The Dugan's Man

Supper time at our house, without fail, was between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m.  My dad was very involved in various community volunteer organizations and would often have evening meetings, but he would always come home for our family dinner first.  Dad didn't eat much for lunch, usually just a tuna sandwich, so he really looked forward to dinner.  Needless to say, he did not like any interruptions during supper.  The phone ringing would be bad, but a knock on the front door would really send him over the top.  My father would take it as a personal insult that someone would dare come to our house and ruin his dinner. We always ate our weeknight suppers at the kitchen table.  The dining room was only used on Sundays and holidays.  Our kitchen table was only a few feet from the front door, so whoever was there would definitely hear the fireworks started at the sound of the knock.
(My brother, Ned, would sometimes knock on the underside of the table just to get a rise out of Dad.  When no one was at the door,  Dad would be so glad to return to eating  that he didn't bother to question who it could have been.)

The only time Dad didn't mind the interruption was when it was Gus at the door.  Gus was our Dugan's Man.  Dugan's was a bakery that sold its products door-to-door.  We loved Gus!  He wasn't particularly friendly,  but his delicious cakes and desserts made him our man of the hour.  He would put his big metal basket down and we would all grab our favorite treat. (Mine were the apple turnovers sprinkled with gigantic crystals of sugar.)

This is what Gus' truck looked like.

There is the goody basket

    

We were so sad when Dugan's Bakery went out of business in 1967.  Mom would buy us snacks and 

treats from the local bakery and grocery store, but somehow they never tasted quite as sweet.