I'm in a reflective mood tonight trying to recall the various items we
had delivered to our home on East Main Street back in the 40's/50's.
Some of the stuff I remember:
Sterling bread (from Canton?). I remember the cracked wheat bread that
came in the waxy wrapper (which you could use to wax the runners on
your sleds). I think occasionally the delivery guy would attach a
Peter Wheat comic book to the bread. I think the Peter Wheat character
was pretty dorky, but at the time he seemed neato.
Ideal milk (from Massillon?). The milk was full stregth with that
layer of cream on top. I think the bottle was sealed with some kind of
cardboard top that kind of flipped up. Returnable bottles. Imagine
that would be considered eco friendly recyling today. A good idea at
the time but now too labor intensive.
Grit weekly newspaper. I think I tried delivering those papers weekly
using my balloon tire orange Schwinn bike with the wire baskets on the
sides to hold the papers. I believe the full retail price was 10
cents; the goofy delivery boy got to keep four cents (which really was
a pretty good profit margin). The only problem was you had to send in
the six cents to Grit headquarters every week, even though you had a
problem collecting the full 10 cents from the customers (many old
tightwads around town who enjoyed stiffing the paperboy). That old
bike was a cool bike. It had a horn button with a battery operated
horn on it.
Charles potato chips in the big metal can. I still have the empty can.
Various door to door salesmen who sold:
Electrolux horizontal vacuum cleaners and Kirby upright vacuum cleaners.
Encyclopedias
Fuller brushes and Better brushes.
What other stuff do you remember that was delivered to your house or
that some pesky door to door salesman tried to sell back then?
The Weaselmeister
