Seeing this thread reminded me of the newsstand that was in my hometown. They had a whole wall of magazines (Playboy, etc., were in the back room, and the owner watched like a hawk any time the kids got near the door), books, greeting cards, and newspapers from all over the Midwest. When I was in high school, I'd stop there in the morning and get a Chicago Tribune (the Midwest Edition that printed at 6 p.m. was what we got for a while, but by my senior year we started getting a late edition), and read it during my free period. Then late morning, another distributor would drop off USA Today and the Chicago Sun-Times at the newsstand, and I'd grab copies of those on my way home from school. I knew I wanted to get into newspapers, and reading those sports sections became a daily routine. My mom and dad would complain about all of the money I was spending on papers — and then spend the evening reading all of them after I was done.
The owner of the newsstand wouldn't be open on holidays, but she would go down early in the morning and put the papers that had been delivered onto a metal rack outside the front door. You paid on the honor system. I always paid — I figured if she was taking the time to do it, I could leave the money.
There was a grocery store in town that would have Sunday newspapers piled in shopping carts. You could go there and get both Chicago papers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and some others from our side of the state. My dad, who was a big Cubs and Bears fan, would get both Chicago papers on the way home from church.
The owner of the newsstand wouldn't be open on holidays, but she would go down early in the morning and put the papers that had been delivered onto a metal rack outside the front door. You paid on the honor system. I always paid — I figured if she was taking the time to do it, I could leave the money.
There was a grocery store in town that would have Sunday newspapers piled in shopping carts. You could go there and get both Chicago papers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and some others from our side of the state. My dad, who was a big Cubs and Bears fan, would get both Chicago papers on the way home from church.
