Walking down Asp Avenue, Calvin Steves is a Campus Corner warrior of sorts.

Armed with his OU helmet, a crimson newspaper carrier vest emblazoned with his name in white embroidery draped over his shoulders, Calvin pulls his red wagon (also bearing a proud white CALVIN label) along the streets of Campus Corner six nights a week.

Calvin is probably the best paper peddler Norman has ever seen, and he's easily the most well known.

A sneaker man, he needs supportive footwear to walk the several miles he completes nearly every day. He's on the shorter side, and doesn't move remarkably fast. No surprise -- he's pulling 100 editions of The Norman Transcript.

At a young 45, he's been making this paper route for the last 33 years.

After completing the downtown portion of his route, he heads to Campus Corner and starts at Louie's Grill -- Bar. No matter where he goes, he always arrives to the same greeting from employees on Campus Corner:

"Hey, Calvin."

It's not an overly excited greeting, but hesitantly warm. It's kind, but tired. Amiable, but predictable. As if they know what's to come.

"Want to buy a paper?" Calvin asks.

It's his slogan, his mantra.

Some are already reaching in their pockets, others are politely avoiding eye contact. But no one is safe from Calvin's expert persistence. He makes his way to everyone.

If you don't want a paper, be prepared to say so.

One server thinks she's out of view, but is approached directly by Calvin. She gives in and after a small sigh, tells him, "I'll go get my purse."

After he's made his round, he asks a bartender, "Is there anyone in the back?" Possible sales back there he can't afford to miss.

He leaves and waves goodbye, six papers sold. Not bad for his first round. Next is Logan's, then the Deli, Othello's and usually back to Louie's. Seven47 will let him in after the dinner crowd leaves -- after 10 p.m. He usually ends the night with a swing by Fat Sandwich and Campus Corner Market. And of course, everyone walking down the street is fair game for a sales pitch.

He'll make his route four or five times before calling it quits at closing time. Most other restaurants on the corner don't allow him in.

Calvin is a simple man, with a loud voice that seems to be shouting at every volume. He has a dry, sarcastic humor. He speaks slowly, but seems sharp. He wears his helmet everywhere to protect him from seizures; he's been an epileptic since a bike accident when he was a teenager.

"I like meeting people," Calvin says as he quietly spits on his red helmet and rubs away scratches and dirt. "I like going around to the restaurants selling papers. Everybody in this town knows me. It makes me happy."

His helmet is his treasure and his signature. On it are the numbers of famous OU football players like Heisman winner Jason White. Last is the number 43, Calvin's softball number with The Deli's team that plays at Norman's Reaves Park: The Red Cups. But very first is OU football legend Steve Owens.

"Steve Owens, he's my number one," Calvin says. "He's my most best player."

Not wanting to offend others in the Owens family, Calvin puts on the numbers of Tinker and Jimbo Owens, Steve's brothers who also played ball.

A true Normanite -- he's been here since grade school -- Calvin started selling papers when he was in the seventh grade.

"There's nothing else for me to do," Calvin says simply. "Because I will be bored sitting at home."

He's been called odd, eccentric, slow, weird, funny and cool. He's on a first name basis with many Norman residents, and rumors have been circulating for 20 years to explain why he is the way he is. Some say he's a secret millionaire who doesn't need to sell papers, others claim he gets paid heftily by The Norman Transcript to increase circulation.

The truth? He's an independent carrier for The Transcript. He only takes home what he makes in tips. Which isn't too bad, considering many of his customers pay him a dollar for a 25-cent paper.

In the beginning, every sale he made was pure profit. Until The Transcript found out what he was doing.

"Well, I did something wrong," Calvin admits, lowering his head, but not low enough to obscure his sly smile. "They caught me."

As a kid, the entrepreneurial-minded, outgoing boy started stealing papers from a dispenser and selling them to people on the street, Calvin admits.

Transcript managers caught wind of Calvin's endeavor and called him into the office. The independent carrier position Calvin still holds was their solution.

Even as a kid, he had a way of standing out.

Donna Brown, a retired Norman North High School teacher, remembers him easily from her time teaching middle school 30 years ago.

"Oh yeah, everybody knew him," Brown said. "He would talk to anybody ... his voice carried and you could hear him clear down the hall," she laughed. "He was one of those that was always in trouble for talking... He was not a shy kid."

In grade school and middle school, Calvin was in special education classes. Not unlike some of the attention he still gets today, the school-age kids didn't always understand Calvin's oddities or uniqueness. Brown said he got picked on a lot.

"I didn't like the kids," Calvin says. Kids would taunt and tease him, which Calvin says provoked him. "I just started hitting. I got in a lot of fights after that."

Growing up not exactly in the in-crowd, Calvin kept selling papers. Then, in high school, Calvin was riding his bike down Boyd Street when he was run off the road and suffered a head injury that resulted in epilepsy.

His paper route became his calling.

"He couldn't do anything else," said Edward Burt, Calvin's stepfather. Burt has lived with Calvin and two of his brothers since Calvin's mom Lucy died in 2003.

"The doctor said, 'He needs to do something,'" Burt recalled. "His mother thought the paper would be best, mixing with people. She said it was worse for him to sit around the house than going out and peddling his papers."

So Calvin, loyal to his mother, did just that. Apparently he picked up some traits of hers, too.

"He'll do anything for you, if he can," Burt said. "His brothers don't work, Calvin helps them out, brings food in. He helps everybody he can."

Calvin graduated from Norman High, and still wears his senior ring proudly.

Just as Norman defines who he is, it's hard to define Norman without Calvin.

Andy Rieger has been managing editor of The Transcript for the last 13 years. He's developed a friendship with Calvin, chatting with him every time he comes in the newsroom, helping him out when he can and loaning him cash (which Rieger said is always paid back).

"I'd say, next to Barry Switzer and Steve Owens, he's one of the most well-known people in Norman," Rieger said.

"He's very loyal to the paper. He'll call and update me, tell me things or ask me things," he said. "He's part of Norman. He's a great part of Norman. I appreciate what he does for this community and for the paper."

Norman residents who have been around for a while have developed a fondness for Calvin. But sometimes newer, younger residents who come to Campus Corner to party don't get it. Luckily, he's got some backup.

"These guys around the corner keep an eye on me. Everybody keeps an eye on me because they don't like people messing with me," Calvin says.

Burt appreciates what the local community does for his stepson.

"You don't fool with Calvin, everybody protects him," Burt said. "They make fun of him because of his helmet. I just tell him that, you know, it's his head he has to protect, not theirs. You know people out there, how they are. It's a rough world to come up in out there."

"He gets some abuse," Rieger said. "I like to think it's from people who don't know him, who aren't Norman residents. It's really unfortunate. But, you know, he's learned to live with it. But, for every one person that gives him a hard time, there are a dozen that stick up for him... He's one of those unifying elements that makes Norman the accepting, caring community that it is."

Ron King, a lifelong Normanite and self-declared fan and friend of Calvin's, has worked at Campus Corner Market off and on for the last 10 years. King said he has seen Campus Corner lose some of its previous aura as the kind of university community where diversity is valued.

"Calvin essentially grew up in a little bit more idealized environment," King said. "I'd like to think that it's one of the reasons he's managed to survive and managed to develop a large group of people that know him and like him and feel a bit warm-hearted, you know, having him in their lives."

Most people just know Calvin as that weird guy wearing the helmet who walks around Campus Corner selling papers. They might avoid him, having already read the morning's paper and not being able to bear the idea of saying, "No thanks, Calvin" one more time.

Drunks will make fun, yelling mockingly at his helmet or wagon. Friends will offer him rides, give him a hard time, a pat on the back, or a free Coke.

Few will get to know him personally. But even fewer will understand where he comes from, how he got here, or exactly how hard he works.

"Calvin has some limitations. But, he is only different in that he chooses to be productive," Rieger said. "There are a lot of people with far fewer disabilities that sit around and just get taken care of and don't do anything else. He's one of the hardest workers in this town. "

For Calvin, it's not too complex.

"I've got nothing else to do, just work," he says. "I hope to keep selling papers for as long as I can."

Lauren Hopkins is a recent graduate of OU's Gaylord College of Journalism.