Yet that was the case when I answered a classified ad for the position of copy boy at The Home News back in the summer of 1969.

Wow, I thought, this was my opportunity to make it into professional journalism, just having graduated from New Brunswick High School where I worked two years on the monthly school newspaper (Brunswick Highlights) as sports editor.

Bring me my assignments! I'm ready to take the Pulitzer Prize!

But wait, a copy boy doesn't mean that you do any journalism work.

First, you have to pick up a sack of mail from the New Brunswick Post Office, then come into the office at 123 How Lane and sort the hundreds of envelopes and deliver to the proper departments.

You also have to listen to the WCTC-AM radio newscast in the managing editor's (Ralph Williamson) office and jot down the details for the editor on the shift.

Then, once in a while, rip off the wire copy from The Associated Press teletype machines and given them to the proper departments.

And later in the evening, take orders for coffees and snacks from all the employees (including the composing room).

That amounted to some 30 coffees I would have to deliver from the local McDonald's fast-food chain, in addition to a number of hamburgers, fries, etc.

And, not to forget, pick up another 20 or so copies of the New York Daily News from the Albany Street news stand to distribute to my "customers," mostly the composing room staff, and lastly a couple of cigars for Mr. Williamson.

Then there was always news copy to pick up from our reporters at the Middlesex County courthouse in New Brunswick and the Somerset County report that was left at the Bound Brook police station.

I was doing my job so well, that no one at The Home News had any thoughts of asking me to do any writing.

So I took matters into my own hands. It took me more than a year to find enough guts to go over to sports editor Jack Oakley and beg him to allow me to write a story.

He gave me that opportunity, and I will always thank him for that.

My first byline for The Home News came on October 31, 1970, when I covered the Rutgers University vs. Delaware University freshman football game.

I sighed with relief to see my name spelled correctly (I'm sure through the years I have the composing room people a lot of headaches with that long last name) in my first official byline for the newspaper. I was listed as a Home News Correspondent.

From then on, I would be given a number of sports stories to write, including many that I was also covering for Rutgers Daily Targum, the Rutgers University daily newspaper. I was attending Rutgers University from 1969 to 1973 earning my Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism.

I continued working both as a copy boy (or should it be copy man, now) and a sports writer until midway through 1974.

In between doing my copy boy chores, I would rattle away on the typewriter in the women's page department (they usually were not working when I was there) with sports stories, mostly high school football and basketball games.

A front page story was written about me in The Home News on July 10, 1965, with the headline "Out-of-Towners Rally to Save Kilmer Home, But City Residents Lag", written by John Pribish.

The article began: "The recent publicity of the planned demolition of Joyce Kilmer's birthplace has sparked varied response in the drive to preserve the two-story frame dwelling as a national shrine to the poet-soldier."

"Ironically, only one contribution has been made by a New Brunswick resident to the fund aimed at saving the home from the demolition crew.

"It came from 14-year-old Louis Economopoulos of 276 Delevan St., who donated one dollar.

"The youth wrote: 'I am a poem lover. Please don't tear down the famous landmark of Joyce Kilmer. I don't want to see it as a parking lot. Why don't you ask all the people in New Brunswick to contribute some money?'"