~a column about Jefferson by Colleen O’Brien
When I was a kid – which is farther and farther away and easier and easier to remember (as opposed to yesterday) – businesses delivered all kinds of things to our homes.
We received the Des Moines Register and Tribune during some wee morning hour. Many of us still get this delivery, although the substance isn’t quite as good as it once was. The debate regarding this is whether it’s the news that is ickier or the style in which it is written.
Before I awakened, the Creamery or A&E — some milk purveyor — delivered milk to our backdoor. It came in bottles, the cream risen to the top for Mom’s coffee.
Our neighbors Mary Kay and George Kidder were the only ones I knew to which the ice man cameth, once a week, for their icebox.
My husband, as a boy, worked for the bread man who delivered bread and rolls to farmhouses.
Each spring, Dad called for a delivery of manure to be spread on his vegetable garden in Louie Tronchetti’s side yard across the street from us.
My gramma in Perry was delivered of groceries in wooden boxes to her backdoor at least once a week and when the weather was bad.
And, oh yes, there was the Fuller Brush man. He was a small, timid fellow, very kind, with bushy eyebrows and a big black satchel that folded out across the living room rug in compartments of brushes, chore boys and esoteric utensils that did not reveal their intention without his explanation. He came to deliver and take the next order, ensuring his return with another delivery.
Not to mention the doctor coming on a sick call, a delivery of sorts — her expertise and caring.
That we still have mail delivery is a kind of secret delight to me, for I’m always expecting what occurs hardly ever: a real letter. But, hope springs each day, and at least the mail person stops by so I can open my mailbox with anticipation.
The deliveries from the UPS man and the FedEx guy – indispensable to my overall happiness with packages that used to come from the mailman.
Once in a while I get a telephone book dropped on my front steps. Even this makes me happy; or at least makes me feel waited on, which perhaps is all this is about.
I would like it all — deliver me my groceries and my milk and cream. A loaf of 12-grain bread and a dozen Parker House rolls. Maybe an occasional Snickers delivery from Oly’s so I don’t have to run up there at 10 at night. A beer run from the liquor store. A bottle of vino from the Fareway. Eggs from my egg lady. How about a cup of espresso from the Bean?
The much vaunted convenience of this era is not all it’s cracked up to be, even as I like getting my local newspaper online along with emails from friends. I am one of those people who dislikes shopping, even – or to be honest – especially grocery shopping, and I therefore run out of basics like milk and eggs, so I wind up having tuna for breakfast. If I had groceries delivered, I know I would eat not necessarily better but less weirdly.
Things change; it is the essence of life itself. And they change more quickly now than ever before in history. It might be this constant newness of goods and services which I must accustom myself to that makes me long for other days when things stayed the same for years at a time. Or it might just be that I’m of an age where looking back is more inviting than looking forward.
And it could be that growing up in an era of house deliveries just seems so civilized, like gas stations paying an attendant to pump my gas. Now there’s a delivery out of the Neolithic.
