Smith: When the paperboy went above and beyond

Ex-Santa Rosa kid Bill Carmody - Class of ‘90, Santa Rosa High - did a nice job with his piece in the online version of Inc. magazine: “Billionaires Who Started with Paper Routes and the 5 Key Lessons Learned.”

Now CEO of the Trepoint marketing agency, Carmody recalls that as a 12-year-old PD paperboy he found that subscribers liked it when he tucked a candy or a thank-you note into the newspaper bag.

“I made sure that every single paper landed on the front porch squarely on the ‘Welcome’ mat,” he writes. “I always said hello to every person I saw. I held the door for anyone with their hands full and made a point to go above and beyond anything that could be expected of me.”

Carmody mourns that few kids now have the chance to deliver papers because the lessons learned on a route are golden.

At 42, he tells the whole world, “Thank you, Press Democrat, I really appreciate the opportunities you bestowed upon me.”

MIKE & PETE & YOU: Imagine listening as nine-term Congressman Mike Thompson and Pete Golis, the PD’s politically astute part-time columnist and retired editorial director, share reflections of the past and thoughts on current national and world events.

You can be there when it happens at 6 p.m. Monday, July 20, at the 6th Street Playhouse.

Thompson will certainly speak of his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, and he and Golis will entertain questions from the audience.

The conversation is hosted by the Historical Society of Santa Rosa. There’s no cost, but the fledgling group will gladly accept donations.

It’s best to register for a seat by emailing Staci Pastis at StaciPastis@aol.com.

AS HAPPY AS SNOOPY are the more than 1,000 young-at-heart hockey players from far and wide who let nothing keep them from the 40th annual Charles Schulz tournament that’s happening all this week at Snoopy’s Home Ice.

If you get out to take in the action, watch for the player wearing the biggest smile.

It may be 60-year-old Gary Lathrop of Santa Rosa. He took up ice skating just a decade ago, having become hooked on hockey while watching his son, Henry, play.

Lathrop is especially gleeful to be suiting up and playing as a fill-in on The Rusty Blades from Massachusetts because months ago, he had cause to wonder if his hockey days were over.

He was diagnosed with cancer of the tonsils last fall and underwent weeks of chemotherapy and radiation. Lathrop is thinner and quicker now, and on the ice at the Snoopy tourney seems no less merry losing than winning.

THE PLUTO FLY-BY is a bit personal for John Perry.

Prior to the 2006 launch of the New Horizons spacecraft, Perry and two co-workers at the former JDSU in Santa Rosa - John Toscano and Ron Willson - painstakingly coated one of its eyeballs, a fiber-optic lens.

“It took us over 36 hours,” recalls Perry, who now applies coatings for MAC Thin Films.

He’s best known for his more than 40 years as coach of the A’s of Westside Little League. Most of the mementos filling his place are baseball related, but how he treasures the “New Horizons Pluto/Kuiper Belt” coffee cup that NASA gave him.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.