Lets start with some background stories to help establish the characters and the time period. I feel they are moderately interesting and will make the main story more enjoyable, as this is how it was presented to me.
My grandfather grew up in Washington with his two brothers in a generally poor family. As the youngest of the brothers he, like most younger brothers, looked up to his two older siblings. When both of his brother were old enough, they opened up their own newspaper stands, you know the awesome kind where they'd sell papers on the corner shouting out the news of the day. My grandfather, now 7 years old, often helped out the middle brother by selling some papers for him for free. He would venture into the taverns and yell out the headlines to the smokey old drunks inside, and they would get a kick out of the little guy, and generally bought a lot of papers.
As my grandfather grew a year or so older he eventually wanted to purchase something as most kids do. In this case it was a bike. At the time the war was going on, so all metal was going towards the war effort which meant that buying a new bike was an impossibility. However, he knew of a few used bikes that had not be reclaimed, and he had his eyes set on one of those. With this goal in mind, he asked his middle brother if he would pay him some money to continue helping to sell papers for him, as he brought in a lot of business due to his popularity at the taverns. The middle brother told him no, it was his paper stand, if he wanted to make money he should get his own.
After being rejected by his middle brother, my grandfather asked the same question to his oldest brother who also had a paper stand, and his oldest brother agreed to pay him a small amount for each paper he sold. Things went fairly well for him for awhile, he continued to experience good business at the taverns and slowly but surely saved up money for his bicycle. One day, in an attempt to find more business, my grandfather entered a bowling alley. During this time period, bowling alleys were seen as shady places or as he told me, "Dens of Inequity." It was generally a rough area where all sort of things would happen of questionable legality. Upon entering the bowling alley, my grandfather found it to be completely empty apart from the clerk at the desk and a single man bowling. He caught the clerk's eye and the clerk asked him if he needed some extra work. My grandfather said that he did and was hired on the spot as a pin setter. Again, he proved to be popular with the bowling alley patrons, and they often threw tips down the lane at him, as was typical at the time. He kept this job a secret from his parents due to the reputation working at a bowling alley carried, and enjoyed his increased income. However, after 3 months or so of working, his middle brother had discovered his extra job and, bitter about him quitting the stand to work for his oldest brother, ratted him out to his parents. He was forced to quit his job or be disowned.
Through the years he continued to work the odd job here and there and eventually opened a paper stand of his own before finally joining the Air Force as soon as he was old enough.
And so ends the first part of the story.