Stories of working men from the days of my youth
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Some days in summer a man walked down the middle of the street pushing a wagon and yelling, "waffel ice cream" for sale. A real treat, if we could get Mom to buy one.
Other days a man might walk down the middle of the street pushing a cart and a monkey on his shoulder. He would be playing music on a accordian. He also had a very small accordian for the monkey. He played a little then held out a cup for money. Pretty cool.
Another time an icecream boy riding a bike with a cart on the handle bar, ringing a bell. Selling icecream.
Although my best memory was a man walking along the middle holding a rope with a small live shetland pony on the end. He was charging a fee if you sat on the pony and he took your picture. You bet I did! What a treasure.
There were always men pulling a cart along the alley and they were hollering , "Rags,rags and old iron". He would pick up any rags, newspapers or old metal and junk.
The telephone man. Our phone was located in the hall and was hanging on he wall. There was a small black metal box bolted to the wall and the phone was conneted to it with a three foot long soft cord. In order to make a call we had to place a quater in a slot in the top of the box and then a operator asked the number we want, she would dial it and you waited for a person to answer. And every month a phone man came to our house and opened the box with a key and removed the money.
There were milk men driving white trucks that delivered, in glass bottles of milk at your door every couple days.
For many years we had an icebox in our kitchen. The rear of the icebox had a door located in the rear. An Ice man parked his truck in front of our house, he unloaded a large chunk of ice with a huge fork, carried it on his shoulder to our back door. He walked up the few stairs, opened the door, walked to where the little door was and placed it into the bottom of the icebox. Today we have refrigerators. When he got back to his truck, he would usually find a few kids,begging for little chunks of ice. Many times he would throw a few chunks on the street for us. It was a treasure.
Every autumn, Our coal man arrived and delivered coal for our furnice which heated our homes in winter. He parked a large, black truck that had a three foot square door in the middle of the back. He parked in front of our house and began unloading coal. He placed a wheel barrel in back of the truck, opened the little door and closed it when the barrel was full of coal. Then he wheeled the barrel to the side of our house that had a window going into the basement. Then he dumped the coal into our basement coal bin, until his truck was empty. It usually took most of the day to finish. The coal bin was a room in the basement, near the furnace that measured about 8 ft by 12 ft.
Quite a few winters, after a couple below zero nights, the fire department would send a truck to an empty lot. They unloded a hose and connected it to the near fire hydrent. They would turn it on and flood the vacent lot. The next days and nights we all had an iceskating pond.
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My memories of old
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