Wife and I

I don’t know what triggered it, but the other day we had some fun talking about our memories of growing up in the 1940’s and in Southern California. Born only 3 years apart and living in the same small town, our memories are similar. We both spent our early childhood days in Los Angeles itself, and then, when we were about 5 years old, we moved to Manhattan Beach. A very rural suburb and about a two hour drive from downtown Los Angeles. There were no freeways in 1945. And in Manhattan Beach, we had some unique experiences…the Helms man came by every day to deliver bread. Our mother had a blue cardboard sign that went in the front window of the house on the days that she wanted ‘Ken’ to stop at our house. If Ken saw no signs, he would slow down and blow a silver whistle that hung around his neck, to alert any housewife that may have have forgotten about him. And all of the children on the block would be waiting for Ken to stop; when he did, we would surround the back of the truck as he opened the doors and rolled out the long, paper lined oak shelves that held cookies and donuts and bread, of course. Our hope was that Ken or a mother would take pity on us and buy us a donut. Once in awhile we had our own nickel and we could be the shopper. Ken was very patient and waited as long as it took for us to decide which donut we wanted.

But Ken wasn’t the only delivery man; our milk, dairy and eggs came early in the morning and were left on our front porch. Later in the day, Tony, the vegetable man came by, ringing a bell as he drove slowly down the street. His truck was loaded with all sorts of fruits and vegetables. And, occasionally, we saw the ice man. He delivered ice to the few remaining houses without refrigerators. He came by about once a week and we would pester him for chips of ice. I can still remember watching him split huge blocks of ice with his ice pick and then, using ice tongs, sling the block up onto a rubber pad he had over his shoulders.

What was the point of these stories? None…it was just one of those rare moments when you realize how much the world has changed. Was it a better world back then? No. It was different and that’s all you can say for it. It might be fun to remember it, but I wouldn’t want to relive it!

The images? They were all stolen by using Bing to search for old photos.