Gone now is the Seattle PI and I will miss her!

There is much sadness in the greater Seattle area as the Seattle Post Intelligencer, or the PI as it was known as here, shut down and published its last edition. This paper meant a lot to our family as my father worked there for many years and was part of the union that distributed the paper. It was the only daily morning newspaper that was the only source of news for us growing up. My brother Ken, delivered the PI for a year or two and when I was fortunate to be able to take it over for him. As I remember, we had about 70 houses that we delivered to each morning and my mother would take us on Sundays and holidays because the papers were too heavy to carry. I think I even talked Ken into letting me go with him to deliver when I was 9 or 10 and he let me carry the papers... that was the deal and I loved it.

I would wake up at 2:30 a.m. each morning and it would take me about 1.5 hours to do the route. When I got back home, I would crawl back in bed and sleep a couple of hours before getting up for school. Oh believe me the money was sweet, we would make about $25 for the months work and we had to go around and collect the money from our customers. That was the worst part. I loved getting up and doing the route and fell in love with the early morning walking and riding my bike delivering papers in the rain, snow and beautiful dry weather of North Seattle. I don't know how far we walked exactly every morning, but it was probably five miles or more.

When in high school my dad helped me get a job at the PI on Saturday nights where I would help prepare the Sunday paper to be taken out for delivery. It was dirty and dusty, but I would drive down with my dad, or take the family car, and start work about 9 p.m. and finish work anywhere from 4 to 7 on Sunday morning, depending on the how the presses were working. So when I heard they were going out of business, I was sad. I will miss the PI, not because I loved the news, which I do, but it was an institution in Seattle for 164 years and I spent many a fond morning delivering her and eating Fruitloops or Cocoa Puffs while reading her sports pages.