Today we get in the car or SUV and go shopping. We go to the mall, the shopping center or the big box stores. We have droves of catalogues delivered to our mail boxes and we can shop online. There are plenty of places to shop. In the late 1920’s and early and mid 30’s most people rode the street cars and there was no Internet. Many people did not have a telephone. My mother shopped by mail. She sent a penny postcard to the grocer ONE BLOCK AWAY! There were two mail deliveries each day She gave the post card to the mailman at the first delivery, he delivered it to the grocer at the second delivery, and the grocer filled and delivered the order, all in one day!
Few people had electric refrigerators. Mr. Pratt was our iceman. He came each day with his helper, Jim, in a truck delivering ice to the houses. A card was placed in the window with the sixe needed. Mr. Pratt would cut a piece from a huge chunk and catch it between tongs. The tongs were like a huge scissors with hooks on each end. Jim would bring it in and put it in the icebox. As the ice melted during the day, the water would run down a tube to a pan under the icebox which needed to be emptied each day. Mr. Pratt would give us kids ice ships which fell off as he cut the ice to size. That was a treat!
Salesmen plied their trade door-to-door. The famous Fuller Brush Man came to homes with an astounding array of brushes; toothbrushes, hair brushes, upholstery brushes, dish washing brushes, pain brushes; you name it, they carried it! A man came around to sharpen knives, scissors and other instruments which needed sharpening. He had a sharpening wheel mounted like a wheelbarrow and he walked the streets.
Milk and dairy products were delivered daily. Milk came in glass quarts with a cardboard cap fitted in a slot around the top. In the winter the milk froze and a column of frozen milk pushed the cap up. It tasted like unsweetened ice cream. The milkman also carried sliced white bread which no self respecting Jew would eat. We called it Kvatch. We got our challah, pumpernickel and rye from Stone’s and Wartzman’s on Lombard Street.
During the summer, the Ayrabbers came around, prowling the streets and alleys shouting their wares. They were black men who drove a horse and wagon. They sold in-season produce directly to the housewives. The watermelon man would shout in a sing-song manner, “Sweet and red to the rind.” The strawberry man would sing out, Straw-aw-aw-aw berries.” One Ayrabber sold fresh fish. He would clean your purchase right there on the street.
We had a coal furnace and coal was delivered directly to a coal bin in the basement. The bin was next to the furnace and directly below a cellar window. If the coal truck could park near the window, a chute was extended from the truck through the window into the coal bin and coal was shoveled down the chute. If not, the coal was loaded into canvas bags and walked from the truck to the basement window where it was dumped down the chute. Later the furnace was converted to an oil burner and oil was delivered through a long hose to the tank in the basement which stood where the coal bin once had been.
Would we like to go back to the good old days? Never in a million years!
