I got into the wholesale bakery business by answering a newspaper ad after I was fired from Foodland for telling the manager it was stupid to wait until closing time to collect the carts from the parking lot. In my supermarket days I had watched different bakery route guys operate, and it seemed like a job I might like. I applied, and although I was only 21, they liked my supermarket experience and I was in. I trained by going out on an existing route with a supervisor. An unspoken part of the first day on the job, for him, was observing whether the new hire could shift gears and steer a bakery truck without crashing or falling out the always-open door.

That day it was raining and still dark when we left the garage. After a few blocks, we approached a red light where there was stopped a mobile construction crane, no lights on, its long boom lowered to windshield height and taking up 40 feet of road behind it. When I came to a gentle stop behind the boom, the supervisor sighed, as if to say “Why is this guy stopping way back here?” Then he realized I hadn’t smeared us both against the unseen boom of the unlit crane, sighed a different kind of sigh and settled down on his wire-basket seat.

As the most-recently-hired driver/salesman, I had the least seniority, and thus ended up with the least desirable route. Its sales volume was low, meaning low commissions, and it was the longest, at about 120 miles through Morris County and parts of Essex. Some guys made little jokes about how long it was, but I had always loved driving and to me that was  a plus. The route  was also green and scenic; one ride-along boss came back claiming to have seen a bear chasing an Indian.

Drivers were required to be members of the Teamster’s Union, so after paying an initiation fee I became a dues-paying, union-book-carrying Teamster.

Local 37, baby

Back at the garage one afternoon, I was surprised to see  Pete,  the crook and my friend from Kingsway Markets. He has had a sales route here for a while. We shake hands and he says in a low voice “Tips are good here, Paulie, tips are good.” Seeing us talking, the bosses are surprised and probably a little disappointed in me that I know Pete, about whom they have their suspicions. Later, one casually asks how I know Pete, and seems reassured when I say simply that we both worked at the Kingsway supermarket  in East Orange.

Morris County was just then entering a boom phase, with new housing developments, apartments and supermarkets springing up all over. No thanks to me, my route became one of the best in the garage. The company even gave me a bigger truck.

During the Cold War, Nike anti-aircraft missile bases were sprinkled about the U.S. to defend against Russian attack. The Nike base in Livingston NJ became one of my stops, with a not-very-profitable standing order of 12 loaves of bread every other day. The base was surrounded by cyclone fence and razor wire, with a guardhouse at the gate. The procedure to enter was: halt, greet the guard,  wait for the gate to open, drive through.

One morning the gate was standing open and I could see that the guard was asleep. It was  still dark. I tapped the horn lightly, then again, with no response. I waited for a while, then drove slowly up the hill to the mess hall. As soon as I got there, the mess sergeant came up  to me in his chef’s whites and said “If you ever come through that gate again without permission you will be shot.” I didn’t see any point in making trouble for anyone by explaining why I had done that, so I remained silent. Later that day, I calculated the sales commission on 12 loaves of bread three times a week, not much. The base was a bit away from the rest of the route, eating up my valuable time  and the company’s gasoline. I decided not to go there anymore.

A customer in Rockaway wants a loaf of fancy, rich butter bread, which I don’t normally carry, once a month, on the Friday before the first Sunday of the next month. It will be cut into neat cubes and used for Holy Communion in his (likely Baptist) church. I need to order my stuff one day in advance, and it’s hard to remember to check whether tomorrow will be the Friday before the first Sunday of the next month. I am a monthly disappointment to my customer; each Friday before the first Sunday of the next month, he shakes his head in sad resignation and I say I am sorry, which I genuinely am.

Sometimes I disappoint my bosses instead of the customers. One supervisor hears of a store in Mendham, according to him “just a turn of the wheel” off my route, that would like to sell Dugan products. At home I check a map and see it’s about eight miles off my route, let’s see, 8 miles  times 2  at 30 mph, that’s 32 minutes –  how am I supposed to add this store of unknown sales potential to my route and still get home at three o’clock in the afternoon? I am a creature of habit, and for the next few days I forget to go to my theoretical new stop and the bosses stop bringing it up.

People sometimes order specially-made cakes but change  their mind. Then the driver has to bring it back to the garage. There’s a raffle; anyone interested can buy a chance for a dollar. I win this time, and proudly bring home  a sheet cake inscribed “Happy Birthday Jazzelle”.

One day I finish my route early and decide to stop home for lunch before going back to the garage. After my truck has been parked in front of the house for an hour, a nosy neighbor begins to suspect the house-to-house, retail Dugan man has something going on with my wife. She sends her child to our door to snoop, saying her mother’s been waiting to pay her bill. My truck is way bigger than his, so the whole notion is absurd.

All good things must come to an end, and in 1966, Dugan Brothers, “Bakers for the Home Since 1878”, is raped  taken advantage of in a leveraged-buyout scheme, and soon thereafter files for bankruptcy and shuts down. My kids are sad – I won’t be home at three in the afternoon any more.

Once I took my older guy out on the route with me. It was a few days before Christmas and my customers treated him like  a king. He still remembers that day, and calls that job the best job ever.