Word: postman
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Central figure appears to be a middle-aged Dubliner of Norwegian descent named H. C. Earwicker, once a postman, a shopkeeper, hotelkeeper, an employe of Guinness' Brewery. He is married to a woman named Maggie, and father of several children, but involved in some way with a girl named Anna. Earwicker has been mixed up in some drunken misdemeanor, his dreams are filled with fears of being caught by the police. He dreams that he is coming out of a pub with his pals; a crowd gathers; one of the revelers sings a song, but it turns into...
Burly, six-foot Henry Ruthvin Smith is one postman who does not go walking on his holidays. After 16 years of lugging a fat mailbag over a regular residential route in Columbia, S. C., even the walking he had to do for the Post Office Department got to be too much. But while other postmen with the same problem met it by foot baths or retirement, Mailman Smith used his head. Last week, with the blessing of the Postmaster General, he was awheel in one of the strangest contraptions that ever carried Uncle Sam's post. Footsore grey-coats...
...Postman Smith made his escape in a four-wheeled scooter powered by a small gasoline engine. He stands at the back of his doodlebug, put-putting along at four to twelve miles an hour. For a delivery, he leaves his scooter contentedly burbling at the curb, manages to save not only foot-power but some 23% of the time formerly needed to cover his route. His superior, Superintendent of Mails B. H. Kaigler, intends to recommend the scooter's adoption for mailmen in residential districts everywhere...
Having built one scooter, Postman Smith is the smallest operator in a new automotive industry that has grown mightily within the past three years and is now engaged in trying to work itself out of the recreation-vehicle class. Visualized by scooter-makers is a flourishing trade in which one-lung puddle-jumpers will be used for messenger service, light deliveries, transportation of commuters from home to railroad station and back...
...Unlike Postman Smith's contraption, the commercial scooter is a two-or three-wheeled affair. It can go up to 35 miles an hour, runs 120 miles on a gallon of gas. Underslung between small, pneumatic-tired wheels, it has handlebars like a motorcycle, a footboard on which the driver puts his feet, an enclosed engine housing over the rear wheel on which he sits. Unlike either bicycle or motorcycle, it can be ridden sitting straight up, with a minimum loss of dignity. The rider straddles no crossbar, has no engine between his knees to oil his slacks...