Snail mail, courier-home or central delivery

[shootingstar]

So our national snail mail postal service is under review for its financial viability, including door-to-door delivery.

I've been accustomed door-to-door snail mail delivery. In past 20 years, it has been central point --in a apt./ condo building that I live in. For pkgs. by courier, we do have it handled by our security staff in our building.

I admit --I like the convenience of shuffling down in my lousy t-shirt and slippers and getting my mail without stepping outside. And those of us who live snowy,icy winters..it really is nice to have that convenience. True, we get less snail mail due to email, online transactions.

During early mornings, I remember as a child, the milkman delivering milk in glass bottles to our door. This was the early-mid 1960's. I lived in a small city at that time.

Door-to-door service makes up 36.7 per cent of mail deliveries today, according to Canada Post statistics in the report. Deliveries to community mailboxes comprise 20.6 per cent and shipments to centralized points such as apartments make up 21.9 per cent.
The report also recommends a "significant one-time" stamp price increase for letter mail be considered to strengthen Canada Post's balance sheet and make it easier to borrow funds for modernization. It suggested per-stamp increases of five cents to seven cents would be required over two years. Each one-cent increase brings in $30-million a year.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...l_gam_mostview

[Crankin]

I still look forward to going to the mailbox and getting the mail. Even though we pay everything on line, we do get a lot of magazines. And all of those cycling, hiking, running, camping, etc. catalogs, even though they come on line, too. Fed Ex or UPS comes to my house at least twice a week.
Shooting Star, I remember the milkman, too. In the fifties, very early sixties. This was in a close in suburb of Boston.
I also remember getting mail delivery twice a day, at my grandmother's house. She lived in an older part of the city and that continued until about 1970.

[shootingstar]

Wow- unbelievable there were areas in North America receiving milk delivery in 1970.

[Grog]

Wow- unbelievable there were areas in North America receiving milk delivery in 1970.

Hummm... My cousins still have a milk delivery business TODAY and last I heard it was doing more than well. They deliver other things, too, such as cheese and ice cream and some juice.

[Zen]

We have a local dairy that delivers.
South Mountain Creamery
I get my eggs from a local woman who raises chickens. Pretty brown hens, they are.

[shootingstar]

We have a local dairy that delivers.
South Mountain Creamery
I get my eggs from a local woman who raises chickens. Pretty brown hens, they are.

Grog and Zen, there must long standing community support for this type of door to door service. Wonderful!

[bmccasland]

On the otherhand, for 5 years I lived on a fish hatchery at the end of 9 miles of dirt road. Even the local town did not have door-to-door mail delivery. It would baffle the minds of catalogue company people that my house did not have a street address, nor a zip code - as that was based on MAIL delivery, which I did not have. I would use my Post Office box (town) address zip code just to keep from confusing them. The delivery driver was a local guy - and as I worked in town, he'd often check if I was going straight home, and could I please take the hatchery's packages too? (especially in the winter)

Getting mail at the Post Office in rural towns is often a social gathering. Or a weeding out of the new folks from the older residents when signs appear on the door - "mail is late due to the snow storm, the truck hasn't made it up the mountain yet."

[Eden]

Wow- unbelievable there were areas in North America receiving milk delivery in 1970.

My dad was the milkman... (and yes he was married to my mum, no she wasn't a customer.. I think he may have been a taxi driver when they met) all the way up to the 1990's and the company he worked for is still in business..... I don't think they use glass bottles anymore, but you still have an insulated box outside on the porch if you aren't going to be home when the milkman comes.