Delivering the Monterey County Weekly presents unique discoveries.

While a number of names grace these pages every week, there are dozens of people who work behind the scenes to keep independent journalism alive and well in Monterey County, anonymous foot soldiers who stealthily bring the Weekly to newsstands every Wednesday night.

I’m particularly familiar with the task because a tab with the IRS inspired me to deliver papers so I might be financially solvent, and even scratch out a little beer money.

Every Wednesday I stuff my Subaru Outback with 3,425 papers – nearly 1,000 pounds, or a half ton – and head to Carmel Valley with my overloaded car sitting on the rear axle, shocks fully compressed.

The Weekly has an independently verified distribution of 36,000 that reaches from Watsonville to King City and over the Santa Lucia Mountains to Big Sur, and everywhere in between, with 825 distribution points. When two box trucks make their way from the Stockton Record to Seaside every Wednesday afternoon, 11 delivery drivers get to work loading their cars, vans and trucks with an edition that is still cool and slick after emerging from giant ink presses.

This once-a-week gig furnishes limited income, so most drivers have other work to get by. Among them are small business owners, entrepreneurs and a full-time paperboy who works for other papers as well. A few use the money from their contract delivery routes to supplement their Social Security.

I’ve always paid attention to the paper on newsstands, often organizing racks when I’ve found them to be disheveled, but it wasn’t until I started my own route that I began noticing how and where papers move. While we’re not the if it bleeds, it leads kind of establishment, if we throw something compelling – or cute and furry – on the cover, people love it and newsstands are empty the following week. Some stands are bare no matter what appears on the cover. Speaking of bare, when we ran a cover story on naked yoga, the remaining copies on the stand were flipped over.

A delivery colleague was mistaken for a murderer.

Starting off, I head to the Crossroads Shopping Center at Highway 1 and Rio Road, careful not to come to any quick stops that could send a few hundred pounds of newspapers into the driver’s seat. I had to learn that the hard way. But once I start making drops it’s not long until my rear-view mirror again serves a purpose.

While travels down Carmel Valley Road at night can be a lonely experience with only This American Life and the BBC World Service to accompany me, the shopping centers at the mouth of the valley give me interaction with readers. At places like Safeway and Starbucks, two of our most voluminous distribution points, I often meet people eager for me to unbundle the stack so they can pounce on the paper like a cookie fresh out of the oven.

Other times I see the sad realities of where we live. Nearly every week there’s an older woman with silver hair who looks like my late mémère (or grandmother) sleeping or using the WiFi of a cafe in the driver’s seat of her Prius. She’s homeless, but most would never know if they saw her during the day, and there are scores more like her around the county.

As I drive through the valley dropping off papers at restaurants, golf courses and residential communities, every once in awhile someone gets creeped as my car rolls up slow and my door opens. They’re disarmed by a smile and a stack of papers, but being on the road at night can often lead to other strange happenings.

While en route in North County, a delivery colleague was mistaken for a murderer a few weeks ago. A man had heard there was a killer on the run and assumed a woman with a car full of Weekly newspapers was the culprit. He blocked her in at a parking lot and called the cops. Freaked out that someone dangerous was holding her hostage, she called the cops, too.

By the time I get to the post office in Carmel Valley Village, the back seat of my car mostly holds the remnants of the prior week’s papers, which we collect count to streamline circulation numbers and then recycle.

The Running Iron Saloon is my last and favorite stop. I drop off my final 50 newspapers and buy a beer. There’s often a unique mix of tourists and Carmel Valley locals at The Running Iron, all trying to forget the morning comes early. The first time I walked into the bar, a local with long hair, a big beard and a stout frame wanted to kick my ass for no specific reason. Since then, he’s become a buddy. Another friendly face there recently told me, “The Weekly is so open-minded that its brain fell out.”

Having become a semi-regular, people are friendly and conversation is easy. It’s a good way to end a 15-hour day.