I couldn’t help but smile when I saw that Boston Globe reporters, frustrated by delivery problems, volunteered to get out and actually deliver Sunday’s paper themselves. Article here, courtesy of my Twitter feed. In 1986, for my first week at U.S. 1, everyone on the staff (plus the freelancers) loaded up with papers and headed out from Mapleton Road to their delivery routes.

As Rich Rein used to say . . . “When you deliver, you get to know your readers.” Our deliverers are also paid to be reporters — to note when companies come and go. Even when we moved “up” to Roszel Road, cheerful willingness to pitch in on delivery was a condition of employment.

I couldn’t help but be sad when I realized that the Globe fired 600 people who worked for its former delivery service. Yes they hired 600 more  but the previous workers were surely living on the margins, some struggling to learn a new language in a new country. You don’t work midnight to eight, putting miles and miles on your car or your feet, unless you really need the money.

Then I remembered how gratifying it was for those of us who wrote the paper to actually deliver a paper that is warmly welcomed by its readers.  In virtually all the buildings, I would be greeted by — “Oh good, U.S. 1 is here, thank you!”

Globe reporters got thanked too.