Delivery Services We Use/Used or Have Provided

AMAZON, NEWSPAPER, MILK, EGG

AMAZON

I get that the mega, end-all, Amazon can rub people the wrong way but they’ve indoctrinated me and I don’t think any level of intervention can save me at this point. I have settled into getting some household cleaning supplies and paper goods on subscription via Bezo’s comglomorate and from time to time I find something worth watching on Prime (latest obsession is The Sticky)…and to be honest, they make returns super easy so you have to give them that. I do like to support local businesses though, so I honestly do try to keep a balance. So, love ‘em or hate ‘em, whether it be a weary-eyed 3 a.m. impulse buy or a well-researched purchase, the notification ping and text message photo of an Amazon delivery has become routine for some of us.

NEWSPAPER

Does anyone get an actual newspaper delivered anymore? It’s hard to believe the number of us that can claim newspaper delivery as a first job. I personally delivered the Providence Journal, the Standard-Times, and the East Greenwich Pendulum to about 40 customers for approximately 4 years from late middle-school to the middle of high school. At the time 40 customers seemed to me to be a lot but I believe my siblings had more expansive routes. My route included Surrey Lane and Love Lane as well as South Road. I know that others in the family had routes that went as far on Old Baptist Road as Stony Lane and included the neighborhoods off Old Baptist. Headed in the other direction, routes included “the village” (Pine and Center Streets) and beyond to neighborhoods off of Davisville Road.

I have two vivid paper route memories. One involves a singular dog and the other a massively large amount of snow. The dog story is predictable: I was bitten. The dog was always aggressive but also always on a runner in the backyard…until he wasn’t. The dog came at me, I climbed onto the customer’s car hood in a failed attempt to escape. In addition to being aggressive he was also very large. He got to me before I could work my way up onto the car’s roof. In the end my pant leg and actual human-flesh leg both got torn up a bit. A tetanus shot and a few stitches took care of the flesh leg, the pants went to the trash. I think the customer did pay to replace them though. I’m realizing now as I’m writing this that my snow memory isn’t as solid as I thought but here’s the background info: In early February 1978 Rhode Island was slammed with a historic snowstorm. The Blizzrd of ‘78 dumped 27.6 inches inches of snow over the state over the course of just 2 days. I think there were probably a few days that papers didn’t get to me to distribute but I do remember delivering papers the day the storm started. I thought Norma took me to deliver papers in her orange VW bug with us swerving our way along Surrey Lane and struggling to open the car door because of the blowing and drifting snow. I’m not sure now that this correct because at that time Norma was already married so I don’t know why she would have been at The 461. Maybe I’m remembering a different storm. Maybe Norma remembers details of this event (but it’s more likely that Karen will).

I believe some of the Cousins or Next Generation delivered newspapers too, what’s your standout memory?

Two things not completely/directly related to newspaper delivery but I’m going to mention them anyway: First, I put “the village” in quotations because that’s how my mother always referred to that area and it sticks with me to this day even though it never seemed like a village to me. Second, in 2024 North Kingstown celebrated its 350th anniversary and some of us learned a lot about the history of “the village” (Davisville) from the lecture and talks series held throughout the year. We were surprised to learn that Davisville was actually a bit of a metropolis in days gone by with a train station, two general stores, a dance hall/community center, and a mill or two. Ask one of us that went to the talks about the tripe war.

MILK

Milk delivery seems like an old-fashioned thing but Munroe Dairy currently has a waiting list for their routes. I finally got added to a route this past summer. I believe Sarah and I are both currently customers. My milkman is Evan. I’ve never seen him which somehow makes him seem just a little bit magical.

I remember having milk delivery when I was a kid, I think it was via Hood. That somehow doesn’t seem right so if anyone remembers more than I do, please chime in. There are two things that stand out in my memory of that milk delivery service; one was that my mom would sometimes splurge and order the giant box of cookies. The box was about 15” X 6” X 6” and a plastic bag inside was chock-a-block full of small chocolate chip cookies which probably lasted about a day in our household. The second thing that sticks in my memory is that to keep however many kids were living at home supplied with milk for any substantial amount of time, we always got the 5-gallon, gravity-fed, spigotted, plastic vats. Kids (or at least this kid) are sometimes easily impressed and I thought those things were the coolest. I am guessing on the actual volume of the milk containers but they had to be more than a gallon. Anyone else have any memory of milk delivery at The 461?

EGG

West of Post Road in North Kingstown, south of Camp Avenue there is an atrocity of a development (maybe just my opinion) called Reynold’s Farm. It has apartments and single-family homes that seem stale in their outward appearance and over saturated from a density perspective. A friend that lives there, aware of the rocky composition of the soil, asked me what kind of a farm the land had supported. I reported that I only have a vague memory of the land as a farm in that I remember a roadside vegetable stand. I added that I remember the proprietor more for his egg delivery service than I do for any other farm association. I wondered recently if I had made up this notion of “the egg man” and asked (my) Aunt Eileen (Claire’s sister) about it. She confirmed that Mr. Reynolds was in fact “the egg man.” She told me when she was a young mom she either didn’t drive or they didn’t have a second car; either way the family relied on delivery services. One day Mr. Reynolds showed up with an egg delivery, which for whatever reason Eileen had forgotten was scheduled, and she didn’t have money set aside to pay him. She scrambled (ha! I didn’t plan that pun, really) to come up with enough money when she remembered a tin of coins on a shelf in the kitchen. She grabbed the tin and secured the remaining funds to pay for the eggs and all was well. All was well until she realized that the tin housed Ken’s coin collection and she had paid for the eggs with some rare(ish) quarters Ken had set aside. She only realized this weeks after the incident so it was too late to contact Mr. Reynolds to get the coins back – gotta label those coin collection cans! Goo-goo g’joob.