In the year 2000, I was thirty years old and fresh out of grad school. When the employment opportunity I had been banking on dissolved, I took a job delivering newspapers for The Daily Texan. I felt a kinship with the thirty-year-old paperboy character played by Chris Elliott on the TV show Get A Life.
Years later, when I met Elliott at a book signing, I excitedly told him about why I had christened myself "Paperboy 2000," per the name of the Get A Life episode that constituted the show's take on the John Henry legend. He appeared to receive this news with a mixture of horror and pity, responding with a wary "So, how'd that work out for you?". I reassured him that I had subsequently climbed the Texas Student Media org chart to a more senior role, and that any resemblance I bore to a puerile man-child should not weigh on his conscience.
