At 12:30 p.m., a lonely white Geo Tracker is parked at the Friendly City Mini-Warehouses storage units off Highway 45 North, near The Grill restaurant. Sitting atop the small SUV is a round amber-colored light, poised for its mission.
Annie McDaniel is always the first newspaper carrier waiting at the dropoff location.
Fifteen minutes later, The Commercial Dispatch van delivers its load. Ready to begin, McDaniel and her daughter, Pat Bryan, exit the Tracker and help the young men load bundles of newspapers into the vehicle.
Two bundles go into the front seat with the women. Two hooks, hanging near each visor, hold a stack each of clear plastic newspaper bags. At age 81, McDaniel’s movements are slower, but deliberate. She has done this hundreds — no thousands — of times.
“I don’t ever leave here without bagging my papers,” McDaniel says, maintaining a steady pace. Her ink-stained fingers work feverishly for the next 15 minutes — fold, bag, pile; fold, bag, pile. When Bryan’s side of the car is up to her knees in bagged newspapers, it’s time to begin the route.
At 610 Plain St., off 18th Avenue North, a small blue package pokes from the newspaper slot beneath the mailbox, adorned with an elaborate white ribbon.
“My customers are so good to me,” McDaniel says, replacing the gift box with Tuesday’s newspaper.
Wednesday, a small thank-you card will accompany the newspaper.
On Dec. 31, McDaniel will deliver her last Dispatch newspapers.
Starting a carrier legacy
Before starting the newspaper delivery route, McDaniel worked odd jobs and sold Avon. At one time, she was the only certified female electrician in Lowndes County. She also was a licensed plumber.
One day, “A lady on the base wanted me to substitute for her. She was going on vacation,” McDaniel recalled.
When the woman, whose husband was stationed at Columbus Air Force Base, returned home, she told McDaniel “‘It’s your route now, if you want it.'”
With some apprehension, McDaniel made the trip downtown to meet Birney Imes Jr.
Subscriptions were 90 cents a month; newspapers sold for a nickel from the stands (the same price as a stamp); gas was 15 cents per gallon.
McDaniel signed her first contract with The Dispatch in 1970. But she started her paper route nearly a decade before, when many of the carriers were young children.
“The little merchants, we called them,” McDaniel smiled.
In those days, potential carriers went through a background check.
“If you passed the background check, you got a handshake,” Bryan said, giving her mother’s voice time to rest.
In the early 2000s, McDaniel fought a brush fire with her garden hose, until firefighters arrived on the scene. A neighbor had piled brush and then went out of town. She was trying to save their home. By the time the ordeal ended, smoke had singed the inside of her nose and throat, leaving her voice weak. It fades sometimes until nearly inaudible.
A handshake from James Turner meant you had the job, Bryan said.
Bittersweet goodbyes
At about 1:55, McDaniel makes her way toward the end of 19th Avenue North.
“I was gonna leave this for you, but since I see you, I’ll just give it to you,” smiles Barbara Hodges, offering McDaniel a festive gift card.
“Thank you for all your years of service. You’ve always been so helpful and so cheerful,” Hodges says to McDaniel.
Hodges has lived on 19th Avenue for 33 years and was on McDaniel’s route three years prior, at a different address.
“She just always has a wave and a smile,” Hodges says of her longtime newspaper carrier.
“I’m going to miss you,” she directs at McDaniel.
“Ms. McDaniel is more regular than the U.S. mail,” Hodges adds, as she moves to let the Tracker depart.
“She’s good,” Benny Edwards beams, 10 minutes later, on Roberson Street. “She’s on time.”
“I’ve got these moles; they keep tearin’ up my yard somethin’ awful,” Edwards tells McDaniel, wielding a heavy rake to scare off the intruders.
“Castor beans,” McDaniel calls out. “You can get ’em at the co-op.”
“I gave him some a while back,” McDaniel recalls. “But I don’t have anymore.”
“Something my mama always taught me is to be on time, do the best you can and if you promise someone something, you do it,” Bryan says, as mom makes her way to the next stop. “And if you can’t do it, you let them know.”
About a mile drive, on Hickory Lane, retired dentist Dr. James Gatewood kneels in a ditch, working with bricks to repair a retainer wall.
“She’s been a good friend through the years, and we’ve visited at the newspaper box routinely,” Gatewood says. “She always has a smile for me and a good word. And I’m hoping she enjoys retirement as much as I have.”
“You can’t beat her,” says B.A. Atkins, waiting for McDaniel on Greenbriar Drive with a gift box.
At the next stop, two Christmas bags wait atop the mailbox.
By 3:25, McDaniel throws her last paper at Park Circle Plaza, off Bluecutt Road.
Memories spanning the decades
Bryan, 59, grew up riding the paper route with her mother. The stories, she said, are endless.
McDaniel’s first route began at The Dispatch and went to The Island and toward the Golden Triangle Regional Airport area.
Then, Sam Frank Williams was on the route; he lived on The Island and kept cows. His newspapers kept disappearing.
“I was delivering them,” McDaniel said. “I told him to watch those cows, see if those cows weren’t eating his papers.”
Williams took the advice; one day, he watched a cow lift the newspaper with her tongue and eat it. He moved them to another pasture in the afternoon, so his paper could be delivered safely.
George Weir, who lived on Ridge Road, had a heart attack and wanted McDaniel to leave the paper with his dog to bring up to the house. One day, another dog retrieved the paper. Weir’s dog had a solution.
For the next several days — rain or shine — Weir’s newspapers were wet.
“He had marked the paper, so the other dog wouldn’t get it,” McDaniel laughed.
During one of the snows of the ’70s, McDaniel loaded her papers into a 30-gallon trash bag and carried them, knee-deep in the white stuff, to get the newspapers delivered.
“My customers did not have to worry about missing their paper,” she said.
In the flood of 1973, which caused heavy damage to the Columbus mall, McDaniel continued her route.
“We delivered what we could,” she said.
In 2001, when straight-line winds caused heavy damage to downtown and leveled buildings at Mississippi University for Women, McDaniel continued to deliver her papers. Crews working downed trees and power lines, rerouted her to other roads.
“When they got done, we came back around and finished the route,” she recalled.
More than a job
McDaniel has suffered two dog bites and a minor car wreck while delivering papers. She also “wore out 14 brand new cars.”
“All but four of them I bought from Hickel Motor Company,” McDaniel notes. “Volkswagens. That was Birney (III, current publisher of The Dispatch)’s father-in-law.”
McDaniel puts in 10,000-15,000 miles a year on her newspaper route each year.
Throughout the years, McDaniel has seen The Dispatch and its ownership as her own family.
“That was a sweet old man,” she said of Birney Imes Jr. “I loved him. I love those boys (Imes’ sons) as if they were my own children.”
After a bout with skin cancer and surgery to remove a cyst from her hand, McDaniel’s doctor told her to let the paper route go.
“I’ve loved every day that I’ve been on this route. Believe it or not, I get my rest throwing these papers,” McDaniel says.
With an 18-room house and 4 1/2 acres of land to herself, McDaniel “don’t get no rest at home,” she says.
When her husband, Jimmy, died in 1985, McDaniel’s customers kept her sane.
“If it hadn’t been for this route, after my husband died, I wouldn’t have made it,” she says. “These people took me under their wing, and I haven’t wanted for a thing.”
If her health would hold up, McDaniel would keep the route, because of her customers.
“I love them. ..
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