes.

Scott (23:26.786)
So I'm listening to WKY's Ag report, then, you know, pork belly stuff on my AM radio. And I had my headphones on with those, like I said, those earphones and I'm balancing my bag of papers and I'm trucking it down the street. I'm fiddling with that thing, trying to get a non-static-y something, anybody to talk to me and they're not paying attention. I crashed my bike and papers all over the street.

right in front of Kasi Grammont's house.

No Kasi she was this really sweet, frankly, brilliant girl in my sixth grade class. And it was just so humiliating to crash my bike in front of her house. I think it was her mom that came out. Somebody did. I don't know if Kasi had an older, I think she did have an older sister, but I never met her. She may not have been there anyway. I bite it right there in front of her house, skinned elbows.

My, my radio slid and there's this Creek Kasi lived in a house and there was a Creek. If you're looking at it from the street, there's a Creek to the right side of her house. My radio unplugged and slid while doing circles all the way over to the bank there where it was like teetering on falling in. It didn't have a sewer grade. As I remembered, it just had a, an open spot there and a fall into the Creek.

Eddie (25:00.138)
Did it go in? Ugh.

Scott (25:00.216)
So anyway, no, was peril, peril, perilously hanging off the edge. Her mom comes out. I think it's her mom again. I get on my bike. Some of the papers get dirty, put them all back in the bag and pedal away embarrassed after I got my radio. It didn't work again, by the way. It barely worked before then. Had those nine volt batteries that you plugged in. So I finished my route.

Eddie (25:25.184)
Yeah.

Scott (25:28.598)
The rest of day is kind of uneventful. Thank God. So go on vacation that summer and every summer we take a trip. we would go back to Dixie, my grandparents in Mississippi. I told that story on an earlier episode and

What was that dang?

Eddie (25:46.784)
I didn't hear a ding.

Scott (25:47.918)
Hang on.

Eddie (25:54.144)
All

Scott (25:54.19)
All right. So we're at my Uncle John's catfish pond. We're in the back of the tailgate of a station wagon driving back from the pond. And I guess we took that because all the fish and supplies and stuff, because you could easily walk out there. so we're coming back to, you know, fry up the catch. My grandmother's there.

Eddie (26:20.096)
Now I'm trying to make the correlation between your family trip to Mississippi and your paper route.

Scott (26:27.596)
The everybody listening is right. So I'll get there. So I'm on the back of the tailgate and we're going through this cow pasture kind of over by a grove of pine trees. And I jump out of the car and roll like, like Bo and Luke Duke. And why wouldn't I, I'm 11 or 12 years old. Like, so I'm going to run back to the house after that. Well, I broke my arm.

Eddie (26:29.856)
okay. So I'm not alone. Okay. All right.

Scott (26:56.718)
I go to the hospital that night. give me this enormous plaster cast. And so I'm like, am I going to be Wally Pipped? Is somebody else going to get my job? It are my days in the industry over. So I'll go back and get the newspapers. The second, you know, I can't fold these newspapers in my giant cast.

Eddie (27:21.592)
Hmm.

Scott (27:21.708)
And I certainly can't pedal and steer my bike and throw the papers. I broke my right arm. So that's my, you know, that's my business arm. That's my throwing arm. So mom says, look, I'll take you in the car. We'll deliver it from the car. in a couple of weeks. So my mom's driving and we have this big bag between us and my right arm is broken. So I can't throw them. So essentially my mom's delivering the papers for me. Well, she's just.

Eddie (27:47.299)
Yeah.

Scott (27:50.37)
beating the hell out of the inside of the car every time she's slinging a paper. So she's essentially just, just beating the interior and just maniacally flinging those papers out. It should smash the window and hit, you know, hit the rear view mirrors every time from inside, you know, while she's driving from inside the door, boom, actually, you know, damn it. boy, that day she was.

Eddie (28:14.932)
What was your mom, a cursing woman?

gosh.

Scott (28:19.986)
She didn't need me. I don't even, I didn't even need to be there. I could have, I couldn't do anything, but I'd suppose I could have been behind her and throwing the seats with my left hand was what I should have been doing, but we weren't real bright. So we're throwing the papers. What moms throw the papers as she hits the curb where I crashed my bike in front of Kasi Grammont's house.

Eddie (28:30.184)
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah

Scott (28:46.36)
But so, you know, what didn't fall far from the tree. It kind of, you know, there was a curb where it went off to the, the part where it, where it went down. So while there wasn't an actual curb there, a mom, know,

I don't know. I'm beginning to think it's like a miniature Bermuda triangle in front of her house.

Eddie (29:11.684)
We don't talk about the Bermuda Triangle enough anymore either. When I was a kid, there was two things we always talked about, Bermuda Triangle and quicksand. Do we talk about either of those things anymore? No. What happened? Well, Bigfoot, they're still talking about Bigfoot. You got whole channels on that.

Scott (29:22.21)
Bigfoot was a big threat too.

That's true. You know, that's a good point. When I was a kid, I thought there would be a pretty sizable danger of just running into quicksand in life, like walking through the mall park and like, Hey, stay away from there. And there's a guy swinging across that on a vine saving a lady. Yeah. You know, you don't have that happen. So anyway, mom knocked the dang car out of in front of Kasi's house. Cause there was a mini version.

Eddie (29:38.225)
Yes, yeah.

Eddie (29:46.802)
Exactly.

Scott (29:56.894)
of the Bermuda Triangle in front of her house. I don't know how they ever got deliveries or anything. So we kept going. Now that lasted about two or three weeks. Mom said to hell with this. Like we're not doing this anymore. And I think that's, I had to quit my job. That was my first foray into it. So there's a good side note here. When I was driving, I was probably 16 or 17 at this point, the neighborhood had changed some and we were still in the same house. But luckily Kasi had moved out of that damned.

area and they had moved. Yeah. Yeah. So if you had turned left out of the circle where I lived, you would go towards my elementary school and there's Kasi by the Creek. Well, she had moved in that, if you turn right out of that circle and then eventually left, there's Kasi's house, same neighborhood, but she lived on the exact same Creek that wound through the neighborhood.

Eddie (30:28.084)
the Bermuda Triangle of Moore.

Scott (30:54.988)
But instead of living, as you looked at her house from the street, the Creek was on the right side. Now it's on the left side, which I don't know if they, I don't know if dad was an avid crawdad fishermen or what, I don't know what made them do that. But I'm in my truck one day and I'd gone to Texaco and bought my Texaco for those outside of Oklahoma. Texaco was like a local gas station joint. They're all over Texas and Oklahoma.

in the south central plains. I don't know if they were east or west coast. Did you have them in Ohio? well, nevermind. The good guys always wear the star.

Eddie (31:30.622)
Yeah, we sure did.

Always wear the star.

Scott (31:37.016)
So I'm in my truck and I'd gone to Texaco to get some snuff. I don't know, was like Skoal or Copenhagen or something, because I was going to start dipping. I was going to be one of those dudes. I threw the can away on the second dip, by the way. I was...

Eddie (31:53.15)
Wait, you were 16? They sold it to you at 16? Okay. Yeah, I'm sure they probably didn't care.

Scott (31:56.462)
I don't know how I got it. I got it from Texaco. I was probably 17. I was probably 17. I was enormous, dude. I was six, two and as wide as the door. I just thought, this guy, he probably needs some tobacco. So I'm in my truck and I got a big, I got a big, what do call them? Chug dip. What is a dip? All right. I had a big dip in my mouth. I was going be one of those dudes that's always spitting and

Eddie (32:20.21)
Yeah, it's dip.

Scott (32:26.456)
like running his fingers through his mullet and saying, I can do it. Like, you know, any kind of stupid thing happening. That was, that was going to be me. That was, that was short lived because I swallowed it and I just, I was sick as a dog and the world's kind of spinning. So anyway, I'm trucking, I'm going somewhere and it's kind of wobbly and I'm turning up.

Eddie (32:33.758)
Yeah. Hey, watch this.

Eddie (32:41.312)
Eddie (32:48.163)
yeah.

Scott (32:56.302)
Kasi Grammont's road and I smash into Kasi Grammont's dad's truck.

Scott (33:05.442)
Yeah. So, hand to God this happened. It caved in my front bumper, my Georgia Bulldog tag got crushed. I got it and looked at it. I'm standing there on the street. It's dark and I see their door open. And I would not have left, know, Kasi was a friend. And so Kasi's dad comes out this time. It's the dad, not, not the mom. And he's looking at his truck.

Eddie (33:06.762)
Did you admit it? Did you go in and tell him?

Eddie (33:33.779)
or the sister.

Scott (33:34.956)
And he kneels down and says, well, didn't, you didn't do a thing to it young man. And he looks over at my truck, you know, the cave didn't bumper. And he said, boy, I don't make them look like they used to. I think it was like a sixties model Chevy. If I remember right, it got bigger and bigger and bigger as I got towards it. So I had a good view of it. I just, I just felt like I need to find a hole to climb into. Cause

And I don't, I don't remember if Kasi came out or not. It was at night, probably weekend. So she probably had something better to do than hang, hang at home. so I don't remember, but I talked.

Eddie (34:12.83)
I'm trying to figure out right now if this podcast is about your paper route or about Kasi.

Scott (34:17.697)
Dude, it's about my paper route. But funny aside, I smashed in front of her house, my mom, my mom hit the curb and knocked that car out of alignment in front of her house. She moves and I think, good. So I'm driving paper routes way in the rear view mirror at this point. And I've found a way to crash in front of her house again, un paper route related.

Eddie (34:24.256)
You

Eddie (34:45.288)
And what's the lesson?

Scott (34:46.668)
Well, I don't, I don't claim a lesson.

Eddie (34:48.511)
You

Scott (34:54.222)
I've talked to Kasi several times. She's a buddy of mine and her husband who is a wizard of a woodworker. I'll link his Facebook page to this episode. The dude could, he's he's unreal. I'll I'll show you his page.

Scott (35:10.808)
So I told her when I get back to Oklahoma, we'll go to dinner one night. But what I didn't tell her is there is absolutely no way I'm going to go to her house wherever she lives. I'll fall into a hole or something. That's not, we can meet. She said we can go to the Mont and she'd buy me a pretty famous drink they have there. It's a restaurant in Norman. I'll go, I'll drink that swirl. I'll talk about school. I shan't be going to her house.

Eddie (35:39.614)
No, that place is cursed.

Scott (35:41.078)
No way. I don't know how, like I said, I don't know how they get deliveries. don't know how, there's something going on with her. I don't know if it happens. I don't know if it happens now since she has a different last name and she's, doesn't live in Moore anymore, but I don't know. I'm not going to find out.

Eddie (35:48.608)
pets disappearing.

Eddie (35:58.47)
It's probably one of those generational curses that's going to follow her for the rest of her life.

Scott (36:03.438)
I hope not. Sweet girl. I hope that didn't happen. So here's the deal. When I had to quit because of my, my broken arm and my mom's unwillingness to be a paper boy.

Eddie (36:06.547)
Yeah. All right.

Eddie (36:17.074)
I'm going to bet that the newspaper place actually, remember in the movie Ace Ventura 2, when Ace says that he's no longer going to be a monk and they all throw a party and they're going crazy and going nuts and throwing toilet paper and all that. I bet that's what happened at the newspaper place.

Scott (36:34.286)
Well, I don't know what happened. I do know that for the next two weeks, they kept delivering me the papers. Well, I was very clear. Actually, Mary Fay Herndon was very clear. He's not doing this anymore. She's not going to, you know, I'm not going to beat to death. I'm not going to pull the headliner out of my car with those newspapers, flailing them around like Tommy Lee.

Eddie (36:39.904)
they didn't get the message?

Eddie (36:49.747)
He's done.

Eddie (37:00.704)
I'm not spending $100 to get my alignment fixed so that my son can make $40.

Scott (37:03.758)
I use $40 every two weeks. It wasn't $80 a month, So I guess it took a while to get through, through to them that I wasn't doing it. So I got two weeks delivery of, two bundles of papers. So I, I called them and said, Hey, you sent me these papers. What do I do with them? Do you want me to deliver them? Do I need to get these out? And

Eddie (37:09.073)
yeah.

Scott (37:32.492)
They already had another imbecile double delivering papers anyway at that time. So I'm sure everybody got their paper. So I tell what made me do this, but there was a convenience store right next to I-35 called U-Totem became circle K and it became some kind of local joint. And then it got blown away to its very slab in an F5 tornado. So it's not there anymore.

Eddie (37:37.503)
Ha ha.

Scott (38:01.826)
But it was still standing. I took those papers up there, balanced them on the bar on my bike. And the dude in the smock looked up, Hey man. I says, howdy. I said, I got some papers for you. I was going to let them have them. And he says, how many you got? I counted them and I put them in the rack there and he hits the register button, opens the drawer, hands me $12.

Eddie (38:18.304)
You

Eddie (38:28.432)
man!

Scott (38:29.998)
I think, wait a minute.

Eddie (38:31.966)
Wait, I think I just found something out here.

Scott (38:35.424)
easier than delivering. I am delivering, but all at once. And I had to fold them. And so I said, yeah, this is just half of them. Really? Yeah. all right. He didn't care. And so I come back with the second bundle and throw them in the, it's not one those machines that you pay to open. It's, like one of those racks, those red wire racks of the store. So I lay the other bundle on top of it. And he says, all right, cracks it open.

hands me 12 bucks. So, if I could have kept that gig, I would have done it.

Eddie (39:12.638)
Hmm.

Eddie (39:16.896)
Too little, too late.

Scott (39:18.254)
And if newspapers were the least bit relevant now, I would try to get one of those. I try to work a deal like that now. To I don't don't know what the. What's that?

Eddie (39:28.191)
What's

When's the last time you actually spent money on a newspaper?

Scott (39:35.362)
Hey man, there's a black Friday deal where the local paper will deliver for a dollar a month on the Sunday paper. gives you unlimited, street, unlimited digital versions. So that answer is probably 10 days ago.

Eddie (39:52.843)
wow, look at you. 2024.

Scott (39:54.626)
I got my first Sunday paper. I got my first Sunday paper last week and it's about the size of a Moore Monitor.

So I guess it is full circle and as for the moral here, as for the lesson learned.

I don't know. Don't hire a 12 year old?

Eddie (40:13.76)
I think, yeah, that's what I was going to say. Don't hire Scott Herndon to do important things for you that require instructions and listening skills. was the wrong lesson. Yeah.

Scott (40:18.178)
Hey.

Scott (40:23.212)
Nope. Probably, probably. It was going to be don't hire a 12 year old, but don't hire this 12 year old.

Eddie (40:30.565)
Yeah, I was just trying to, I was just narrowing it down a little bit there. No offense.

Scott (40:35.822)
I don't know why that 10 year old or $10 AM radio from Sears didn't work any better than it did.

Scott (40:48.152)
I wish I still had it.

Eddie (40:49.682)
Yeah. You know what toy did work? The evil Knievel. The one that you could just crank up and then jump stuff. my God.

Scott (40:54.798)
I'm so sick of you. I'm so sick. It's so sick of you. never, I wanted one so bad. A kid down the street had one and he'd let me play with it until, you know, he would, he would hold it over. Like, I don't think I would let you play with it today. It's the only reason I come down here. You're a dork and your mom's obnoxious and I'm here for the, I'm here for Knievel.

Eddie (41:13.248)
Mm.

Eddie (41:20.478)
Yeah, it worked. It was great. We were poor, but I guess when your dad got a bonus or something. So there you go.

Scott (41:28.802)
Well, we weren't and I didn't have any kind of toy. Like my, every time I would see something cool from the past and I would ask my buddy, Jen, Jen, what are the easy kids smirk? Yeah. I two of those. Like the best one of those, there was a thing that would go on your bike that you could twist like a, like, like a motorcycle and it would make a motorcycle sound.

Eddie (41:51.36)
those are brilliant.

Scott (41:53.886)
I wanted one so bad. They were $10 at Otasco and I wasn't rolling in newspaper money at the time and I wanted one and I saw a picture of one online and I sent it to Jed and I says, did you ever have one of these know what he was going to say? Yeah, I had one was boring. No, he said, no, I didn't have one of those. I had a dirt bike. my God.

Eddie (42:11.615)
Hattu.

Eddie (42:18.535)
Chad.

Shed.

Scott (42:22.114)
just the biggest dunk on me I've ever had in my life. And it happened a couple of months ago.

Eddie (42:29.578)
The Jed had servants that would clothe him in the morning as well.

Scott (42:33.198)
Chad had yes, from what it sounds like. Master, you be driving riding the limo to school today? Or you'll be taking one of the ponies.

Eddie (42:46.778)
that's good stuff. Sorry, Jed.

Scott (42:48.256)
I don't know. He probably probably had Michael Knight swing by and pick him up.

Eddie (42:55.04)
Stretch Armstrong, do you have one of those?

Scott (42:56.758)
I did. I had a, I had the swamp monster version and we took it to vacation to Colorado one year and it was in the car when we were in the camper and it froze solid. And I, I got teary. I thought I had killed it. Like I felt so bad. And my dad and my brother, said, Hey, Hey bud, we'll take care of this.

Eddie (43:12.493)
Mm. Did it come back?

Scott (43:25.514)
I could, I can fix this. And so they set stretch on the bump. know, bump. Yeah. the transmission bump of the station wagon and they put the heater on the floor vents and they damn near melted it, but they got it back working. They got it back working and handed it. So here you go, man. And I literally thought my brother had done CPR. Like he was a miracle worker and it was hot and it's thing would stretch across the car.

Eddie (43:31.582)
The bump.

Eddie (43:39.744)
Yeah.

Eddie (43:53.896)
Hmm, good times.

Scott (43:55.776)
Yeah, that's great times. Actually, we're going to have a, we're going to have a, a, an episode about toys, from, from our childhood coming up soon. I'd love to have you involved that hear about your stupid Ferdy bird.

Eddie (44:07.924)
Not great. I tell my one paper route story, paper voice story before we go? Okay, so I did not have a paper route because I was, is pansy? Can you say that word on the podcast? Exactly. Anyway, I just wasn't, unlike you, I wasn't cut of the entrepreneurial cloth to go out and, you know,

Scott (44:15.586)
Do you have a yes.

Scott (44:24.876)
I say, I say, I say that to you all the time.

Eddie (44:39.008)
kill something and bring it home to distribute to. Yes, exactly. But we did have a, you know, going back to a previous podcast, the paper boy was also a bully. So whenever he would deliver a paper and I was in the yard, he would chase me down, put me in the yard in the grass, sit on my face and then fart and then throw the paper on the porch and then drive off.

Scott (44:41.026)
You'd rather be a ward of the state from your parents. Okay.

Scott (45:08.514)
Wow.

Eddie (45:09.512)
Yeah, that stopped when my dad came out and said he can't do that anymore. Well, I don't remember the exact words that he used.

Scott (45:14.178)
You can't, he said, you can't do that anymore. the bully pulled out a notepad and said, Eddie is off the list.

Eddie (45:25.094)
Yeah, okay. Thanks for making it official.

Scott (45:28.894)
I was just wrecking my bike and skin in half of my skin off in front of Kasi's house. I never thought to do that. Did you people tip him at Christmas?

Eddie (45:30.218)
Yeah.

Eddie (45:40.434)
Yeah. Well, see?

I don't know. I don't know if my parents tipped the paperboy or mailman or milkman or whoever showed up at our house back in those days. I don't recall.

Scott (45:57.452)
Man, somebody should have tipped me with instructions on how to fold a newspaper.

Eddie (46:02.176)
That's awesome.

Scott (46:04.418)
Here's your tip. Quit screwing up. Quit throwing this in the creek next to my house.

Eddie (46:08.96)
Quit spending 10 bucks on crappy radios at the mall.

Scott (46:13.28)
Those are the tips I would have appreciated like life lessons. All right, we're done. Thanks Eddie.

Eddie (46:15.232)
Yeah.

Eddie (46:20.352)
You got it.

20 papers, that's $2 plus tip.