I began working in journalism when I was eight. It was my mother's idea. She wanted me to "make something" of myself, and decided I had better start young if I was to have any chance of keeping up with the competition. With my load of magazines I headed toward Belleville Avenue. The crowds were there. There were two gas stations on the corner of Belleville and Union. For several hours I made myself highly visible, making sure everyone could see me and the heavy black letters on the bag that said THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. When it was suppertime, I walked back home. " How many did you sell, my boy?" my mother asked. " None." " Where did you go?" " The corner of Belleville and Union Avenues." " What did you do?" " Stood on the corner waiting for somebody to buy a Saturday Evening Post." " You just stood there?" " Didn't sell a single one." " My God, Russell!" Uncle Allen put in, " Well, I've decided to take the Post." I handed him a copy and he paid me a nickel. It was the first nickel I earned. Afterwards my mother taught me how to be a salesman. I would have to ring doorbells, address adults with self-confidence, and persuade them by saying that no one, no matter how poor, could afford to be without the Saturday Evening Post in the home. One day, I told my mother I'd changed my mind. I didn't want to make a success in the magazine business. " If you think you can change your mind like this," she replied, " you'll become a good-for-nothing." She insisted that, as soon as school was over, I should start ringing doorbells, selling magazines. Whenever I said no, she would scold me. My mother and I had fought this battle almost as long as I could remember. My mother, dissatisfied with my father's plain workman's life, determined that I would not grow up like him and his people. But never did she expect that, forty years later, such a successful journalist as me would go back to her husband's people for true life and love. What is the text mainly about?
The early life of a journalist. The early success of a journalist. The happy childhood of the writer. The important role of the writer in his family.