Free delivery in old-time Phoenix


One of the great things about the modern world is free delivery. I've been getting free delivery for years and years now, and it makes me wonder how people could do without it. Of course, for most of the time I've lived in Phoenix there was no such thing, but there is now, and there was in old-time Phoenix!



In the ad there, from 1921, the Arizona Grocery Company, in Phoenix, did free delivery twice a day. You could pick up the phone, and have the groceries delivered. Or, if you preferred,  you could could go to the store, pick out what you wanted, go home, and the groceries would be delivered to your house. It wasn't necessary to have a buckboard, or anything, to haul the groceries. You could take the street car, and not have to carry anything, except maybe your harmonica, to entertain the other passengers. Nice!

Nowadays, of course, it's mostly done on the internet (free delivery that is, not playing the harmonica). I order a lot of stuff all the time, and it's delivered free. This wasn't available when I first moved to Phoenix, in the 1970s, and wouldn't be available until the invention of the internet, about twenty years ago. Yes, of course you could do mail order, but you always had to pay for "shipping and handling" (which most people HATE to do!).

I just love free delivery! If I time-traveled back to old-time Phoenix I would expect it, and hopefully I would deserve credit, too!
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