The U.S. has home delivery SIX days a week.
Posted by Anonymous to Our Town and Its Business at 3 November 2015 at 09:27
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I remember a time when mail was delivered three times a day ,six days a week.
The work week was six days though Saturday was half a day.
Stores closed half days on Wednesdays.Once a month,for a whole day.
A letter was mailed and delivered the same day. A stamp for a card cost a penny. Hence the penny postcard.
Homes did not have phones in those days. I remember first installation of telephone boxes on the street. We hung around them at night and took turns at dialing zero and listening to the operator's voice.
The post office (GPO) operated the system . The police had to be used to stop kids from being a nuisance.
The post office provided banking services as well. We didn't have cheques though. Everything was paid by cash. Except at the wee corner shop where things might be obtained on "tick" until a pay check came in .
Except for telegraph service,also provided by the post office.everything was moved by foot, train or horse drawn carts.
I lived near the station. A postman (woman during the war) pushing a tall covered basket on huge wheels three times a day from the station to the post office was a familiar sight.
If a death occurred in the family, a member was assigned the task of going from house to house
within the family to inform everyone. Funerals were held within two days. The remains were taken to the church from home and a service held the night before the funeral.
Men accompanied the remains to the cemetery, Women went home and prepared the food and refreshments.
When I came to Aurora, everyone went to the post office to pick up the mail. We lined up in a queu.
We got to know each other and a lot more besides.
Experience in my lifetime with mail delivery has been wide and varied..
I have known mail delivery three times a day. No mail delivery . Now mail box delivery.
I have known the pleasure of letters from friends. Phone calls from abroad. Sharing the lives great-grandchildren,thousands of miles distant. Because of the Internet,we are not strangers.
The comment above came in to my mailbox at 9.27am and I am writing a response one hour later.
How cool is that ?
Trains still pass through the station of my childhood but they are sleek and silent and move like the wind.
Because I have lived longer, I've seen more dramatic change in my life than anyone in my family.
If anything, change has been the single constant.
Some of it for the better. Much of it not.
Of all of it, the end of home mail delivery worries me the least.
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6 comments:
It was too bad that we lost our Post Office. I met a lot of new friends there and knew those who worked the counter well.
It did show that even with the " right " political representatives for the time, there was nothing to stop the process of
shifting the bulk of work to Newmarket.
So it will be with the new mail boxes. It is a done deed.
A lot of people are not aware that you can get money drafts from the post office as well as from a bank.
Home delivery is way down at the bottom of the totem of things one simply has to have.
Real people when you rang the operator too. That used to be considered a great job for us kids living in the sticks.
The US also does NOT have universal healthcare - which would you rather have?
11:06
So, the US has elected to fund 6 days a week postal delivery instead of universal healthcare?
That's quite a stretch.
Anyone that gets bills in the mail have no doubt seen inserts to move to eMail or Canada Post's online mail box system. They also have seen that they could pay a couple of dollars more per month to get a mailed bill. That said, even if you get your bills mailed to you, picking up the mail once a week is often enough. Unless you are waiting for the EI cheque!
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