Delivering Newspapers at the Mill

Enlarge Image Image Gallery What’s thought to be the old Monarch Mill in Union, South Carolina, where Bob Graham sold GRIT newspapers at the turnstiles. Union County Chamber of Commerce

My name is Robert “Bob” Graham, and I’m 52 years old. My first job was delivering newspapers for GRIT when I was 12 years old. I sent my name and order in out of the back of a comic book. I was sent my GRIT newspapers and a brand-new GRIT newspaper shoulder bag.

Back in 1971, our small town of Union, South Carolina, was sure enough bustling with jobs; mainly due to the late textile magnate Roger Milliken. He had eight cotton, electric or research plants in our town. One, the Monarch Mill plant that employed cotton mill workers, was about a quarter-mile from my house. Every week when I received my tube of papers, I would load my bag and head to the turnstiles where workers would come out after their shifts.

Being one of GRIT’s newspaper carriers led me to delivering our daily, The Union Daily Times, and our local morning newspaper, The Spartanburg Herald, out of Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Eventually, I ended up as a pressman at The Union Daily Times where I learned the ins and outs of the newspaper business. I got the smell of newsprint from GRIT, but newsprint stayed in my blood until 1998, when I started my own business selling sporting goods. That smell of newsprint stays with a person all his life; to me there’s nothing like it.

I receive your magazine and really enjoy it. Maybe this letter will make someone else remember those good ol’ days of delivering newspapers for GRIT.

Robert “Bob” Graham
Buffalo, South Carolina

Submit your GRIT Carrier story by email to Editor@Grit.com, or mail to GRIT, Carrier’s Corner, 1503 S.W. 42nd St., Topeka, KS 66609.