Their (Dis)appointed Rounds

There is something strange about covering a news story in your hometown, especially if that hometown is Rochester, New York. News is what happens to New Yorkers, Angolans, and other foreigners; Rochesterians, by contrast, confine themselves to normal human activities. Weddings, murders, tearing down the Bausch and Lomb Building—that is about as newsy as Rochester gets; until 19 months ago, when a married couple in their twenties decided to enter into competition with the United States Postal Service.

Nothing in Paul and Patricia Brennan’s backgrounds had prepared them for the move. Paul was a 28-year-old former history major clerking for a law firm; his wife had a degree in chemistry and had just quit her job at a cancer research lab. She had come to her husband’s office one March day for lunch, when he asked her to carry a letter across the street for him. “Save me eighty cents,” he said. This set Pat to thinking; and the result was the P. H. Brennan Hand Delivery Service.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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There is something strange about covering a news story in your hometown, especially if that hometown is Rochester, New York. News is what happens to New Yorkers, Angolans, and other foreigners; Rochesterians, by contrast, confine themselves to normal human activities. Weddings, murders, tearing down the Bausch and Lomb Building—that is about as newsy as Rochester gets; until 19 months ago, when a married couple in their twenties decided to enter into competition with the United States Postal Service.

Nothing in Paul and Patricia Brennan’s backgrounds had prepared them for the move. Paul was a 28-year-old former history major clerking for a law firm; his wife had a degree in chemistry and had just quit her job at a cancer research lab. She had come to her husband’s office one March day for lunch, when he asked her to carry a letter across the street for him. “Save me eighty cents,” he said. This set Pat to thinking; and the result was the P. H. Brennan Hand Delivery Service.