Home Delivery. July 16, 2020

 Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler 

 July 16, 2020

Home Delivery

 

My (soon to be Nonagenarian) friend Don Toney is continually impressed with today’s technology and the modern miracles it has produced. Recently he was waxing eloquent about the convenience we have today ordering things on the Internet and having them delivered to our front door.

 

My reaction was “Yes, but how much different is that from 1940?” Eighty years ago our parents appreciated the convenience of leafing through the Montgomery Wards and Sears, Roebuck catalogues, ordering items, and having them delivered to our homes. I particularly remember the excitement of receiving the Christmas catalogues right around Thanksgiving and pouring over the exciting collection of toys being offered.

 

I too am impressed with the capability we have today, and the ease with which Monday’s orders become Wednesday’s deliveries. Each time a UPS or FEDEX truck comes down my street, I am reminded of Marian the Librarian’s brother Winthrop singing “The Wells Fargo Wagon” in “The Music Man”. “I hope that it has something special, just for me!”

 

It is hard for someone today to realize what home delivery meant eighty years ago. Before every family had several cars, and women had been liberated, the typical housewife had to depend upon it for most of the family’s needs. I remember my mother calling Foster’s to order groceries. She would discuss the selection of meat available that day with the butcher, “How do the pork chops look?”. Half an hour later George Cox would drive up with her order.

 

Several times a week Louie Dernosek, “the huckster”, would visit our neighborhood and park his produce truck in the intersection of Lafayette and Elizabeth Streets. In no time he would be negotiating with a dozen housewives eager to replenish their supply of fruits and vegetables. His trademark was tossing an orange or apple to any child who happened by.

 

Milk was delivered daily, very early in the morning. I remember Portman and the Bridgeville Dairy in our neighborhood; I’m sure there were others. This was before the popularity of homogenizing milk. The milk was delivered in glass bottles, with several inches of cream at the top. The bottles had cardboard discs as caps; when the bottles were left on very cold mornings, it was common to find the cap popped and an inch or two of frozen cream extruded.

 

My memory of bread delivery is dominated by the Ertl Baking Company, primarily because the delivery man was so popular with all the kids. He was a small man, who had a distinctive small delivery van. Whenever he drove by, all the kids would shout, “Hi, Ertl!”.  

 

Until we moved to Lafayette Street and acquired an electric refrigerator, Herman Colussy was another frequent visitor, delivering ice for our ice box. He, too, was popular with the kids because he was a soft touch for any child begging a piece of ice to suck on.

 

Less frequent visitors were repairmen. One gentleman specialized in repairing umbrellas; I believe he went door to door on foot. Another gentleman sharpened scissors and knives – I remember his having a grindstone that he operated by pumping it with his feet. I wonder if he had a car?

 

Our mail delivery was exceptional – twice a day! I don’t think we had the volume of junk mail that plagues us today. People corresponded regularly by writing letters – this was the principal contact we had with my mother’s family in Emporium and my father’s in Franklin County.

 

Newspapers – can you imagine three daily papers? The Post-Gazette came every morning; in the afternoon we had the choice of two dramatically different evening papers. The Sun-Telegraph was a Hearst publication, decidedly conservative. The Press was published by Scripps Howard and tended to be more progressive. I recall politicking my parents to switch to the “Tele” because they carried the Lone Ranger comic strip.

 

Actually we had better service in many areas in those days than we do today. According to the 1940 Census, over half of the families in Bridgeville were earning less than the poverty level that year. Nonetheless society was able to afford things that are too expensive for us today, when we are all wealthy.

 

I am reminded of this every Tuesday evening when our high-class neighborhood is cluttered with garbage cans and piles of trash, to be collected the next day. We look like a scene from a movie filmed in an inner-city ghetto. In Bridgeville, in 1940, our garbage can was located in our back yard. The garbage collector carried it to the street, dumped it into his truck, and returned it neatly to its original location.

 

The same thing might be said about “service stations”. Do you remember pulling up to a gas pump, hearing the bell ring when you drove over the rubber tubing, and being greeted by a uniformed attendant, and courteously being asked if you wanted the oil checked, after he had begun to pump gas into your tank?  

 

My biggest use of our current capability is for ordering books. The vast availability of used and new books on the Internet and the limited number of local book stores makes the on-line ordering decision easy, despite my general preference for supporting local businesses. Most of the books I order arrive within two days.

 

How did we purchase books in 1940? The nearest book store was a department in Kaufmann’s, downtown. “Book-of-the-Month” clubs were popular in those days; I presume there was also more conventional mail order capability. I did find an advertisement for Brentano’s Booksellers with a list of novels that could be mail ordered. It included “The Egg and I” and “Forever Amber”, among others.

 

It is interesting that we have gone through this eight decades cycle. After World War II, our love affair with the automobile and suburban malls completely revolutionized our shopping methods. Today Amazon has displaced Sears, Roebuck, but in many respects we are back where we were in 1940.