TIME SAVERS ARE SHRINKING OUR DAYS
by
Bill Bowers

        I heard the other day that sponsors of the Olympics TV coverage paid millions of dollars to have a package of commercials spread through the two weeks of televised events. Some soul who does these sorts of things further figured out it broke down to hundreds of thousands of dollars for each 30second spot. "Gee", I thought, "Where do these folks get all that money?" Well, I figured that if they thought they could get enough sales from that kind of advertising, it was their business, not mine. But wait! Isn't that a commercial for the US Postal Service on the air? By golly it is! A while back I wondered why it cost me 34 dollars to buy 100 stamps and now I know why. The Post Office advertises. It doesn't matter that they're the only game in town. They advertise. When do our stamps go up again? When they get the Advertising bill? It bugs me more than a little to know that the Postal Service spends millions of dollars to tell me of their service (which is becoming more questionable daily) and then charges me for telling me.
        I know this dates me, but I remember buying a sheet of 100 postage stamps for $3.00. We had two mail deliveries a day back then too. Morning and afternoon. We all knew our mailman personally and he knew us and everyone on his route. He knew when there was an illness or death in the family or even when a son or daughter got married. He knew when a son went to war...and whether he came back. The mailman's arrival was often a time for a short chat... There seemed to be plenty of time back then to make and keep fringe friends.
        It was a time when many things were delivered to your home. We left the door open for the milkman. If we left him a note in one of the glass bottles for an increase in our order, he knew we had guests coming. If we told him no delivery for a few days, he knew we were going to be gone and he'd keep an eye on the house to see if anything was amiss.
        Most of the milkmen also carried eggs and butter and, later on, ice cream.. Of course there wasn't 1% and 2% butterfat milk available then. The early bottles just tapered to the top and the cream rose into that tapered part. You skimmed the cream from the top with a small dipper especially made for the process. Then came the big invention of the cream top bottle with a restriction and a bulge in the upper fourth of the bottle so you could pour off the cream which naturally collected at that point. You could pour it off without the problem of milk and cream mixing. Below that was skimmed milk. They no sooner made it easy to pour the cream from the top of the milk, when some wise guy invented a process that so thoroughly mixed the milk, it wouldn't separate. ³Homogenized,² they called it. From that point on, cream had to be bought separately.
        Before that time and the advent of mechanical refrigeration, the ice man would make deliveries to the home. We would keep a yellow and black square card in the window indicating the amount of ice needed. It had the standard weights placed so that by rotating the card it would tell him you wanted 121/2--25--50--or 1001bs. of ice. It all depended on which edge of the card was on top. I remember standing at the rear tailgate of the electric ice wagon (Yes, I said electric) and watching him pull a big chunk of ice down from the stack in the wagon. He'd deftly chip just the right size from the larger block and with a single, rotating and lifting, 'ballet move,' load the ice onto his back with ice tongs. These hardy souls wore a heavy leather shield on their backs with a folded pocket at the bottom to catch the melt water so it wouldn't drip on the customer's floor. I remember being amazed that they could make such a clean, straight cut with the pick and have so little waste. He would bring it into the house and place it in the ice box arranging it so the left over chunk would be in a handy place if you wanted to chip some pieces for a cold drink. Where did the melt water go? Down through a little drain hole in the bottom of the ice box into a pan which had to be emptied daily unless you were lucky enough to route it to a drain. I think food tasted better then.
        We knew our milkman and our ice man by their first names and even managed to learn something of their families over the years. Always time for a short chat...an opinion or two and then on to the next customer. They never appeared rushed. These two were the regulars.
        There were occasional horse drawn wagons too with vegetable and fruit peddlers. They generally had a unique call when they clopped by on streets that were made for automobiles. "STRAAAWBERRRIEEES.... RAZZZBERRRIEEES.... TAHMAAAYTAHS." Housewives would run out to the street in their housecoats carrying a dollar bill or two in their hands. They'd bargain with the peddler and wind up carrying a couple of sacks of fruits and vegetables back to their homes. Each satisfied they had cut a fine bargain with the peddler. Most would even bring back some change.
   
        Then there was "The Good Humor Man." He was mostly a summertime visitor to the neighborhood. His small, white painted truck cruised the streets heralded by a string of glistening silver bells mounted just above the windshield with a little rope leading through the windshield molding and into the driver's cab. Those multiple tinkling bells on a warm summer's eve would turn a deserted street into a stampede of children rushing to buy a" Good Humor" bar. Ice cream covered with a chocolate shell on a stick. Each about twice the size of a similar ice cream bar today and only a nickel. Shirtless, barefoot kids in shorts surrounded the little wagon as the driver reached down into a frost lined box cooled with "Dry-Ice" to retrieve and dispense the confections while clouds of white vapor spilled down the sides. Many a father had his pockets cleaned of change when the bells heralded the approach of the Good Humor Man. It was real ice cream too. I'll bet there were 800 calories to a bar, to say nothing of how much butterfat. Death on a stick by today's standards.
         Why is everybody in such a hurry these days? With all the labor and timesaving devices we have, everyone should be able to spend at least half of each day just enjoying this one life we are given. I've given it some thought and I believe that days have grown much shorter than they used to be and, somehow we are not aware of it. All the things that must be done in a days time, must be done in a day that is much shorter. When I was a kid, days and weeks seemed to be endless. It took forever for a birthday or Christmas to arrive. Now, it's practically tomorrow and a year goes by so quickly that by the time I remember to change my calendar on the wall, I have to turn two pages. I think the scientists ought to look into this phenomenon.
        While the "good old days" had their drawbacks, I kind'a liked 'em. They certainly took more time to pass and there was a lot of pleasantness in them.