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This is going to be a long daily doggy other than 

 

As I sat here at 2:00 AM looking at the doorknob on this cabin was getting kind of worn and loose and I thought I paid for that door knob by delivering magazines at four cents apiece in all weathers ------that people driving up and down my driveway don't have a clue what it took to put that doorknob or  hot top on that driveway so they could drive on it. thus began the story of The Want ad ...

 

 

I was working basically on 128 tracking satellites and things for the tech OPS corporation and the mitre corporation when pregnancy stopped that I became the generic housewife with a little bit too much time on my hands... while working in Burlington MA I had become addicted to a publication called the Want Ad which was a classified ad collection of stuff all kinds of stuff being basically a junkyard person I really liked it so when I was no longer working for the mitre corporation I  in Lynnfield I found I had to drive all the way to Burlington to get a copy of this every week---- that lasted for about two weeks when I called the corporation and suggested that I try and expand their territory north of the route 3 area and Mr. grellier who owned the outfit said that he would hire me and pay me $5 for every store that I opened and then two cents a copy for every magazine I sold in that area ---- well that was better than sitting home doing nothing and I was on it

I found I could open stores no problem whatsoever that $5 was wonderful the problem was eventually I got so many stores I couldn't handle it myself .

So I had to call Mr. grellier and explain that I was getting awfully busy and we're gonna have to change the arrangement somehow so he offered to  continue the $5 + 2 cents for everybody who worked for me and I would get $0.02 whatever they sold in my area which was basically north of the Charles River and that's how it started.

 

I had basically guaranteed that I would get the magazines out on a Tuesday if at all humanly possible which put me and my yellow Volkswagen bug with license plate MD 128 out in all kinds of weather in all kinds of situations because there were days when my normal delivery people just wouldn't get out the driveway... and if they didn't it was up to me to fill the root which I did many times which is why I know every back Rd. In small variety store north of the Charles River.. 

 

we lived and breathed want ads--- my first delivery of them was in the back of a VW. 1 carton and before I finished I was getting a tractor trailer full down at what is now the laundry building and all along the way I had a lot of really strange happenings..

 

one of the more spectacular deliveries was to a store in the center of Boston for some reason the main office did not cover that store and wanted me to do that..

so I hooked up the horse trailer put my motorcycle on it and drove to East Boston where I parked the trailer got on the bike and with three cartons of magazines sitting on my gas tank right in front of me I went through the tunnel into Boston to deliver those magazines no problem..  I didn't hear the thing I don't think I could get away with it now.

 I mentioned the VW bug---well somewhere along the way I bought a yellow VW and I found a Rolls Royce nose to put on it and this is what I drove and it did have a license plate which said MD 128 which was my husband's license plate but somebody had offered him a low number so he tossed that one and I took it... so I was delivering magazines  in central square Cambridge one day there are three delivery points in central square and I use the loading zone to deliver and at the first one the policewoman told me I should not do that and I was already on my way out so I went to the next one which was still within her vision and parked there so she came to yell at me about that one so by the time I got to the 711 the third place the third loading zone she was very annoyed and came over and said I have never yet seen a doctor's wife delivering magazines at which point I said "well you have now..". Even though she gave me a ticket and I had to go back into court and I did not have to pay it because I was legitimately in a loading zone.

 

..

The magazines would be delivered to me Sunday evening so that Monday all day long people would come and pick up whatever I assigned to them then they go out Tuesday delivering it and Tuesday night they would come back to me with a paper bag full of $1.00 bills and coins mostly and they would leave it somewhere and then call me and tell me where they left it because that was often not here to receive it this was no small amount of money it amounted to five or $6000 all being shuffled around in paper bags and coins but it worked.. a favorite place to leave the money was in the grain bin because I knew I had to feed the horses at 5:00 or so and I'd find money there.. I don't think I ever lost any.. 

 

Most delivery people picked up their magazines out of my building but there were several that we're just too far away and I would deliver to them one of the places was in Salem NH the the delivery person lived right outside the gate to canopy lake..///. so every morning Monday morning not only my children but several neighborhood children would pile in the car I would hook up a very small trailer behind this Volkswagen and I would drive these magazines to canopy lake and the kids would get two hours time At canobie  lake..  the fact that we were back there every week on a Monday morning meant that there was never one of these oh I want one more ride they all knew they'd be back there the next week and how I fit all those children in that car I do not know I believe the total was 7 Gwen and Janine Cindy who lived up the street and then there were the four Nutter girls that makes 7 the rule was you got in and you did not complain about anything we would stop at McDonald's and you got two things a soda and fries or fries and a hamburger or soda and hamburger two things one at each hand you ate it and we kept going.

 

we lived with coins everybody would turn in their receipt to me with the money they'd collected which rarely had A5 or $10.00 bill and it was just plain all coins and dollar bills..  I know things I learned things along the way and one of them is a generic cup full of coins that no one has picked out the quarters has about $20 in it and a gallon jug of pennies will have pretty close to $60.00 in it

there was one night we were celebrating something I don't know what and my children and I we're at the continental restaurant very nice restaurant and Saugus and the bill was $90.00 and we paid it in Dimes.. 

 

Our whole lives circle around my job with the one end...  not only the new magazines but the old return magazines were dropped off with me and they piled up big time.. however if you put a carton   of magazines in the fireplace and lit lit one corner in about 15 minutes it looked just like logs so to some degree we heated the house with want ads..  

As life went on and on and on... computers entered the scene and I with 16 delivery people wrote myself a program to deal with the returns and the cash... Sudbury was where  the main office was.  also had some program to do the same thing however one day I was at a meeting with the president and the accountant who was supposed to be managing the southern version and he had about 1/2 an inch of that paper with the holes in the sides where he had run off a tremendous amount of information it was impressive and a great big pile and I had one piece of paper in my back pocket which told me everything I needed to know.. seeing as I was in blue jeans and he was in a blue suit with polished shoes and a briefcase he held far more weight than I did until I noticed something and said his report is all wrong I can't tell you why it's wrong but I can prove it's wrong right now and everybody said yes go ahead --- the magazine wholesale for $0.86 and his total at the bottom was an odd number ----can't happen

 

so based on that they started to use my system which did very well and started we started predicting future sales and therefore limiting the amount of books printed and it got to be very economical save them a lot of money.. it was also during that time that Mister grellier said I didn't know you had a college degree... I'd been working for them 19 years at that point I rarely made an appearance at the main office which is probably why I lasted so long..  I continued on doing just the computer work for $.04/copy  with Linda Murphy actually managing the sales and that worked very well too Linda Murphy lived in boxford and she still does she's a very funny lady and we had a good time doing it.

finally I backed out because eBay started and we all just died

 

my very favorite magazine story is from a day we had a Blizzard and I had to fill in for whoever was doing the Lowell Lawrence area--as I approached the cash register in a small variety store on route 38 I had to wait my turn because the store was full of kids that had no school so they're all going to the variety store to get some candy.. and the guy was being very nice and very helpful so I commented when I got up to the register Gee you're awfully nice to all these children and he commented "why shouldn't I be maybe half of them are mine."..

 

thus end of the story for a while..