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From Paper X to FedEx
Chat with Pat

I remember when my parents had coal delivered to our home.

A load would be dumped in front of the house and the men, or my father, would shovel it into a basement window to heat the furnace. I remember going down stairs occasionally to stoke the fire. I'm not sure how - I must have only been two.

We had an icebox and a man with heavy tongs carried the block of ice and put it in there. We had a bakery card that we would put in our window to let the baker know if he should stop or not.

We also had a milkman and an egg man. One time the egg man kicked or tripped over our dog and we stopped using him (the egg man - not the dog). Kicked or tripped - either way he was gone. You don't tread on the tail of our dog.

My grandfather had wine delivered straight from the farm.

Remember when Charlie Chips delivered potato chips? We still have one of their cans - empty of course.

We knew our paperboy personally and he collected every week. Now I get a bill in the mail every three months from a phantom that I have never seen.

People walked to the grocery store and if your eyes were bigger than your arms, a boy would help carry them home for you for a nickel or dime.

There were wagons up and down the street in the summer loaded with produce.

Once every summer a man with a pony would come by and take the children's pictures on or next to the horse (depending on how they felt about horses). No need to go to a photo studio.

We even had special event pictures done at home. The photographer would just put up a drop cloth behind the subject.

We didn't have garage sales. Nor did we give our old clothes to local charitable organizations. They were used as hand-me-downs or given, on a one-to-one basis, to someone less fortunate than we were.

Today some local charities will pick up your stuff once a month if left in a designated area and properly labeled. You have to put them out the night before and if you forget, they will not even ring the doorbell.

If you fail to follow the proper procedure your penalty is to take them in and try again next month. Who are these people who refuse to be seen?

There used to be a man with a horse and wagon walking down our street about once a week. He would yell out, "Paper X". Later I learned he was saying, "Paper, Rags" and was looking for old papers and rags and things that we may have accumulated.

I remember one hot summer day when my brothers and I were acting up. We were sitting on the porch steps with my mother.

When the Paper X man came down the street she called out to him and asked if he took bad children. I could have died from fear but to my joyful surprise he said "No lady, but I'll take you."

Remember when your Doctor made house calls, and the Drug store would deliver prescriptions?

We have our current deliveries and some of them I wouldn't trade for all the Paper X men in the world. Like pizza, pizza, pizza!

Some Chinese restaurants are now making deliveries. A booklet is put out by some grocery stores and you can call in orders. This hasn't caught on much; I think it is used mostly by people who can't get out.

The May Company, Sears and other local stores delivered, but you had to go to the store and pick out your purchase (Sears catalog was the exception).

I don't remember many U.P.S. Or FedEx trucks back then. Now they make deliveries a couple times a day.

We can order anything, really anything, on the Internet and have it in a couple of days. Catalogs flood the mail and we order from television programs.

We are getting things we ordered from other states quicker than we used to get our stuff from 3 miles away.

We know our mailman and UPS men very well, but what ever happened to that nice guy who delivered eggs? You know, the one that tripped over the dog.

Who did I forget?

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Pat







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