Shocking — not one right answer. But the Melvin Purvis link provides a treasure trove of possibilities.

Question! Why is Minnesota referred to as the upper Midwest? Shouldn’t it be the ‘up-est’ Midwest?

They’re good citizens because they’re too tired / have sore backs and can’t go out and be delinquents!
- former paper carrier, so I know.

I agree with J.E.H!

Failing that, perhaps a career in door-to-door laxatives sales.

Well in a way it is door ro door laxatives. paper is made from wood pulp fiber, fiber is a laxative, so……..

Ah the paper route… where young boys first learn the great lessons of life. Responsibility. Hard work. Collecting past-due payments from the guy that just bought a new ‘Vette. Venetian blinds block the view of the outdoors at night, but make you perfectly visible to anyone in the front yard. The basic skills required for ‘casing’ your neighbor’s house.

I miss those simpler times.

Wouldn’t take much to nudge all that ad copy into an endorsement of this as a home-grown “School of professional Burglary”.

Case in point: Tuesday’s Comic Sins, which features that gaggle of youthful do-gooders, the Newsboy Legion!

Hey, my parents put my borther and sister through college with those paper routes. My sister was the deadbeat enforcer.

Wow! That must be a really old ad, well before the advent of: “THE F.B.I. (dramatic pause)… IN COLOR!”

Drat. Now I have this irrelevant hankering to watch episodes of Police Squad.

Damm – G men

Hmm, you know door-to-door newspaper delivery boys will develop a keen eye towards which houses have good stuff or not, and 1) either the homeowners will suspend delivery — telling when they are out of town, or 2) there will be a build up of newspapers on the front stoop.

All that walking and/or bike riding provides the gentle exercise which promotes natural regularity. Laxatives.

@Mr. Michael

Saw the ‘Vette of my dreams in 1979 while delivering the Sacramento Bee. Yellow on White. Sweet. And I’m a Ford guy…

Collecting. Bleh. Everyone goes out of their way to Scrooge a kid delivering the paper. I’ve no doubt that most Comic Book Super Villains had the seeds of retaliatory mayhem and world submission planted in their damaged gray-matter by the the folks who couldn’t be bothered to pay their monthly subscription on time.

and Hoover probably had a file on every paperboy. if ever you sold an “extra” paper that was supposed to be put on the doorstep of the lone holdout on the route, once in a rare while so they finally subscribed, you were subject to blackmail.

Oddly the descriptions of why routework is character building reminded me of the description of game play in The Godfather game: you go around to different businesses and lean on the proprietors for protection money. Character building!

…picturing Hoover in a blonde wig and a tasteful, high-collared pinafore…

eeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww…!

It’s hard to ride a paper route in crinolines and heels.

“By ‘our experience’ I am referring of course to myself and my close friend and colleague Clyde. After hours, we often invite newsboys and other strapping youngsters into our home for bouts of Greco-Roman wrestling.”

_@_v – house has a funny smell and they haven’t picked up their papers in a couple weeks… they paid in advance so it’s not my problem