End of an egg era

Petaluma's only egg delivery man calls it quits after 33 years

April 19, 2006

By DANE GOLDEN
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

Petaluma lost a piece of its history Friday, much to the sadness of around 120 people.

These ten dozen folks count themselves among Kim Jacobsen's customers, or did. Jacobsen was the last of Petaluma's egg delivery men, having held that designation for a very long time. But after 33 years of bringing eggs right to each customer's doorstep, high costs and declining sales have finally forced him to give up the business.

Petaluma, once the "Egg Basket of the World," has seen the last of its door-to-door egg delivery service.

Jacobsen had kept his small enterprise afloat for years, but while he continued to keep his prices low, operating costs continued to rise.

"I'm surprised myself that I was able to keep doing it all the years I did," Jacobsen, 56, said on Friday, his last day of deliveries.

He's made quite a run of it, though. His father, Chester, started the route back in 1963. After he died in 1979, Jacobsen continued doing his route for the loyal customers who enjoyed having their eggs delivered fresh.

"I wanted to keep the tradition going, for one thing; keep something going that my dad started. Maybe to keep a Petaluma tradition going," he said.

But, he added, "You can only go so far doing that and the time comes that you have to do what you have to do."

One of his recent challenges was the steep rise in energy prices. His deliveries became more expensive due to higher gas bills for his Nissan pickup, plus the cost of the cold storage room where he kept the eggs, which wasn't very energy efficient.

"It's 48 years old. It goes back to when we had chickens," he said. He buys the eggs wholesale these days.

Also, he doesn't have as many customers as he used to.

Home egg delivery has a long history in Petaluma. Lily Krulevitch remembers when she used to have an egg delivery business back in the 1950s, along with as many as a dozen Petaluma families. They didn't deliver to Petaluma, though, as there were more than enough eggs to go around. Instead, they bought eggs from a local ranch and delivered door-to-door to homes in San Francisco and Marin County.

"Fresh eggs -- that's what they wanted," Krulevitch said. As for herself, "It took forever for me to start buying them in the store. I didn't think they were fresh enough."

Some of Jacobsen's customers echoed the same thoughts.

"I felt like I became such an egg connoisseur," said the Petaluma Museum's Kathy Fries, one of Jacobsen's customers.

And you never knew who else was on the egg route. One time, when Fries had just started at the museum, her boss, Don Phoenix, walked in.

"And I was embarrassed because my egg man came in and I'm doing my transaction. But Don said, 'No problem, he comes to my house after he comes here.'"

Often, Jacobsen was a social link between customers, stopping to briefly exchange pleasantries.

Norm and Dianna Hilliard have been customers of Jacobsen and his father since the 1960s. Norm Hilliard said he's sorry Jacobsen won't be coming around anymore.

"It was a neat experience to have an egg man, similar to when you used to have the milkman," Norm Hilliard said. "It's just a good feeling, and he's a pleasant individual."

Hilliard said he and Jacobsen would reminisce about old Petaluma, and said that Jacobsen was always reliable.

"He's just like the mailman. Rain or shine he'd deliver the eggs," he said.

Jacobsen will also miss regularly seeing the friends he's made over the years. But for him, it's even more than that.

"It's been a way of life for me for as long as the 33 years I've been doing it," he said, adding, "I sort of feel like I'm the last of the Mohicans in a lot of ways."

Jacobsen has been delivering eggs at the same time each Tuesday or Friday for as long as many can remember. And although he has provided a great service and a great price (about $2 a dozen), Jacobsen isn't one to hype himself. In fact, some people had to literally run after his truck to become customers, like Barry Bussewitz, who became a customer after moving here in 1986.

"I spotted him on his weekly rounds and I chased him down," he recalled. "I said, 'This is cool. I live in the egg capital and I get my eggs delivered from Petaluma to Petaluma every week.'"

"They were good eggs," Bussewitz added. "We will surely miss his weekly stops."

Bussewitz went on to say that it's a particular shame to see this business go by the wayside, because buying locally grown products is one good way of decreasing our nation's dependency on foreign oil, as local food doesn't require as much fuel to transport.

"I think Kim Jacobsen, his story, has a lot to say about Petaluma -- what sustains us, where are we heading and what should we be alert to," Bussewitz said.

Sometimes you don't realize what you have until it's gone.

For now, Jacobsen's just looking for a job that will pay the bills.

(Contact Dane Golden at dgolden@arguscourier.com)