That’s why I’m sad to see this easily forgotten aspect of the newspaper business fading away.

As a struggling freelance writer, I supported myself for five years in the 1970s by delivering papers to vending machines and homes in the New York City suburbs. I was subsidized by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Daily News, so the money was actually pretty good if you enjoy that sort of work — which I did.

Those were boom times for newspaper publishers. On Sundays, for example, The Daily News reached more people in the New York City area alone than today’s most popular cable news shows reach in the entire country. When I went out each Saturday evening to sell the early Sunday edition, known as the bulldog, people would be lined up waiting, often giving me a buck or two as a tip.

I thought about this — as well as the ink that stained my fingers, the cold winters, and the thousands of coins from vending machines I had to count and roll each week — when I read about the recent struggles of The Portland Press Herald, in Maine.

"We are experiencing the most acute shortage of newspaper carriers we can recall," the publisher, Lisa DeSisto, wrote in a letter to subscribers. "Many forces are working against the newspaper business these days — readers consuming news for free on the internet, the new tariff on Canadian newsprint driving up prices that publishers pay for paper, and now this labor shortage, which is hampering our ability to get the paper to every subscriber on time every morning." She noted that her paper had "27 open routes from Edgecomb to Kennebunkport."

If you still get a newspaper home-delivered (I get six) you are probably as frustrated as the readers in Portland. So much has changed in the job that many of us relied on to make ends meet. Gasoline prices are higher. With fewer subscribers, routes are more spread out and take longer than before. Many local publishers have contracted to deliver national papers along with their own — and if one national daily is late, the carriers lose precious time waiting.

Five of my six papers are delivered by The Herald in Monterey, Calif., owned by the infamous Alden Global Capital hedge fund that has managed to suck the life — and cash — out of its roughly 60 papers, most notably the ravaged Denver Post. Some days my papers come at 6:30 a.m.; on other days, at 10 or 11. Often they’re tossed in the water-filled ditch near my driveway. Each time a driver seems to get the hang of it, he or she quits.

Many of us got our first jobs as young teenagers delivering papers by bicycle. My route, in 1960, was for a start-up paper called The Daily Trader, published in White Plains. I was paid a penny and a half per paper for a route covering several hilly miles. I’ll never forget my first day — also The Daily Trader’s: Hurricane Donna struck the region, spoiling the inaugural issue, and drenching those of us who dared to go out in the storm to try to deliver it.

The demise of afternoon papers caused the big shift from kids on bikes to adults in cars. "It’s a really hard job," Ms. DeSisto said in an understatement. She now offers signing bonuses for carriers and incentives for outstanding service, to little avail.

There are many reasons the newspaper industry is in free fall, but widespread failure to get the product delivered properly is certainly part of the problem. A shame, because many thousands of carriers remain as dedicated as ever.

Alas, for them, there’s bad news on the doorstep or, as the case may be, in the ditch near the driveway.

(c) Peter Funt. This column originally appeared in The New York Times.