The Last Bundle by Diane Ogden

The last bundle will be delivered this weekend and I don't mean the last bundle of joy!  I am referring to the last heavy banded wad of recycled and recyclable newspapers.  The ones that carry news to the multitudes via my vehicle and skeletal bone and muscle mass to the masses...  How do you spell relief?  This is part of it!! Never having to park my car with two wheels on the curb so the city buses can get past me within inches of my rear view mirror! Never having to worry about packing too much weight into my one and only vehicle. Or fighting the crowds around the capital area when there's a marathon race or merely the Farmer's Market which draws in thousands of people who become obstacles like big orange barrels in your quest to the daily finish line.  Never having to go to a dark warehouse in the middle of downtown ALONE, without mace or pepper spray at 5 a.m.  And so on. Don't even ask me to sub, ever ever again.

I started delivering papers in 2004. Sometimes we don't get the relief we wish for as fast as we would prefer.  It has been similar to be married to newspapers.  They are messy and inky and heavy but there is a pay off.  I would say this is my seven year newspaper itch.  I wish to now have an affair with an otherwise way for a payoff.  I am divorcing the newspaper delivery life.  Thank God or not.  Simply meaning I am not so sure God had much to do with it in any way except delivering me from delivering any longer. 

I started this blog in 2007 at which time I was delivering newspapers, The Onion being one of them, out of an old warehouse in downtown Madison.  Before that I had a respected licensed day care in another city which I attempted to move to Madison.  But then similar to Jr. High bullies, some State Workers, of course women, decided to halt all necessary paperwork for my re-licensing.  Me, not being a fighting individual, moved on past it all.  The old "cant fight city hall" cliche ran through my head day and night and was right.  To make a sad story short, I lost everything.  One day someone offered me a paper route.  That meant I could eat again, so I took it.  I drove bundles through blizzards, rain storms, torrid heat, backaches, broken air conditioners, broken car heaters, and on and on.  The papers got me back on my feet, oddly after seven years I am hoping they don't take me off my feet. 

I am grateful to the bundles for the time they served.  That's all!  And I gladly pass them on to some other needy human with a sturdy axle.  No pun intended, of course it is......

I will be missed I am sure of this fact.  Because I told people they looked like a certain movie "star" at least once a day for seven years. There isn't any compliment higher,  given to a passerby unless they are homeless and you hand them a $20 dollar bill.  I was a mere newspaper "star" but the masses wont ever forget me.  My Grand daddy taught me how to make people remember me! Make THEM shine like a star.  Try it and I guarantee success and happiness all the way around.  That would be  my Happy News for the day.