Six Degrees of Ed Sullivan

I haven’t always been a retail junkie. I was once a paperboy. In fifth grade, I decided that I wanted to play the saxophone, so my parents, in an effort to instill an appreciation of expensive things, as well as enlighten me to the fact that life wasn’t the delusional joyride I had thought it was, decided that I would have to pay for the saxophone myself. The allowance I was receiving for mowing the lawn in the summer, shoveling the driveway in the winter, and doing the dishes and babysitting my little sister year round wasn’t nearly enough to cover the monthly payments for the instrument, so if I truly want to be a saxophonist who owned a saxophone, I would have to get a real job. So I did.

Not having much of a resume, the only real job that I was qualified for was as a real paperboy, with a real paper route. For four very long and formative years, I delivered newspapers early in the morning, seven days a week, 365 days a year, with my loyal dog Gonzo at my side. Somewhere during that stretch of time, I hit a homerun in Little League, kissed a girl for the first time, and paid my saxophone off. I remember sending in the last payment as vividly as I remember knocking that ball out of the park and that magical electric feeling from that first kiss.

Although my paper route taught me the value of a strong work ethic, it was a miserable experience. Even now, 25 years later, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, thinking that in only a few short hours, I will have to crawl out of bed, get dressed, and head out into the freezing cold darkness, with a heavy sack full of newspapers hanging from my shoulder. It was also an extremely lonely experience. With the exception of Mrs. Seaf, an elderly lady who lived alone and was the last stop on my route, and who was a high school classmate of Ed Sullivan, and had the yearbook to prove it, I had no one to talk to. But Mrs. Seaf, or “Seafy,” as she preferred to be called, loved to talk to me. She also loved to talk to her parakeet, “Kitty,” but I didn’t mind, because she fed me all the Oreo cookies I could eat. Each morning, while I delivered the world to the doorstep of the people, I looked forward to those Oreo cookies, every step of the way. Mrs. Seaf became a great pal of mine, but as far as developing a working relationship with a fellow coworker who wasn’t a dog, that was something I would have to wait years to do.

These days, those lonely days of slinging newspapers are over. I now work at a bike shop, and I sling everything from bicycles to spoke nipples. Instead of trudging from door to door one hour each day, I bounce from customer to customer eight hours each day. And instead of looking forward to a plate of cookies served up by Mrs. Seaf, I look forward to a cold pint of beer served up by a guy named Brutus.

And contrary to those lonely days as a paperboy, I now know all about relationships with fellow coworkers. Fortunately, I like the people I work with. In fact, many of my fellow coworkers are among my best friends. We get along well, and we have a lot more in common than the inherent need for a paycheck. We’re all active folks, we’re all English majors, or might as well be, and we’re all broke. But above all, the most common characteristic that truly binds us is a profound and unwavering love of beer. In fact, the entire outdoor industry shares this affection.

Nowhere is this love of malt and hops more apparent than at a trade show, where vendors use free beer to draw dealers to their booths. Throngs of dealers come from all directions towards the keg, like zombies caught in a tractor beam. It is impossible to resist, and without fail, a few beers later, you’re stuck listening to a sales rep, pretending to act interested in a product that you will never sell. Speaking of trade shows, next week I am going to a trade show in Providence, RI. We’ll see if I can resist those seductive kegs while I’m there. Maybe I should bring some Oreo cookies.