My First Job Had Impact

Three floors up, I knock a few times on an ordinary door; wooden and painted the most common beige of my day, which, at this point, is 1963. It’s a Saturday and I’m delivering groceries for Gilmore’s Market, Brockton, Massachusetts; a Mom & Pop Store on the corner of Grove Street and Montello Street and around since the early 1900’s. I am 16 and only needed a couple of minutes to slow my breathing from the climb. I wondered if my dad and his brothers made the same 3 story walk ups when they were my age. I got this, my first job, as a sort of tradition passed from my grandfather to my dad and his brothers then on to me and my brother, Christopher, a year or two after me.

I wait to hear the very feeble voice of the occupant behind the door say “who is it?” After a couple years, this would change to “is that you David” and finally “David?” I’d respond, yes Mrs. Moran, it’s me. When I first met her, I had to wait a few minutes for her to get to the door, I’d know she was coming, because her rocking chair creaked loudly. As she began to trust me more, she gave me a key, the skeleton type, and after knocking, I could let myself in and say hello. Mrs. Moran was deep into her eighties, and was very fragile of body, but garrulous as a girl in her teens. I would go to her chair, and kneeling down help her on with her slippers, pink and dainty looking, she wore rimmed boy’s sport socks, and always a thin old-ladies house dress (a teenage term, not nice, but accurate). After the slippers, we would do a dance just for helping folks rock their way up and out of a rocking chair. (Her chair, by the way, a beautiful old Boston Rocker, with blondish top that blended into a coal black bottom) I’d take a solid stance and holding her fragile hands, assisted pulling her up, after about three squeaking rocks, Mrs. Moran made it to her feet. She’d hold my arm, and talk as we made our way to the counter, where I had placed the box of groceries. There would be one of everything, an apple, an orange, a quart of milk, a can of 3Diamond brand tuna, a loaf of Wonder bread, a small jar of Skippy Peanut Butter and a jar of Smuckers Strawberry Preserves and 3 cans of a nondescript cat food, for her cat, Bootsy, who headed for the hills every time I was there. Mrs. Moran, Mary as we became friends, would ask me to open her can of tuna and a couple of cat foods, because she didn’t have the strength to use her antiquated can opener.

I delivered groceries throughout the city of Brockton, usually Thursday, Friday after school at West Bridgewater High School, and all day on Saturdays. I reckoned most customers were the children of former Gilmore customers, a generational thing, common in the 1950’s and 1960’s. It was the perfect job for a newly licensed teen with no experience at driving or a formal job, I loved it, especially the delivering part. In the store was less rewarding and always far more chaotic than I thought it should have been. Phil Gilmore would say do this and that and get the phone and come up and slice a pound of Majestic Polish ham for so and so, she needs to catch a train, then clean up the return bottle area in the cellar, a curse worse than death to my recollection. Getting the orders up and staged along the back aisle, I would load up the 1962 Belvedere Plymouth Station Wagon in the order of delivery. I always kept two orders, in small boxes, up on the front seat with me. One was for another third-floor lady, on Crescent Place, a Miss Randall.

Miss Laura W. Randall would hear me traipsing up the three flights with her order, and be waiting at the top with door open. Miss Randall was 85 years old and moved around the small apartment with the grace of a Ballet dancer. She was a spinster and retired English teacher, who had outlived all of her siblings and relatives. Always engaging, I enjoyed spending the ten minutes or so, when I delivered her groceries. Miss Randall always included a 6 pack of Hershey Almond Bars in her order, and would insist on my sitting at the kitchen table while she sat next to me and wrote a check to Gilmore’s Market. She always opened the candy bars and sweetly smiling, said “one for the road” as she slid it into my shirt pocket. I remember she dressed like I thought a school teacher from the 1930’s or so would. Her beautiful white hair was always up high on her head, and a white pleated, perfectly ironed blouse, and long to the ankles black skirt. I pictured her with a yardstick or pointer in her hands as she reviewed with her classes the fine art of cursive writing. (She’d turn over in her grave if she lived today.) She was delicate but not fragile, and I liked her immediately; I’ll never forget how beautifully she would sign her checks Laura W. Randall, in perfect cursive. She always told me to be careful driving and she looked forward to next Saturday.

I delivered groceries to Mrs. Conley on Hervey Street; this was two light weight boxes of mostly cans of cat food, and a few human items like milk and some Maple Leaf hot dogs. She lived in a first-floor apartment and loved to talk. In terms of today, she was the classic cat lady, and I’d take a huge breath before entering her kitchen, just inside the side door entrance. The smell was punishing, and I let her do all the talking, while taking as few big breaths as I could. She’d leave the room to get the cash to pay for her order, while a thousand cats worked their way around my feet and legs, even jumping against me to get a better look at who I was (is he the one that brings us food?). I could always tell she wanted me to stay longer, but never had the heart to tell her the truth, that the stench was stronger than ether given just before a surgery. I always said I was in a rush to finish my deliveries, but that I’d see her next week.

I would deliver the rest of the orders, many of which had their own story, but I always saved my favorite for last, Mrs. Mary Moran. I simply enjoyed helping her and talking to her as I put groceries in places she could reach. It gave me a good feeling to do her hard chores, because they were so easy for me, and she appreciated, as she didn’t get many visitors. Each visit would include some small thing she needed done and I didn’t mind it all, and as I would leave, I began a routine of taking her trash with me down to the garbage area in the driveway. She reasoned that since on Friday’s the trashmen picked up, that there should be plenty of room for her tiny bag of rubbish on Saturday.

One Saturday, I brought her an electric can opener, and we practiced opening a tuna and a cat food can, and she was like a little kid, giddy for the ease of it. This made her daily life a little easier, and she’d thank me by squeezing my hand with her tiny and frail hand. You just know, when someone looks forward to your visit, and though it was a job, I admit I liked being able to help and I loved her spirit.

Internally, I knew she would leave us one day, but with her love of God and happy ways, I hoped it wouldn’t be for a long while. On a rainy Saturday, I made my way up the stairs and knocked for her, and was met by a much younger woman, Mary’s granddaughter. I gasped and asked if Mary was OK and she assured me that she was alive, but had been transferred to a nursing home, where she could receive around the clock care. I left the groceries and my key, and thought that it was probably better for her.

I told my mother about my friend Mary, and she said we should go visit her some time. Not wanting to wait too long, the following Saturday my mother and I went to visit Mary. She was in a nice big bed and looked so small and more fragile than I remembered, but her eyes lit up when I came in and introduced my mother. They chatted, while I just sat, holding her hand, in her beautiful old creaky Boston Rocker. Mama and I would go two more times and on the third, we were met with the news that Mary had passed, and I was unable to contain my tears.

Mary Moran’s wake was at Conley’s Funeral Home over on Belmont Street and Fuller Avenue, a place I had visited several times for my Sheehan family members who had departed. There was a dozen or so of Mary’s relatives, and as I shook their hands, each one reminded me of how much I meant to Mary, that I was all she talked about when they visited. It humbled me, but I reminded them of how much richer my life was for having met Mary.

This was my life for a couple of teenage years, it can be said that I loved my job. At age 17, I handed the Plymouth keys to my year younger brother Chris. It was now his time to make deliveries.

It’s now September 2021 and when Chris and I talk about our younger years and the times we made deliveries for Gilmore’s Market, we have some memories that are the same. I lucked out with wonderful memories like Mrs. Mary Moran, but all Chris remembers is the lady with the stinky cats on Hervey Street.