“Fond memory brings the light of other days around me.”
The day is chillier than it has been, more like the early spring we usually expect. The day started cloudy, but the sun is poking its way through the clouds. I’ve been watching a robin jump from the deck rail to the suet feeder where it fluttered its wings to stay long enough to grab a bite then it settled back on the deck to munch. Right now the robin has just finished eating and is standing on the rail with its face to the sun taking in the day.
Maddie wanted down the cellar this morning so I opened the door. Later, when I went back to the kitchen for more coffee, I found a dead mouse in the hall, compliments I expect of Miss Maddie and her cellar jaunt.
I have nothing planned for the day. Usually I have a string of possibilities but not today. It was a busy week so I left my dance card empty. I’ll probably just read or watch a movie. I’d go to the movies, but I want to wait until it’s a school day before I see the Hunger Games.
If I were still a kid, today would be a Saturday matinée or a ride my bike around town to see what’s stirring sort of day. I remember riding up town and stopping at the fire station on a warmish day. The firemen would be sitting in wooden chairs we used to call captain’s chairs outside the station in front of the open garage doors. I’d ask if I could look at the firetrucks, and they always accommodated. Back then the police station was on one side and the fire station on the other of the same building. I remember looking in at the police dispatcher in front of the console. All of the switches and buttons were fascinating, almost like I’d imagine the console of a rocket ship to be like. The town barn was also a good stop. The doors were usually open, and I remember stalls filled with horses on each side of the barn. I remember the smell, not awful as it smelled of horses and hay. The junkman, whose house was near the barn, was a ride by. The house had a huge porch which was filled with piles of newspapers leaving only an aisle to get to the door. He had a barn beside the house, and it was filled with all sorts of broken tools and pieces of metal. I remember when he used to drive his horse and wagon up the street, and he’d be yelling, “Junkman, Junkman” so everyone would run out to give him their cast-offs.
My town was always interesting when I was a kid. The up-town was where people shopped in small stores, all of which have disappeared over time. Off the square were the big houses where the rich people used to live. They were all painted white and had fences in front. I went to school with a boy who lived in one of those. It had been in his family for years. I remember his name was Steve, and he was a gentle sort. I also remember he was tall and had stick-out ears. It’s funny what we all remember.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: Fire station, firemen, home town, junkman, Saturdays
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March 24, 2012 at 12:03 pm
When I was a kid in NY I remember that junk men and the rag men would ply the streets driving a wagon pulled by a horse. There were also people who drove small trucks with a knife sharpener in the back hawking their trade to the housewives. There was also a man whose truck had a merry go round mounted on the truck bed. He would sell rides to the neighborhood kids. The Good Humor ice cream truck was a welcome sight on the hot streets in the summer time. We would run out of the house at the sound of his bells coming down the street.
Today the only thing close to this are the food trucks which gather daily around town and serve gourmet tacos, hamburgers and other delights on the city streets. This has become a new way for young chefs to introduce their food in a low overhead manner.
I had an uncle who made a living for 40 years as a junk man. He drove a pickup truck instead of a wagon. When he retired to Florida, he showed me pieces of scrap metal he picked up while walking around his neighborhood. I guess you can’t really take the junk out of the junkman. He passed away a few years ago with a small pile of scrap in his garage in his north Miami house. Once a junk man always a junk man.
Sunny, warm and gorgeous today.
March 24, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Bob,
I also remember the knife sharpener. He rode what resembled a golf cart with the honing wheel in front. He also sharpened scissors.
I remember the merry-go-round trucks also, but I only saw them when I visited my grandmother in the city. My town never had one.
Boston has food trucks. Here we have the hot dog trucks at the beaches and the ice cream men-that’s it.
I figure your uncle couldn’t resist a good piece of junk, Remember: one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
March 24, 2012 at 1:11 pm
We’ve had a sunny and rather warm day here, not as warm as they had predicted but warm enough so that I didn’t need more than a t-shirt when I worked in my garden.
Yes today and/or tomorrow would be matinée day. The two cinema’s we had were both placed close to where the street cars went so every now and again it felt like a small earth quake and them the strange sound came as well 🙂 🙂 🙂 But we were used to it and sometime both the sound and quake fitted perfectly in to the movie 🙂
I had never even heard about Hunger Games until a couple of days ago. Now I feel I must see the movie and then read the books. I understand there are three books in the series. The movie looks promising though! and I read reviews that school kids had written and they think most of what’s important in the books has also made it to the movie!
Have a great day!
Christer.
March 24, 2012 at 7:42 pm
Christer,
You got the warm day while we got the cooler day. It stayed in the 40’s all day which will be the weather this week. One night will go as low as the 20’s.
We had only the one movie theater when I was a kid. That same movie theater has been refurbished and presents plays. I usually see their Christmas offering every year.
The books are a really quick read. You’ll like them.
March 24, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Hi Kat,
I don’t remember that my town had a junk man. We had a old lady (probably younger than I am now) who rode about on a bicycle. The front basket on the bike contained lots of pretty little bottles of… something. She never did or said anything off-putting but we were too scared to talk to her.
We had a town barn but it didn’t have horses in it. We had a town farm, too, but there was nothing there except a huge old barn. It used to be something like a homeless shelter but was unused at the time. The Fire Dept burned the barn for practice one day. I remember wishing someone would have gone up on the steeple and retrieved the cow weather vane. I watched as it fell through the steeple roof and down into the flames.
My father was a firefighter in town so sometimes we got to ride on the equipment when it went out for musters or parades. That’s when I learned that being in the parade was not as much fun as watching the parade.
It’s cold here and I have a barbecue to attend this evening. Enjoy the day.
March 24, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Hi Caryn,
A barbecue? It’s really cool tonight so that would need blankets, hand warmers and a heater. I can’t wait, though, until it’s deck and barbecue season for real.
Was she selling what was in the bottles or was she just a collector?
What was the town barn is now still a town building but one made out of concrete. That’s too bad about the weather vane. It would have been a good way to preserve a piece of the town’s history.
I marched in several parades, and I know exactly what you mean!
Hope your evening was a good one!
March 24, 2012 at 2:18 pm
To hear on TV these black parents warning their kids to keep their hands out of their pockets tells me what kind of childhood they have. We grew up in a multi culture area of Northern Virginia, DC and Maryland and never once heard of a shooting like the one we had here in Sanford. Now digging into today’s child lifestyle compared to mine and probably yours, we knew what freedom was. I always walked through the woods to the store below for odd items my Mother needed to help at dinner. Didn’t give crime or people with anger a thought. We are not leaving future generations with the right tools. But yes I enjoyed riding my bike on a Saturday and going where I wanted.
March 24, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Z&Me,
We really knew freedom and we didn’t know fear. We walked all over town and my mother just knew we were out exploring but not exactly where we were.
I didn’t meet my first Black until college, and I think he was one of the two or three who attended. It was kind of funny I ended up in Africa.
March 24, 2012 at 9:11 pm
Waving.. love the subject.
March 24, 2012 at 10:00 pm
Waving back, Lily-Lori!