{"id":289,"date":"2026-05-31T10:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T10:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=289"},"modified":"2026-05-31T10:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T10:36:14","slug":"the-paperboys-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=289","title":{"rendered":"The Paperboy\u2019s Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My first job in journalism\u2014long before I knew that I wanted to write, and decades before I became a foreign correspondent\u2014was delivering newspapers for the Columbia Missourian<\/em>. I started at 5 A<\/em>.M<\/em>. on February 1, 1979, during one of those cold, snowy winters that used to be common in mid-Missouri. The front page featured a photograph of two local children playing in the snow, and a fifty-four-point headline carried news from a distant world: \u201cTRIUMPHANT KHOMEINI RETURNS TO TEHRAN.<\/em>\u201d The paper consisted of thirty-four pages, and had a cover price of fifteen cents. Along with my older sister, Amy, I folded the newspapers and set out with a list of addresses. Our father accompanied us on the first day, but after that we were on our own.<\/p>\n

Read more Looking Back at Lewis and Clark<\/a><\/p>\n

Amy and I planned to share the route, and our earnings would help pay the fees at a summer camp. At the age of nine, I was probably too young to deliver papers, but Amy, at thirteen, was almost certainly too old. She was striking, with black hair, a fair complexion, and cat-green eyes; people noticed Amy wherever she went. During the spring, we alternated paper-route days, but I could tell that she didn\u2019t enjoy it. A few times, she woke me at 5 A<\/em>.M<\/em>., claimed to be sick, and asked me to substitute. I noticed that Amy tended to feel bad on Wednesdays and Sundays, when the paper was heavy with extra ads and special sections.<\/p>\n

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We had always gotten along well, perhaps because our personalities were so different. Amy was easygoing and extroverted, and I was not; she thrived at school, which I hated. Almost everything that my sister disliked about the paper route was something that appealed to me. I liked waking up early, and I liked the repetition. I liked the fresh smell of the newspapers that were dropped off in a stack every morning at the end of our driveway. I liked the official paperwork: the stop notices, the new-subscriber slips. The Missourian\u2019s<\/em> circulation department sent these forms in white envelopes that read:<\/p>\n

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GOOD SERVICE IS GOOD BUSINESS PROPER\u00a0& PUNCTUAL DELIVERY BUILD BIG PROFITS FOR\u00a0YOU<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Mostly, I liked the silence and solitude. Back then, in a small Midwestern city, almost nobody exercised before dawn, and dog-walkers were rare. The one I saw most frequently was on the address list that I had memorized: Glenn Wood, 110 South Garth Avenue. The first time I did the route alone, he was out in front of his house with his dog. He introduced himself, and he told me that the dog was named Sadie. Then he gave me a quarter.<\/p>\n

I came home excited. The route paid a little more than a dollar a day, so a quarter tip was significant. A couple of days later, Mr. Wood gave me another quarter. When I mentioned his name to my parents, they recognized him as the city clerk who signed municipal notices that appeared in the paper. He was in his early sixties, and part of his face was covered with a large purple birthmark. My mother referred to such discolorations, in respectful terms, as \u201craspberries\u201d\u2014a quiet woman at our church had a similar blemish. Like all physical deformities, raspberries were a sign of inner goodness, or at least that was an idea I had picked up from the Bible and from things the priest said in sermons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Wood also greeted Amy on her paper mornings, but he rarely tipped her. It was unusual for an adult to show more interest in me; even at nine, I recognized that Amy possessed some magnetism that I lacked. After a while, I stopped mentioning the quarters, because I worried that Amy might demand half the money. In truth, she wasn\u2019t likely to do such a thing, but that would have been my own response, so it seemed prudent to protect against it.<\/p>\n

In July, Amy and I spent all our paper-route earnings to attend the camp, which was in Minnesota. A number of older boys developed crushes on Amy there, and I was rushed to the emergency room to receive stitches after slicing my left wrist open with a scalpel during a crafts unit. I had never seen so much blood; I could tell that the two young counsellors who drove me to the hospital were terrified. Not long after we returned home, Amy quit the paper route. By now, I was ten, and smart enough to recognize that only a sucker would work all year to send himself away in the summer. I never went back to camp, and eventually I decided on two goals of my own. I wanted to become Carrier of the Year, and I wanted to save enough money to buy a car when I turned sixteen.<\/p>\n

On many mornings, I saw Mr. Wood. He often asked about school and sports, and he told me that he had been a baseball coach and a Boy Scout leader. He was active in the local Methodist church. At some point, he started putting the quarters into my pocket himself. He would press close, and put his arm around me, and then I would feel his hand inside my pocket. I sensed that this wasn\u2019t right, but it happened so subtly that I couldn\u2019t even say how it began. After a while, it became almost normal. Like the quarters, this was something I didn\u2019t mention when I got home.<\/p>\n

Columbia had around sixty thousand residents, and it was home to two competing papers, with the Daily Tribune<\/em> delivered in the afternoon. Both papers announced Carrier of the Year in October, to commemorate International Newspaper Carrier Day. This occasion was often marked by an official proclamation from the city\u2019s mayor:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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WHEREAS, many of the citizens of Columbia rely on newspaper carriers to bring them their only information concerning local and world events; and<\/p>\n

WHEREAS, many prominent citizens of the United States and Columbia started in the business world as a news carrier\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

During my third year, my friend Eric Neuner won Carrier of the Year. The Missourian<\/em> published a picture of Eric receiving his award from James Kirkpatrick, the Missouri secretary of state. Eric was a year older than me, a good athlete and a voracious reader. He was the only other carrier I knew who read almost everything in the newspapers he delivered. That had become part of my morning routine: halfway through folding papers, I took a break to read the sports section, and then, after I got home, I tried to finish the newspaper at breakfast. I skimmed most political and international news, but I read everything about local accidents, arrests, and scandals. I loved the syndicated \u201cDear Abby\u201d column, especially the headlines:<\/p>\n

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WIFE IN HAND, BETTER THAN NIECE IN BUSH<\/p>\n

OVERWEIGHT SON CHEATS ON DIET BY NIBBLING FROM NEIGHBOR\u2019S DOG DISH<\/p>\n

LUSTY LIFEGUARD GETS INTO SEXUAL HOT WATER<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The first step toward becoming Carrier of the Year was to win Carrier of the Month. Candidates were disqualified if they received more than four customer complaints, and they had to participate in subscription drives. In the afternoons, I went door to door, trying to persuade people to take the Missourian<\/em>. I learned that, despite my shyness, I was good at selling. I liked the nervousness I felt after pushing a strange doorbell, knowing that I would have to perform my sales pitch.<\/p>\n

It took me a little more than a year to win Carrier of the Month. The announcement appeared on March 8, 1980, on page\u00a03, along with the international headlines:<\/p>\n

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NEW VIOLENCE SWEEPS EL SALVADOR; 29 DEAD<\/p>\n

SOVIETS GEARED FOR OFFENSIVE IN AFGHANISTAN<\/p>\n

COLUMBIA MISSOURIAN CONGRATULATES CARRIER OF THE MONTH PETER HESSLER<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The article included a photograph, along with my grade and home address. In those days, publishing such details wasn\u2019t considered risky for a child; the paper did the same thing for its Safe Bike Rider of the Week feature. The article about my award noted that I stood just four feet three inches tall, and it quoted a subscriber. \u201cHe\u2019s so tiny that some mornings his papers drag,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s a swell little fellow.\u201d I received a free haircut from Fantastic Sam\u2019s, a banana split from Baskin-Robbins, and five dollars.<\/p>\n

Size was my worst handicap as a carrier. I was so small that I had been held back in school, but even with a year\u2019s advantage I remained among the shortest in my grade. I was naturally co\u00f6rdinated, and I believed that I was one of the fastest folders in the history of paperboys. Each step of the process\u2014grab the paper, fold it twice, wrap the rubber band<\/em>\u2014was so quick and fluid that I imagined my hands as a Road Runner blur. Carriers often became obsessed with speed and efficiency. Eric, who was much bigger than me, rigged a bike with saddlebags to balance his load. My friend Brian Fick bought a Casio digital watch and timed how long it took him to bicycle his route every morning. Brian decided to skip the rubber bands, using instead the plastic bags that the Missourian<\/em> gave us for rainy days, because he believed that they slid more quickly out of the canvas sack.<\/p>\n

My route was hilly, and I carried more than forty papers. Nowadays, it\u2019s easy to forget how large newspapers used to be. A page from the Missourian<\/em> was two inches wider and nearly three inches longer than a page from today\u2019s New York Times<\/em>, and the typical Sunday Missourian<\/em>, with sixty or more pages, weighed about a pound. I couldn\u2019t handle such weight on a bike, so I walked, cutting through yards and finding gaps in fences and hedges. If I passed through the neighborhood later in the day as a civilian, I recognized thin ribbons of worn yellow grass crossing the green lawns. I was the only person who knew what those ribbons represented\u2014the secret ways I walked every morning.<\/p>\n

Most of the year, apart from summer, I delivered in darkness. Lights went on in certain houses at certain times, and I could tell if I was running late by the patterns of illuminated windows. In one Carrier of the Month feature, the Missourian<\/em> quoted the winner (Mike Wagner, twelve years old, 2 Lucerne Court). \u201cI get to see things other people don\u2019t see,\u201d Wagner said, without elaborating. I felt the same way, although I also had a horror-fascination with the idea that someday I would come across a dead body. In addition to winning Carrier of the Year, Eric Neuner achieved renown when he stumbled upon a trail of blood early one morning on Edgewood Avenue, after somebody had injured himself trying to break into a car. The paper occasionally ran stories about crimes or fires that had been reported by Missourian<\/em> carriers. (January 12, 1982: \u201cYOUTH TIPS OFF POLICE TO THEFT AT WIDOW\u2019S HOME.\u201d<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One morning, I was taking a shortcut beside a house on South Garth Avenue when I happened to see a high-school student getting dressed inside. The boy was a year older than Amy, who I knew found him cute. He stood in his underwear in front of a low window. We were about ten feet apart, separated by the pane of glass, and I froze. Then, very carefully, I tried to walk away. But he must have heard something, and his head snapped up. For an instant, it felt as though our eyes met. I hoped that it was only my imagination\u2014I knew it was hard to see outside from a lit room.<\/p>\n

The following morning, the window had been covered with a makeshift curtain. For days, I feared that the boy\u2019s parents would complain to the paper or to my parents. The headlines had made it clear that people could get arrested for such things. (November 23, 1980: \u201cPEEPING TOM: AN OVERLOOKED PROBLEM THAT SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.\u201d<\/em>) I prepared explanations\u2014it wasn\u2019t intentional, this is where I walk every morning<\/em>\u2014but I knew that nobody would believe me.<\/p>\n

In boyhood, guilt was a constant companion. It tagged along wherever I went; there was always something I had done, some hidden mistake or private atrocity, that was on the verge of being discovered. I often got in trouble at school, usually for making other kids laugh in class, and I dreaded the angry notes that teachers included in my report cards. A couple of times, I shoplifted baseball cards from the local drugstore. I slipped a pack or two into my shorts, and then I paid for one at the counter, being sure to smile and make eye contact. It was easy, but afterward I felt bad, and I stopped before it became a habit.<\/p>\n

I attended a small Catholic school, and periodically all the students were escorted into the church in order to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The screened confessional booths were situated in the back, but it was also possible to meet a priest face to face. Anybody who chose this option had to walk past the altar to the front of the church, where the priest waited in a small room. Perhaps because of this visibility, it became a point of pride for tough-minded boys to scorn the screens. In our opinion, only girls and weaklings slunk to the back; it felt good to stride before the congregation with your head high.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But once I was sitting across from the priest my courage evaporated. I mumbled through some ten-cent sins\u2014I disobeyed my parents, I was mean to my sister<\/em>\u2014and got out as quickly as possible. On my way back to the pew, the guilt was still there, loping doggedly at my side.<\/p>\n

A couple of times, I thought about mentioning Mr. Wood to the priest. Something in my mind shut off when he touched me: my body would freeze, and I would think about nothing until it was over and the quarter was safely inside my pocket. Mr. Wood smoked cigars, and the heavy scent was often on his clothes when he came close. Occasionally, he pretended to miss the pocket, and his hand slipped inside my pants. \u201cWhoops!\u201d he would say. \u201cSorry about that.\u201d At those moments, I felt the touch of his fingers, and I flinched and pulled away.<\/p>\n

He seemed to sense when I became too uncomfortable. A week or more might pass before he put his arm around me again, and during the interlude he remained friendly. He was the only person on the route who talked to me regularly. His children were much older than me, and I told myself that this was the source of his affection\u2014he was a father, after all. His wife rarely joined him on his walks; the few times I met her, she didn\u2019t say much. After a while, Mr. Wood asked if I wanted to earn some extra money on Saturdays. His fraternal lodge, the Odd Fellows, organized a group of boys who sold soft drinks at University of Missouri football games.<\/p>\n

I decided not to say anything to the priest. I knew from the past that most of my worries turned out to be baseless. After I saw the high-school boy getting dressed, there wasn\u2019t any fallout. Maybe he hadn\u2019t recognized me, or maybe he just hadn\u2019t thought much about it. In my experience, invisibility was part of childhood. It was like the illuminated windows on a darkened street\u2014I saw more of other people than they could see of me.<\/p>\n

My home was less than a mile from the campus of the University of Missouri. My father taught in the sociology department, and many professors, some of them well known, lived in our neighborhood. I delivered the paper to 408 Thilly Avenue, which belonged to an English professor and a fiction writer who had co-founded the Missouri Review<\/em>. A famous biologist had built the house at 504 Westmount Avenue. My father told me that 106\u00a0West\u00a0Lathrop Road, an old, slightly run-down two-story at the edge of the woods, had once been occupied by a strange, great man named Thorstein Veblen. According to my father, Veblen had lived in the basement, which he entered and exited through a window.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Whenever I passed the house, I imagined somebody clambering through the window wells. Veblen\u2019s name was hard to remember, but I connected the house and its basement to the phrase \u201cconspicuous consumption.\u201d Long before I understood the term, I was taken with its poetry. That was true of many of my father\u2019s work words: \u201cmethodology,\u201d \u201clongitudinal,\u201d \u201csocial deviance.\u201d<\/p>\n

He used these terms casually, and he loved telling stories. If he heard something vivid or shocking, he couldn\u2019t stop himself from repeating it, not even to a child. Because of my father, I knew that one house on my route, 703 Westmount Avenue, had been home to an alcoholic who killed himself in the attic. A few doors down, another man blew out his brains with a gun. Various other homes stood as narrative monuments to failed marriages and post-tenure crackups. To this day, if I think of a certain red brick house, I can hear my father describing how the professor who lived there suddenly started failing all his students for no reason. From an early age, I recognized that the university was a place where adults might behave erratically.<\/p>\n

Thorstein Veblen was the kind of character who appealed to my father. Veblen, an economist and a sociologist, became famous after publishing \u201cThe Theory of the Leisure Class,\u201d in 1899. His social commentary reflected disgust with the unfettered capitalism of the Gilded Age, and his cynical aphorisms became widely quoted. (\u201cAlways and everywhere invention is the mother of necessity.\u201d) Veblen taught at the University of Chicago, but he was let go on account of relentless philandering. The same thing got him dismissed from his next position, at Stanford. In 1911, with diminishing options, he arrived at M.U., where a former student headed the economics department. The former student found Veblen a job, and he let him live in the basement of his home on Lathrop.<\/p>\n

An elderly colleague of my father remembered seeing Veblen on campus. He had been a thin, gloomy figure, and it was a mystery why women were attracted to him. A story the colleague told, which my father loved repeating, was that university officials warned Veblen that they were aware of his reputation for having seduced the wives of administrators at Stanford. They told him that such behavior would not be tolerated at M.U. \u201cOh, I\u2019ve seen your administrators\u2019 wives,\u201d Veblen responded. \u201cYou have nothing to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story may have been apocryphal, but it rings true to descriptions in \u201cThorstein Veblen and His America,\u201d a 1934 biography. The book gives a lively account of the six years that Veblen spent in Columbia, which he loathed. When the Chamber of Commerce offered a prize for a new city slogan, Veblen proposed that the town be described as a woodpecker hole in \u201ca rotten stump called Missouri.\u201d Veblen typically gave every student in his class the same grade, an M, or Medium, the equivalent of a C. If a student needed a higher mark for some scholarship or application, Veblen simply changed it. Once, administrators confronted him about the carelessness of his grading. \u201cMy grades are like lightning,\u201d Veblen replied. \u201cThey are liable to strike anywhere.\u201d The biography notes the same detail that captured my imagination as a child: Veblen went in and out of his basement apartment through a window.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As a graduate student, my father was mentored by a Chinese American sociologist named Peter Kong-ming New, who gave him some advice: Never accept an appointment as chair of your department. If anybody insists that you undertake some administrative task, do it so poorly that he never asks again.<\/p>\n

My father followed this advice like the Gospel. He was a devoted teacher, and he liked research, but he refused to have anything to do with administration. In the various M.U. stories that he told, many of them funny and cynical, one of the ugliest words was \u201cdean.\u201d Other nasty names included \u201cprovost\u201d and \u201cchancellor.\u201d In this respect, he followed a long tradition of social scientists who apply caustic commentary to their host institutions. At M.U., Thorstein Veblen had written a vicious screed about university administrations called \u201cThe Higher Learning in America.\u201d He told a colleague that the subtitle would be \u201cA Study in Total Depravity.\u201d Unsurprisingly, M.U. declined to publish it.<\/p>\n

By avoiding administrative duties, my father also guaranteed himself a low salary. He rarely received much of a raise, and anybody who read the Missourian<\/em> knew that the university was struggling. (August 2, 1981, front page: \u201cM.U. PAY PLUMMETS TO BIG EIGHT CELLAR<\/em>.\u201d) But this created little distress in our household. My religious mother liked to quote Matthew: \u201cIt is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

I often heard that verse at Mass, but I wasn\u2019t very old before I recognized that virtually nobody other than my parents took it seriously. My mother was critical of people who seemed grasping or financially ambitious, and she celebrated volunteerism. One of my parents\u2019 highest aspirations for a child was to someday join the Peace Corps. They volunteered at the local mental hospital, and my father often took me to help out at a soup kitchen. When my school struggled to find a P.E. instructor, my parents agreed to teach it twice a week for no pay.<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s many stories never touched on personal finance. The topic bored him, and in any case there was nothing to talk about: he saved nothing and made no investments. My parents packed me and my three sisters into a beige AMC Hornet, a flagship of nineteen-seventies American automotive decline. After my youngest sister entered school, my mother returned to work in a manner that seemed calculated to generate the least possible income. She enrolled as a graduate student, spent years researching a thesis about nineteenth-century Jewish immigration to Missouri, and finally taught history as an adjunct at a small college.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In contrast, I was obsessed with money. The newspapers that I delivered were full of dollar signs: during the era of Carter and Reagan, the prime interest rate sometimes exceeded twenty per cent, and unemployment was as high as ten per cent. The Missourian<\/em> ran a column called \u201cInflation Fighters,\u201d which offered tips for home economy: cornmeal can be used as a facial cleanser; stale beer is good for setting hair; it\u2019s better to fill a gas tank only halfway, because a lighter car gets better mileage. As the economy staggered along, \u201cInflation Fighters\u201d became increasingly desperate: \u201cWhy waste money on tape when you can make your own? Muslin can be melted with one part oil, six parts wax and ten points resin to produce adhesive tape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other carriers also fixated on money. The Missourian<\/em> was delivered by more than sixty children, most of them boys, and periodically the paper sponsored an event for us at its office or at a local pizzeria. These get-togethers were often covered by the newspaper, and in photographs I am invariably in the front row, looking small and eager. One year, carriers were invited to a free movie at the Biscayne Theatre. Whoever organized this screening was smart enough to keep the aftermath out of the paper. The film was \u201cInvasion of the Body Snatchers,\u201d which, for a group of children who set out alone every morning before dawn, was unbelievably terrifying. I attended with Eric Neuner and his younger brother Paul, who couldn\u2019t have been older than seven or eight. Paul dashed out of the theatre to vomit; recently, when I spoke with the brothers, they could recall specific scenes and actors with startling clarity. Eric told me that he had recurring nightmares about the movie well into adulthood.<\/p>\n

The Neuners were among the most entrepreneurial of the carriers. They bought a lawnmower and subcontracted other kids to cut grass around the neighborhood. Paul was the first paperboy I knew who bought stocks. He invested with a child\u2019s eye, purchasing shares in Coca-Cola and the Wrigley Company. After Paul acquired Coke stock, he forbade his family to consume Pepsi products. Each year, like all Wrigley investors, Paul was mailed an annual report and some sticks of gum.<\/p>\n

I nagged at my father to help me invest, but he had never bought a stock in his life. Another paperboy, Sam Abadir, took a bus downtown and found a stockbroker\u2019s office. Sam decided that the trading fees were too high unless you invested at scale, which was also my conclusion. I opened a certificate of deposit at the local bank instead. The year that I turned twelve, my mother wrote a note in her journal describing me as \u201cAmy\u2019s banker and confidant.\u201d Amy knew that if she ran low on cash, her little brother would front her a loan. A few times, my parents asked for the same thing. It made me feel proud; there was often an old-soul quality to us paperboys. I still have a letter that Eric mailed me the summer I went to camp, reassuring me that my folks were staying out of trouble. He wrote, \u201cYour parents are doing a great job on your paper route. I see them every morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I knew that customer relations were my best chance to win Carrier of the Year. Each December, I made holiday cards by hand and delivered them with the newspaper; usually, this generated the equivalent of two months\u2019 pay in tips. Once, I tried the same thing at Easter, but the response rate was low. (It never occurred to me that some subscribers might not celebrate Easter, perhaps because my mother had yet to research her thesis.) On snowy days, I went to subscribers\u2019 homes and offered to shovel their driveways for a fee. After Mr. Wood invited me to join his group of boys at the M.U. football stadium, I worked every home-game Saturday. I walked up and down the stands with a tray of sodas; each time I refilled the tray, I was given a dollar. Most of the other carriers I knew did the same thing for different organizations; Eric and Paul sold drinks with a group that was organized by the local Little League. All of us kept an eye out for drunks, who tipped better. Alcohol was banned at the stadium, but the Missourian<\/em> ran stories about smuggling techniques. Some fans injected vodka into oranges with hypodermic needles.<\/p>\n

Once, my school assigned me to interview somebody in city government. I asked Mr. Wood, who invited me to stop by his home in the evening. Years later, my father said that some instinct told him to accompany me. We sat in the Woods\u2019 living room while I conducted the interview. But my father\u2019s instinct didn\u2019t approach the point of suspicion. Mr. Wood was among the most popular figures in local government, and people admired the volunteer projects that he organized with teen-age boys. These projects were covered periodically in the Missourian.<\/em> (December 18, 1981: \u201cYOUTHS SHOVEL SNOW TO SERVE<\/em>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Columbia was two hours by car from St. Louis and Kansas City, the nearest cities of any size. The town was remote, but the presence of the university meant that its provincialism was that of a self-contained world. The Missourian<\/em> localized big events: in 1981, two days after President Reagan was shot, the paper featured a Columbia high-school grad who, as a Secret Service agent, had helped subdue John Hinckley, Jr. If something happened overseas, reporters sought out international students at M.U. who might be willing to comment. In January, 1980, the paper explained why foreign news mattered:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite the fact that Columbia is not exactly at the crossroads of the world, the spin off of the crisis in Iran and the invasion of Afghanistan is very evident here, and we have tried to show you how in our pages.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. Because one out of every four bushels of wheat grown in this country is shipped to Russia, such an embargo would have a devastating effect on the wheat farmers in this country, and Boone County, among others, would suffer the consequences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The pedagogical tone reflected the fact that the Missourian<\/em> was a teaching newspaper, staffed and published by M.U.\u2019s School of Journalism. No other journalism school in the country produced a daily community paper, and many famous media figures had started out as Missourian<\/em> reporters, including Seymour Topping, who was the managing editor of the Times<\/em> in the late seventies and early eighties.<\/p>\n

The Daily Tribune<\/em> also had an excellent reputation, in part because it hired reporters and editors who had been trained at the Missourian<\/em>. People sometimes said that Columbia had more journalists per capita than anywhere else in America. Periodically, the Missourian<\/em>\u2019s editorial page acknowledged the town\u2019s support:<\/p>\n

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We often hear complaints that the city is over-covered, that people spend hours helping us train the newest generations of Kilpatricks, Germonds, and Toppings.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true, of course, that we ask many of you to help us. You, and especially those of you in public office, are our extended faculty and editors. We train the world\u2019s journalists. Thank you for helping.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Over time, I became a more sophisticated reader of the paper. I especially liked quotations, the way a voice came to life in a story. A sixth-grade English teacher was the first person to tell me that I should think about writing as a career. But it never crossed my mind that someday I might work at the Missourian<\/em> or become a journalist. I assumed, in a vague way, that I would grow up to be a professor like my father. Between the stories that my father told and the stories that appeared in the paper, my view of university life was impossibly colorful. The Missourian<\/em> had some gifted writers, and they had a nose for the best campus stories. In 1982, when a Playboy<\/em> photographer rented a cheap suite at the Holiday Inn East to scout prospects for the magazine\u2019s \u201cGirls of the Big Eight\u201d issue, five hundred women showed up, including a Missourian<\/em> reporter. She coolly documented the scene\u2019s details\u2014a Polaroid camera, three cases of Rock and Roll Beer\u2014along with the photographer\u2019s casual misogyny. (\u201cMany of the girls who come in are a little on the heavy side. And they think we can do miracles with them.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One year, after a sophomore decided to use a shotgun as a prop for an anti-suicide speech in class, the story made page 1, with a classic lede:<\/p>\n

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Dean Pidgeon pointed an unloaded shotgun at himself Monday as part of his University public speaking class project, and while the gun never went off, his presentation backfired.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The writer described a classmate diving beneath a desk, screaming, \u201cDon\u2019t do it!\u201d I liked stories with action, and I would read anything about fraternities or sororities. My father griped constantly about Greek life, a nemesis of M.U. professors since at least the days of Veblen. (According to the biography, Veblen once told a student, \u201cI don\u2019t say that I will fail any member of a sorority or fraternity, but no member of such an organization has ever yet passed one of my courses.\u201d) The Missourian<\/em> covered so many frat fires that it almost qualified as a regular beat; the houses tended to ignite because of carelessness and poorly managed kitchens. Occasionally, the newspaper documented the quantity of beer consumed at a party with the same precision that it used to report the G.D.P. On September 11, 1982, a ninety-one-keg party at Phi Kappa Theta merited a page-7 headline (\u201cFRATERNITY BASH IRKS UNIVERSITY<\/em>\u201d), along with a golly-gee quote from the fraternity\u2019s president: \u201cWe threw the party with good intent. Our purpose was not to get the campus drunk. We had no idea it would get so big.\u201d<\/p>\n

I delivered to two fraternities. The sketchiest part of my route ran near campus, where residential neighborhoods gave way to some frat buildings and low-rent student housing. That was where I finally came across a body. Early one morning, I was climbing the interior stairway of a decrepit apartment building when I looked up and saw two motionless feet. The shoe soles faced me, heels touching, forming the shape of a V. For what seemed like a very long while, I didn\u2019t move. Then, gathering my courage, I continued climbing. Step by step, the rest of the body came into view: legs, torso, head. He was a fully dressed man with a beard and greasy hair, flat on his back on a landing. I stopped, heart pounding. Then I knelt, listened closely, took a whiff, and made my diagnosis: drunk.<\/p>\n

The largest fraternity I delivered to was Sigma Alpha Epsilon. It was housed in an impressive white building in the neoclassical-revival style, with six Ionic columns. I always approached the house from the back, following one of my secret pathways through a neighboring yard. On dark Sunday mornings, after Missouri Tigers game days, crossing the fraternity\u2019s lawn was like entering an artillery field\u2019s zone of fire. Various objects had been tossed from the two-level porch and lay scattered across the grass. There might be articles of clothing, both male and female. Once, I found a billiard ball, which I pocketed. The most common spent projectiles on the S.A.E. lawn were beer cans and bottles. After Columbia implemented a five-cent deposit law, I would collect as many empties as would fit inside my canvas sack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Each spring, the S.A.E. members dug a grave in their lawn. The first year I saw this, it scared the living hell out of me. Walking across the grass, I stumbled upon a long pit and a wooden coffin, its shape shadowy in the predawn light. The second year, I was less surprised, and after that the annual appearance of a coffin and an open grave became a normal sign of springtime. As a boy, I never knew the purpose of this strange ritual. It wasn\u2019t covered in the Missourian<\/em>, and I must not have mentioned it to my parents, who had no memory of it years later. That was also typical of childhood, when many strange and unsettling things were accepted without explanation.<\/p>\n

Recently, I tracked down some S.A.E. members from that era. They explained that the coffin was connected to a fictional figure called Paddy Murphy. Different chapters had their own versions, but the M.U. Paddy Murphy was somebody who had died from alcohol poisoning. Each year, a different brother played Paddy, lying in the coffin, where he was roasted by a series of mock eulogies. The coffin had been acquired by a brother with a summer job in a mortuary in St. Louis. He had driven the two hours to Columbia on Interstate 70 with the coffin sitting upright in the passenger seat of an open convertible.<\/p>\n

On April 24, 1981, the Missourian<\/em> ran an unsigned comment at the top of the Opinion page:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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GLENN WOOD, CITY\u2019S FRIEND: RETIRING BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
For over the past 17 \u00bd years, Glenn Wood has sat in the city clerk\u2019s chair. But more than just a city clerk sat there. A friend to city residents, a confidant to council members, a reservoir of knowledge and an ambassador of good will all resided in that chair thanks to Mr.\u00a0Wood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/inline-embed><\/p>\n

By then, I was nearly twelve, and strong enough that I had started using a bicycle on my route. One thing I liked about biking was that I could greet Mr.\u00a0Wood but not stop. Even before the bicycle, I had made it clear that I didn\u2019t want him touching me anymore. There was never a confrontation, but I found ways to keep my distance. When he asked if I wanted to participate in his youth group at the Odd Fellows Lodge, I told him that I was too busy.<\/p>\n

I had read enough stories in the paper to know that Mr. Wood\u2019s behavior was wrong. But I still had some confusion, because he was so admired in the community. The Missourian<\/em> editorial noted that Mr. Wood had been a Scoutmaster and a Sunday-school teacher, and it mentioned his plans:<\/p>\n

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When Mr. Wood announced his retirement last December, he indicated he was looking forward to devoting more time to the teenage boys who belong to the junior chapter of the Odd Fellows Lodge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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During the years that I delivered it, the Missourian<\/em> remained the same size, averaging about thirty pages a day, and the circulation was stable. I had no idea that newspapers or carriers might have an uncertain future. But recently, while rereading issues from those years, I recognized signs of trouble. A 1983 feature about a spate of mergers noted that Columbia had become the third-smallest American city that still had competing dailies. In 1981, the Sunday edition ran a feature\u2014\u201cMAKE ROOM FOR DATA\u201d<\/em>\u2014about the first wave of home computers. The writer referred to something called the Source, which could transmit information between machines:<\/p>\n

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What effects will home computers have on society?\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. The day of the newspaper carrier may come to a close as information services similar to the \u201cSource\u201d creep into more homes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As a boy, I was oblivious to such predictions, and I also didn\u2019t realize that the Missourian<\/em> was struggling to find carriers. Periodically, a story appeared about somebody getting attacked on the job. In 1980, an adult woman carrier was robbed and sexually assaulted on her Missourian<\/em> route; a couple of years later, a fourteen-year-old newspaper vender was held up at knifepoint. The paper sometimes celebrated carriers with descriptions of the job, which didn\u2019t sound particularly appealing:<\/p>\n

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A Missourian<\/em> carrier holds a great responsibility. He or she is expected to:<\/p>\n

*Deliver a paper to each subscriber on time, despite early hours, stormy weather, cold temperatures, or poor health.<\/p>\n

Read more Playground Purgatory<\/a><\/p>\n

*Cover the entire route in time for school.<\/p>\n

*Deal with paper thieves.<\/p>\n

*Brave the threats of unfriendly dogs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I was bitten by dogs repeatedly, with the worst offender being a cairn terrier on South Garth. The animal was tiny but vicious, and he often left my ankles bleeding. My father called the animal-control office, which was notoriously unreliable; in this case, someone there talked to the owner a couple of times and then gave up. She was in her thirties, a distracted woman living alone in a run-down rental. Somebody suggested doggy treats, but the animal ignored them and made a beeline for my leg. After that, my father consulted with our mailman, who went to his truck and returned with a large cannister of mace. The cannister featured an image of an angry mutt with saliva dripping from its jaws.<\/p>\n

My father accompanied me the first morning I tried the spray. I always believed that, in comparison with him, I was growing up weak and soft. He told exotic stories about his childhood, in a working-class part of Los Angeles where fights had been common. As a boy, he had tattooed his left hand with a pachuco mark, a cross-shaped symbol near the thumb that was popular with the Chicano gangsters in his neighborhood. My father had dark skin, and by his forties the mark was hard to make out. But in his teen-age years it had been distinct enough to get noticed, unhappily, by his future father-in-law the first time they met.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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My father told me to hold my ground when the dog charged. The terrier came up snarling, and I hit him in the face with a long, heavy stream. He collapsed against the trunk of a tree, where I sprayed him again. His breathing became increasingly labored. \u201cI think he might die,\u201d my father said. But then, like some demented jack-in-the-box, the terrier popped up and charged again. In the course of the following days, he seemed to develop an immunity to the spray.<\/p>\n

Every generation romanticizes the struggles of its youth. Like many people my age, I complain about helicopter parents, and I speak fondly of long unsupervised days during childhood. But I\u2019m also under no illusions about the ways in which that world was a hard place. It\u2019s obvious in the papers that I once delivered, which feature many stories about terrible accidents involving children\u2014drowning in icy ponds or getting electrocuted after climbing utility poles.<\/p>\n

There was also a lot of victim-blaming. In 1979, a woman wrote to \u201cDear Abby\u201d complaining about getting rejected from jobs she applied to because she was overweight. \u201cFace it, most fat women are not as attractive as their slim sisters,\u201d Abby counselled. \u201cSo, do yourself a favor and quit asking for \u2018kindness\u2019 from others. See your doctor about a diet.\u201d Two other advice seekers worked at a clothing store where their male boss had drilled holes so that he could peer into the dressing room. \u201cA confrontation is not necessary,\u201d Abby responded. \u201cEvery morning check the dressing room wall for holes, then cover them with adhesive paper. Do this routinely and your boss will soon realize that you are onto his dirty little peeping game.\u201d This approach seemed common when authorities were uninterested or incompetent. If you have a problem, fix it yourself<\/em>.<\/p>\n

After the dog mace failed, I borrowed my friend Joe Kopine\u2019s Crosman BB pistol. Joe had purchased the gun because of its powerful air-cartridge system. It looked like a real weapon, with heavy black metal; a bright-orange tip would have seemed absurd to a boy of that era. I packed the pistol with the newspapers in my canvas bag. The next time the dog appeared, I drew the gun, held steady with both hands, and pulled the trigger. The dog leaped straight into the air, spinning and yelping. In the following week, I shot him another five or six times. And that was all it took; he never attacked again.<\/p>\n

On the afternoon of May 4, 1982, my father told me that there was something we needed to talk about. He didn\u2019t want to do it at home, and he looked upset. We set off together, on foot, in the direction of campus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He was uncharacteristically quiet. I was nearly thirteen, and I had mostly figured out how to get along in school. The longer we walked, the more I sensed that my father was upset by something other than a teacher\u2019s bad report.<\/p>\n

He found a bench in the university\u2019s Peace Park. It was a beautiful afternoon, and students were outside enjoying the sunshine. After we sat down, he said, \u201cI wanted to tell you that Mr. Wood was arrested. It\u2019s in the Tribune<\/em> today. It will be in the Missourian<\/em> tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, I didn\u2019t know what to say. Then I asked why Mr. Wood had been arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was caught with a teen-age boy on a bus,\u201d my father said. \u201cHe was arrested for sodomy.\u201d There was a pause. \u201cDo you know what that means?\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded slowly. Sodomy appeared periodically in articles about arrests, although it confused me\u2014the word seemed to describe different things. The part in the Bible about Sodom also lacked key details. But I wasn\u2019t going to ask those questions now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that Mr. Wood often talked to you on the paper route,\u201d my father said. \u201cWe need to know if he did anything to you. If he touched you or did anything inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now I understood why his mood hadn\u2019t been recognizable. For the first time, I saw true fear in my father\u2019s eyes. I thought for a moment before answering.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cNothing happened. He didn\u2019t do anything to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you sure?\u201d my father said. \u201cIt\u2019s important that we know. If he did anything, the police need to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

His face relaxed, and he said that he was glad that he had accompanied me when I went to the Woods\u2019 home for my school project. \u201cWho knows what he was planning,\u201d my father said. \u201cThe story in the paper said that he has been molesting boys for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked what would happen to Mr. Wood.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll go to prison,\u201d my father said. \u201cThey do terrible things to child molesters in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked if he was already there.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. They have to have a trial. He\u2019ll be at home until then. You haven\u2019t been seeing him outside in the mornings recently, have you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood,\u201d he said. \u201cMake sure you don\u2019t have any contact with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walking home that sunny afternoon, I sensed my father\u2019s relief, and I felt as though I had protected him from something awful. But already I was wondering what I would do if I saw Mr. Wood again.<\/p>\n

The following morning, the stack of newspapers was waiting at the end of the driveway. I carried them inside and read the front page:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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ARGENTINES SINK BRITISH DESTROYER<\/p>\n

COLUMBIA MAN DIES IN 2-TRUCK COLLISION NEAR PRATHERSVILLE<\/p>\n

EX-CITY CLERK CHARGED WITH SODOMY<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/inline-embed><\/p>\n

There was a photograph of Mr. Wood from before his arrest. The story said that he had taken a job in retirement as a school-bus driver, and one day a parent became suspicious.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The parent claimed to have seen Wood, who had been driving a bus for Rustman Bus Co., and a boy go to the back of the bus and disappear, said Sgt. Dale Richardson, who led the investigation.<\/p>\n

Police said when officers confronted the juvenile, he admitted to having oral sex with Wood. Police did not say whether the act took place in the bus.<\/p>\n

Richardson said the boy also named five other juveniles, ranging in age from 13 to 16 years, involved with Wood. Police have interviewed the six boys and their parents, he said.<\/p>\n

Police believe Wood first became involved with boys at the International Order of Odd Fellows Lodge, of which he has been a member since 1933. Many of the alleged sex acts occurred at the lodge after meetings, Richardson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I folded all the papers and went outside. The closer I got to 110 South Garth Avenue, the more nervous I felt. But the lights were off at the house. I threw the paper onto the porch and continued down the silent street.<\/p>\n

Throughout summer and fall, reports about Mr. Wood\u2019s case appeared in the Missourian<\/em> and the Tribune<\/em>. My parents didn\u2019t discuss these articles with me or my sisters, and I was careful to read them only when I was alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On June 21, 1982, in a federal court in Washington, D.C., John Hinckley, Jr., was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The following morning, that story appeared on the Missourian\u2019s<\/em> front page, and a headline on page 7 read \u201cMENTAL EXAM OK\u2019D FOR WOOD<\/em>.\u201d Wood\u2019s lawyer seemed to be attempting the strategy that had worked for Hinckley, entering a plea of not guilty on account of \u201cmental disease or defect.\u201d At the time of the arrest, Wood had admitted to Detective Dale Richardson that he had abused boys repeatedly since 1938, and that pedophilia \u201cwas something he couldn\u2019t control.\u201d One Missourian<\/em> article quoted the officer:<\/p>\n

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Richardson said Wood had cooperated during the entire questioning procedure. The only thing Wood seemed to worry about, Richardson said, was the \u201cwelfare of the boys.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The detective seemed to downplay the crimes. A story in the Tribune<\/em> noted:<\/p>\n

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The boys said Wood would perform oral sex on them, then they would reciprocate, Richardson said. One boy said Wood paid him $1 at each session.<\/p>\n

Wood never forced the boys to participate, Richardson said, and he never harmed any of the youths. He added that police have\u00a0encouraged the parents to seek counseling for the boys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There were many references to Wood paying his victims and buying them gifts. The boys were not named, but I believed that some of them had sold drinks alongside me at M.U. games. With each story, I felt a rush of guilt. I had no word for what I had experienced\u2014in those days, grooming was something that happened to dogs and horses. All I knew was that my mother and Matthew had been right. Greed was weakness, and Mr. Wood had exploited it; he had given me quarters because I had wanted them desperately. I believed that I was partly at fault for what had happened.<\/p>\n

I also knew that I should have told my father the truth. But the stories in the paper convinced me that I had done the right thing. I didn\u2019t want to talk to those police; I didn\u2019t want to stand in that courtroom; I didn\u2019t want to appear in these articles:<\/p>\n

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LAWYER IN SODOMY CASE QUIZZES YOUNG WITNESSES
Representing former City Clerk Glenn Wood, Columbia attorney John Schwabe yesterday insinuated at a court hearing that at least one boy Wood is accused of molesting encouraged the 67-year-old man\u2019s sexual advances.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n

Wasn\u2019t it so, Schwabe probed in a slightly different tone, that the boy asked Wood to perform oral sex on him? \u201cI don\u2019t remember,\u201d was the youth\u2019s reply. When Schwabe restated the question, the youngster flared: \u201cI said I don\u2019t remember, so don\u2019t ask.\u201d\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n

Then, Schwabe elicited confirmations from the boys that Wood helped them with school lessons, coached baseball in volunteer work at the Odd Fellows Lodge in Columbia and had been a friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t hate Mr. Wood, do you?\u201d Schwabe asked each boy. All but one replied negatively. The dissenting youth said, \u201cA little.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tense and dwarfed by the witness stand, the boys answered the questions with a few stammers and only an occasional nervous laugh. Their eyes rested only fleetingly on Wood, who wore a coat and tie and frequently cradled his face in his hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/inline-embed><\/p>\n

Wood\u2019s lawyer asked the judge to dismiss the charges because the youths were \u201caccomplices in the very crime.\u201d This motion was considered but then denied. Eventually, a number of the charges were dropped, as part of a plea bargain, and Wood\u2019s lawyer pushed for no jail time. Wood had been evaluated by a psychiatrist who had been a professor at the university\u2019s medical school, and the psychiatrist testified that Wood should not pose a threat to the community. \u201cTaking into account human error, the chances are there should be no repetition of this behavior,\u201d he said. He also told the court that young boys who engage in voluntary homosexual acts with adults usually recover, and that such contacts are often \u201cloving, caring, positive relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of prominent citizens appeared as character witnesses. H.\u00a0Clyde Wilson, Jr., a former mayor, testified about Wood\u2019s contributions to city government, and he said that no \u201cuseful purpose\u201d would be served if he were incarcerated. The Missourian<\/em> described the defense lawyer\u2019s closing statement:<\/p>\n

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Schwabe asked Judge Conley to allow him to \u201cindulge in symbolism\u201d as he compared Wood\u2019s life to a \u201cflower garden\u201d with an ugly weed in it. \u201cThe flowers need not be thrown in the garbage can,\u201d Schwabe said. \u201cTo even give Glenn Wood county jail time would be to sign his death warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From the day I learned of the arrest, I sensed that Mr. Wood would find a way to see me again. In the end, it happened under cover of a heavy storm. On rainy mornings, I couldn\u2019t ride my bike, and neighbors were much less likely to be outside.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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That day, I placed the paper onto his porch, and suddenly he was behind me; I hadn\u2019t seen him in the downpour. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not supposed to see you!\u201d I said, but my voice sounded childlike in the storm. I saw that he was weeping, and suddenly my body went limp and I began to sob. He wrapped his arms around me, repeating those two words over and over. I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m sorry<\/em>. The interaction probably lasted less than a minute, but it felt like forever. Finally, I pulled away and ran.<\/p>\n

At the end of the street, I huddled beneath a tree until my breathing was under control. When I returned home, I made sure that my face betrayed nothing.<\/p>\n

On the morning of September 28, 1982, before folding the papers, I found the headline, on page 8:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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UNIVERSITY JOBS LOST DUE TO SALARY RAISES STILL UNDETERMINED<\/p>\n

TEACHERS\u2019 PAY HIKE UNDECIDED<\/p>\n

PROBATION PLEA DENIED; WOOD GETS PRISON TERM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/inline-embed><\/p>\n

The article quoted the circuit judge Frank Conley. \u201cI don\u2019t think there is a case that has cost me more personal anguish as a judge than this case,\u201d he told the defendant. \u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of the good that you have done.\u201d He continued, \u201cBut so much of the good has been ruined by that which is bad.\u201d He referred to the psychiatrist\u2019s characterization of Wood\u2019s contact with the boys. \u201cThis court is not of the opinion that this was a loving, caring relationship,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a very vile relationship.\u201d The judge issued a sentence of ten years in prison, for five counts of sodomy.<\/p>\n

Judge Conley\u2019s mother lived on my route, and I threw the paper onto her porch. For the first time in months, I didn\u2019t feel nervous on South Garth. At 110, the house was dark, the way it had been every morning since the arrest.<\/p>\n

Beginning that fall, a number of terrible stories about boys appeared in the paper. In southern Missouri, a woman and her boyfriend were arrested after locking her seven-year-old son in the basement for three months. When authorities found the boy, he weighed thirty-two pounds. The Missourian<\/em> quoted the woman\u2019s explanation for her boyfriend\u2019s treatment of the child. \u201cHe didn\u2019t like him,\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want him to come out of the basement.\u201d Another local court case involved two adult Boy Scout troop leaders who, during a camp-out, branded their Scouts on the buttocks with a red-hot coat hanger that had been shaped like male genitals. A college student in Columbia was arrested and sentenced to prison after shooting his former foster father in the back of the head. For years, the man had taken in multiple foster children, always boys, and he repeatedly paddled them, took nude photographs, and administered enemas, which he tape recorded so that he could replay the children\u2019s moans. The college student had complained to a family-services agency and received no response, so he used a .22-calibre pistol that had been borrowed from a neighbor. If you have a problem, fix it yourself<\/em>. After he was sentenced to five years, the young man told the Missourian<\/em>, \u201cI always figured I\u2019d spend some time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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These stories prompted anguished letters and editorials. Citizens wondered if something was wrong with society, and they debated whether Glenn Wood had deserved to go to jail. The husband of\u00a0one of Wood\u2019s daughters wrote to the Tribune:<\/em><\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a story that never appeared in any page or in any newscast about the Glenn Wood case.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. It\u2019s a story of that home shattered, but through faith in a God of love and mercy and grace, holding firmly to one another.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. It\u2019s a story of unbelievable courage, of fighting back against immeasurable odds.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. We\u2019ve had to live with judgement and criticism and prejudice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Richardson, who had helped conduct the initial investigation, published a response. In earlier stories, the detective\u00a0had seemed to minimize the impact of Wood\u2019s crimes. But now he set the record straight:<\/p>\n

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When talking with these boys, they expressed guilt, shame and just as much, if not more trauma than we see in rape victims. Some told of how they were first approached by Wood, how he physically jerked their trousers down.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. Wood told me that for the past 30 years, he has had an obsession for little boys. I can\u2019t help but feel that, during that long period of time, some of his friends and relatives must have suspected some of his actions. Why didn\u2019t they help him then? I also wonder how many other young boys were victims in those 30 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Recently, when reviewing these articles, I recognized many phrases and details, because I had read them so obsessively as a thirteen-year-old. Another Missourian<\/em> story appeared on September 8, 1982, under the headline \u201cIOWA NEWSBOY VANISHES; SEARCH PARTY STUMPED<\/em>.\u201d A paperboy named John Gosch, who was my age, had disappeared on a Sunday morning. Gosch became one of the first missing children to be featured on milk cartons.<\/p>\n

He also became one of the reasons that children stopped working as carriers. Last year, I met with Bruce Moore, who had started working at the Missourian<\/em> in 1982, eventually becoming circulation manager. \u201cYou were one of the last kids to deliver the newspaper by bike,\u201d Moore told me. \u201cIt happened not because the Missourian<\/em> didn\u2019t want to hire kids. It was because society dictated it was unsafe for kids to be delivering at that time in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
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Nearly forty-four years after Gosch disappeared, his case remains unsolved. When I read the old Missourian<\/em> story, one detail echoed in my memory. On the morning the boy vanished, his parents found the wagon that he used to haul the heavy Sunday edition of the Des Moines Register<\/em>. Gosch\u2019s mother was quoted: \u201cEvery single paper was in his wagon.\u201d<\/p>\n

I never won Carrier of the Year. By the final stage of my career, I knew that it wouldn\u2019t happen, because I had recognized patterns. Children tended to win early\u2014that was why I was named Carrier of the Month when I was only ten. My analysis was that the Missourian<\/em> wanted to encourage younger carriers, and by the time they got older they were probably on the way out, so it wasn\u2019t worth wasting awards on them. This was a good life lesson, one that would have made sense to Thorstein Veblen: the longer you work for a company, the less you are valued.<\/p>\n

My last day on the job turned out to be Wednesday, August 22, 1984. On that morning, the top headline read \u201cGOP CONVENTION PASSES BATTLE PLAN: FORD UNLEASHES ON MONDALE<\/em>.\u201d The paper was sixty-two pages, with a price of twenty-five cents, and it weighed 15.4 ounces. The size was significant because, while carrying an unusually heavy bag and taking a tight turn on my bike in a parking lot, I skidded out and fractured my left tibia. I lay in the parking lot shouting until somebody called an ambulance.<\/p>\n

Before the accident, I had already been thinking about quitting. On the next International Newspaper Carrier Day, when the Missourian<\/em> announced its Carrier of the Year, it also ran a small notice:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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SPECIAL RECOGNITION TO PETER HESSLER WHO BROKE HIS LEG WHILE ON THE JOB<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/inline-embed><\/p>\n

Two other mornings from that final period remain vivid in my mind. One was when the S.A.E. house caught fire. On a bitterly cold January morning in 1984, I approached the house through the back lawn and saw that the porch had burned and been gutted. Firefighters had recently left; water from their hoses had frozen into beautiful icy tendrils that ran along the pillared porch.<\/p>\n

The other morning was at some point after Glenn Wood went to prison. I never saw him again, but once, while delivering the papers, I encountered his wife on the sidewalk. She was walking the dog, and I said hello.<\/p>\n

The woman said nothing. Our eyes met, and I saw that her face was full of cold fury. A wave of guilt and shame washed over me, and I hurried past. Along with the last time I saw her husband, that encounter remains one of my most awful memories from childhood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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After turning sixteen, I used my paperboy savings to buy a 1974 Dodge Dart. The car was Mississippi brown and as long as a city block; in high school, I loved its absolute uncoolness. The fact that my parents never saved a cent paid off when I was admitted to Princeton University. I qualified for Pell grants and large amounts of financial aid, and I entered the university determined to become a writer. For the first three semesters, I applied to the introductory course in creative writing, submitting short stories, but each time I was rejected. I felt hopelessly provincial: nothing important or interesting had ever happened to me. I never considered writing about Mr.\u00a0Wood, because the memory was too painful.<\/p>\n

My parents still live in the house where I grew up. They must be among a minuscule number of octogenarians in this country who subscribe to two daily papers in print. Columbia is now the second-smallest community in America with separately owned competing newspapers. The Tribune<\/em>, like many papers, has suffered after corporate buyouts and staff reductions. But the Missourian<\/em> thrives, because it is subsidized by the university. Last year, I met with Elizabeth Conner Stephens, the executive editor, in the paper\u2019s spacious offices, at the edge of campus. It felt like a vibrant, old-fashioned newsroom; even in summer, fifty student reporters were busy on staff. \u201cThe reason it works for us is we\u2019ve been doing it since 1908,\u201d Stephens said. \u201cIt\u2019s been baked into our curriculum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, when I talked with other former carriers, they all mentioned how the job had shaped their adult selves. At the age of twenty-four, Eric Neuner founded NuShoe, which eventually grew to become one of the largest shoe-repair companies in the world. Eric believed that his paperboy obsession with efficiency was one reason he had been good at organizing factories in San Diego and Mexico. He often meets other C.E.O.s from our generation who delivered newspapers as children. Eric also remarked that such a job is impossible to imagine today. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t let my kids go out at five in the morning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Like Eric and many other former carriers, I have never been able to sleep late. To this day, I am uncomfortable around dogs. I am good with money. I fulfilled my parents\u2019 dreams by joining the Peace Corps, but after returning and writing a book about the experience I took the first advance check, called a college friend at Credit Suisse, and started learning how to invest. I know the verse: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a freelance writer to survive if he can\u2019t manage his finances<\/em>. I retain an appetite for silence and solitude, and I can keep a secret. I never told a soul about Mr. Wood until I was thirty years old. I still feel an occasional twinge of guilt, because my life and my marriage have gone well, and I suspect that this might not be true for others who were harmed. For more than four decades, I have saved one of the Missourians<\/em> I was carrying when I broke my leg. Now the pages are yellowed; the rubber band rotted away years ago. I placed the newspaper on my desk when I began to write this story.\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more Rightsizing Our Workforce<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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