Delivery Service

After a long day shoveling snow or battling through an icy commute home, why cook?Just a phone call away, a multicourse supper awaits your order with promises of timely delivery to your doorstep.Dial your dinner choices into Liberty Express, and drivers will deliver the meal and maybe a video or flowers to help you forget the day's cares."We will deliver or pick up anything," said Ross Naumann, owner of the delivery service on Liberty Road. "For a buck-fifty, customers can't beat the services."

Starting Monday, Bagby Pizza is expanding its delivery area to the East Baltimore neighborhoods of Harbor East, Little Italy, Fells Point and Butchers Hill. The restaurant will deliver, in addition to its pizzas, a full menu of sandwiches, salads, soups and pastas. Bagby's delivery service will run Monday through Wednesday from 5 p.m.-9 p.m., Thursdays from 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m. and weekends from noon until close. There's a minimum delivery order of $12 and a delivery fee of $2. See also: Baltimores' oddest special deliveries Follow Baltimore Diner on Twitter @gorelickingood  

Service is a dying art in this country," the pundits moan, and there's a lot of evidence to back them up.The family doc who made house calls, the grocer who delivered your weekly order to the kitchen door, and the old-fashioned gas station attendant (who cheerfully pumped your gas and gave you free glassware, to boot) all seem like the stuff of Frank Capra movies. And the younger generation has never known the sinful pleasure of riding home with the milkman the morning after a really wild party.

Once as much of a test of a civilian government's effectiveness as collecting the garbage and keeping the peace in the streets, the delivery of packages and letters via a government postal service has undergone tremendous changes since the days when Benjamin Franklin got the unenviable task of being the nation's first postmaster general. In the United States, it became evident nearly a century ago that there was money to be made by delivering packages more quickly and reliably than the U.S. Postal Service.

Can grocery delivery be exploited as successfully as pizza delivery? Colin Chambers thinks so.For the past six weeks Mr. Chambers and his two partners in Lifestyle Services Inc., a Columbia-based grocery and pharmacy delivery venture, have been dispatching drivers to pick up grocery and medicine orders at a Valu Food grocery on Columbia's east side. The orders are delivered to customers' home or business locations -- the same day if needed."A lot of companies have tried this and failed. So making this a success is in some ways totally uncharted territory," said Mr. Chambers, 30, a former marketing associate with the Super Fresh grocery chain.

1899: rural mail delivery begins On Dec. 20, 1899, Carroll County became the first place in the nation to offer countywide Rural Free Delivery Service. The idea of Rural Free Delivery Service was conceived in the 1890s by Rep. Tom Watson of Georgia. Carroll County postal employee Edwin W. Shriver liked the idea of delivering mail throughout the county. He commissioned Herr Bros. of Westminster to build a "Post Office on Wheels," complete with a counter and mail slots. The cart made its first 30-mile route on April 3, 1899.

Starting Monday, Bagby Pizza is expanding its delivery area to the East Baltimore neighborhoods of Harbor East, Little Italy, Fells Point and Butchers Hill. The restaurant will deliver, in addition to its pizzas, a full menu of sandwiches, salads, soups and pastas. Bagby's delivery service will run Monday through Wednesday from 5 p.m.-9 p.m., Thursdays from 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m. and weekends from noon until close. There's a minimum delivery order of $12 and a delivery fee of $2. See also: Baltimores' oddest special deliveries Follow Baltimore Diner on Twitter @gorelickingood  

Just a few months ago, it was an article of faith among the know-it-alls that the city comptroller's race would be fought between council incumbents Joseph T. "Jody" Landers III and Jacqueline F. McLean. Then the AFL-CIO's endorsement went to Mary W. Conaway, the city's register of wills and pastor of a United Methodist church. Suddenly a keen three-way race has emerged for one of the city's most important elective offices.What does the city comptroller do? It depends on the office holder.

After a long day shoveling snow or battling through an icy commute home, why cook?Just a phone call away, a multicourse supper awaits your order with promises of timely delivery to your doorstep.Dial your dinner choices into Liberty Express, and drivers will deliver the meal and maybe a video or flowers to help you forget the day's cares."We will deliver or pick up anything," said Ross Naumann, owner of the delivery service on Liberty Road. "For a buck-fifty, customers can't beat the services."

Debt is chewing up a bigger bite of older Americans' income. Households headed by people 75 or older saw their debt loads as a percentage of income rise to nearly 8 percent in 2004 from less than 4 percent in 2001, a new study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows. Meanwhile, 61 percent of family heads of household over age 55 carried some debt in 2004, an increase of 7 percentage points since 1992, according the institute's report, which was published this fall. Among households led by a person 75 or older, 40 percent carried debt, up from 32 percent in 1992, the study found, using data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances.

John Joseph "Jack" Russell Jr., a recovering alcoholic who established a delivery service employing other alcoholics to help them get back into the work force, died Friday at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Abingdon resident was 72. Mr. Russell, who was born and raised in the Bronx, N.Y., was a graduate of St. Luke's Parochial School. He worked as a longshoreman in New York City for United States Lines before moving to Baltimore in 1970, when he took a job as a container supervisor for Maersk Lines at Dundalk Marine Terminal.

Debt is chewing up a bigger bite of older Americans' income. Households headed by people 75 or older saw their debt loads as a percentage of income rise to nearly 8 percent in 2004 from less than 4 percent in 2001, a new study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows. Meanwhile, 61 percent of family heads of household over age 55 carried some debt in 2004, an increase of 7 percentage points since 1992, according the institute's report, which was published this fall. Among households led by a person 75 or older, 40 percent carried debt, up from 32 percent in 1992, the study found, using data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances.

1899: rural mail delivery begins On Dec. 20, 1899, Carroll County became the first place in the nation to offer countywide Rural Free Delivery Service. The idea of Rural Free Delivery Service was conceived in the 1890s by Rep. Tom Watson of Georgia. Carroll County postal employee Edwin W. Shriver liked the idea of delivering mail throughout the county. He commissioned Herr Bros. of Westminster to build a "Post Office on Wheels," complete with a counter and mail slots. The cart made its first 30-mile route on April 3, 1899.

In a corner Reservoir Hill house-turned-after-school-hangout one recent afternoon, an 11-year-old girl known as Goofy is looking serious. Between chatter with friends and instruction by a local artist, Cieara Henson is focused on putting the final touches of paint and glaze on a clay tile she has made. It will go in a garden in her neighborhood that she helped create. She is working on the project with about a dozen girls: Monique, Robin, Jericka and others. None of them has likely given a thought to a man from Seattle named James E. Casey, who lived from 1888 to 1983.

Joe Tieperman is the chief financial officer of a company in Emmitsburg, and he doesn't walk in the door of his Waverly Woods home until after 7 most nights. His wife, Leslie, uses a wheelchair and can no longer cook their evening meals. The Tiepermans were getting along OK with takeout food and whatever Joe could toss together after he got home. But they've been eating a lot better in the past few months, ever since they hired Personal Chefs of Columbia. Karen York-Levine, who founded the company about 18 months ago, buys food and prepares several meals in their kitchen.

Eric Montz is kicking himself right about now.The 27-year-old United Parcel Service driver from Catonsville opted to focus his attention -- and money -- on his 401(k) retirement fund rather than buying company stock."It seems like every customer I have is saying, `Oh, here comes the millionaire,' or `Do you have UPS stock?' " said Montz as he made deliveries in downtown Baltimore days after the company's initial public offering became Wall Street's hottest stock."I wish I did," he said. "So many people are talking about it that it's annoying."

Joe Tieperman is the chief financial officer of a company in Emmitsburg, and he doesn't walk in the door of his Waverly Woods home until after 7 most nights. His wife, Leslie, uses a wheelchair and can no longer cook their evening meals. The Tiepermans were getting along OK with takeout food and whatever Joe could toss together after he got home. But they've been eating a lot better in the past few months, ever since they hired Personal Chefs of Columbia. Karen York-Levine, who founded the company about 18 months ago, buys food and prepares several meals in their kitchen.

Once as much of a test of a civilian government's effectiveness as collecting the garbage and keeping the peace in the streets, the delivery of packages and letters via a government postal service has undergone tremendous changes since the days when Benjamin Franklin got the unenviable task of being the nation's first postmaster general. In the United States, it became evident nearly a century ago that there was money to be made by delivering packages more quickly and reliably than the U.S. Postal Service.

Don't fret. That letter you dropped into the mailbox over the weekend will reach its destination -- even if you forgot that those penned thoughts cost an extra penny to send.The U.S. Postal Service will exercise "common sense," a spokeswoman said yesterday, and deliver items collected from untended mailboxes over the weekend.Even some items mailed as late as yesterday will not require the extra penny postage because officials will be unable to determine when they were dropped into the mailbox.

People with AIDS juggle diets, pills and complex schedules for taking their medicine.They need certain foods and must avoid others. Some drugs require empty stomachs and some full. Meanwhile, newer medications taken in so-called three-drug cocktails complicate matters more.It's a daily balancing act often done alone.Yet each day about 180 mostly homebound people with AIDS, too sick to shop or cook, get companionship and three meals delivered in metropolitan Baltimore by Moveable Feast. It's a 7-year-old cooking and delivery service facing pressures from more and more thankful clients.