…’Scientists tell us’…lol

Laxatives. After seeing that, Irritable Bear needs laxatives.

“What will be your boy’s place in the world of tomorrow?” Obviously trying to find a place to wash that chimney soot off his face. What, did the sweep ram him down the flue head-first?

_@_v – i has a national geographic article about ‘your new world of tomorrow’ published in october of ‘45 that included a home facsimile receiver that hooked to your radio so you could get your news (and adverts) printed on (expensive) ’sensitized paper’ in the country as fast as city dwellers!

Growing up in a small, northern Canadian town, I only got glimpses (teasing ones) of American society. No Saturday morning cartoons, no first run movies…but we did get comic books. Which leads me to this. What was that newspaper that advertised in said comics which promised young people untold riches if they sold enough copies? It had a short, one word name, and claimed to be nation-wide. Some exposition would be appreciated. Thank you.

That newspaper was called “Grit.” Not an appealing name, and not a paper I ever saw a copy of.

Thanks again

With the striped shirt and the wide sash, I think this boy’s place in the world will be at the business end of a gondola.

Growing up in a large, southern Canadian city (Toronto) and having delivered the Globe and Mail on foot like this kid, my sympathies go out to him. Winter mornings at 5 am were no picnic, and Toronto is a heck of a lot milder than Minneapolis!
But, hey, I earned enough to send myself to a pretty nice summer camp. The next year, in Pasadena, Calif, I did a brief stint delivering the Star News (where my dad worked) by bike. Lots nicer climate in the winter, but the smog and the heat in the summer were near-fatal!

Drat. Now that I think about it, this should’ve been obvious. More than anyone else (including Dad, busy overseas), it’d be the youngsters reading Heinlein’s juveniles and buying issues of Astounding and Popular Mechanics who’d be well acquainted with helicopters in the garage and other science fiction conventions. Oh well.

And that text is the classic example of something that would’ve been the butt of 6,231,412 jokes a decade ago… but has now become a wistful reminder of a lost sincerity/innocence — in this post-ironic era when even snarking cynicism itself has become rather stale.

Or something. Can I has tenure?

My grandparents subscribed to Grit; most of their rural neighbors did too. It was a folksy little paper, full of lots of Paul Harvey-esque, “what a whacky world we live in” stories. I never met the kid who sold them, though. Maybe he was kicking back in Belize.

I am ever amazed to see references to planes “anyone can fly.” No no no no! Take the average driver and give him/her another axis to screw up in? Where did they think they were going to land? Sorry to rant, but this makes me crazy.

My son (who turned 13 on Monday) is a paperboy. He’s got twin baskets on the back of his bike, and delivers about 40 papers, Wednesday and Sunday. (It’s a local paper, and they understand they can’t really do an every-day thing.)

Right down the block is an old-time hardware store, in a 200-year-old building. The current owner is a subscriber. He told me he was in awe to see a kid on a bike, delivering papers. Sadly, most kids these days have their parents drive them around on their routes. (Or the parents do it, to earn some extra cash.)

Your boys place in the world of tomorrow will still be in the bathroom, thanks to the future’s newly advanced version of laxatives. Clean bowels means victory for America.

It’s always seemed to me that the best way to learn about a time period is to look at what they thought the future would be like.

Scientists tell us that if you run out in front of a truck and get killed, your brain will end up in a giant robot with energy-blasting eye sockets.

A nit, but Heinlein’s juvies were postwar: the first, Rocket Ship Galileo, was published in 1947.

Scientists tell us that the world of tomorrow will be based on astoundingly naive and uninformed assumptions about engineering and economics.

How well your boy will get along in this world depends on a ludicrous overestimation of the ability of having a paper route to influence largely genetically determined personality characteristics.

That list of “fine qualities” would also make a fairly successful grifter. Hmmm.

My first paying job was delivering the Philly Bulletin in Haddonfield, NJ in 72-73. And just look at me now. Oh wait, never mind.

But I would like to have one of those really keen bubble helicopters.

Where’s my damn airplane!?

I want my flying car, dammit !

Northropy-looking flying wing is pretty awesome.

Yes!! Clark Kent Daily Planet aka the Daily Global

The building with the world globe on top was the give away

The internet killed the paperboy

I have, in fact, seen a copy of Grit.

pretty lightweight weekly.

imagine, if you will, a Beowulf cluster of National Enquirers with no sleaze, no embarassment, no Bat Boy bogosities, just “good ol’ boy makes good” and “dog returns home” stories. no press color. plenty of laxative ads for Irritable Bear.

that’s a stack of Grit papers.

“What will be your boy’s place in the world of tomorrow?”

Breathing extra-shallow to minimize his Carbon Footprint (TM) while watching documentary TV series on how The Planet will Heal Herself once the Cancer of Humanity is finally expunged…

Larry:

Internet killed the paperboy star,
Internet killed the paperboy star,
Can’t rewind
We’ve gone too far…

It’s always seemed to me that the best way to learn about a time period is to look at what they thought the future would be like. — Obi-Wandreas

And to learn about what was worrying them, look at their dystopias.

Aren’t dystopias what’s left on the ground after you consume copious amounts of laxatives? We must ask Irritable Bear.

Got my first paper route when I was 10. Delivered until I was 16 and could drive to work.

Not much fun during the winter (although at least it was the Chicago area and not Minn), but I always had some money of my own even as a kid, which was cool. Taught me how to talk to people too, which has been a valuable skill my whole life.

I should give the time frame, 1975-1981

So the Grit was like the opposite of the Pravdas we get today.

@Steve Ripley
Steve; I work in Pasadena. I now swim in the spot that I think was the printing plant for the Star News. There is a gym in the basement of old building now. I used to wonder what the narrow gauge railroad tracks in the floor were until I saw a photo James posted of the Star Tribune’s former printing plant that had the same tracks set in the concrete floor. I googled the gym’s address and found out it was the previous location of the Pasadena Star News
BTW, smog’s a little better, but the heat will still kill you anyway.