Life with Fred & Lucy: The Curtain Man

                                                             

                                                  Me and Mom

Back in the days, before Cable, Super Walmart’s and, online shopping sites, most people ordered what they needed for their homes from the ‘Curtain Man’. I’m talking about the late ’40’s and ’50’s when doctors made house visits and milk, eggs and butter were delivered to our doorstep by the Abbotts milkman.

                                                          

Even our fruit and vegetables could be purchased fresh daily during summer months from a horse-drawn wagon. In South Philly, we even had a man who would show up every Friday afternoon to sharpen the neighborhood’s knives and scissors on his grinding stone pushcart. But, the person who families anticipated the most was the Curtain Man. As soon as the lanky salesman with the big brown suitcase walked up our street, housewives would grab their payment books and cash.

The Wizard

I don’t remember the Curtain Man’s name, but by the time I was three years old I had begun to associate our next door neighbor’s knocking on our front door with my mother’s running for her purse. The curtain man, always dressed in a suit, was young and wore thick glasses. It wasn’t him that made the ladies drool, but what he had in his suitcase. It wasn’t until much later, and after seeing The Wizard of Oz, that I understood the magic of that suitcase.

This man had samples of just about everything a housewife would need for her home: curtains, pots and pans, dishes, glassware and kitchen towels. My mother would order what she needed and once the product was delivered the following week by Mr. Curtain Man, my mother would make weekly payments which she’d mark down in her payment book.

The Curtain Man never complained when I would look through the suitcase, touching the curtains or lacey hankies and, he never came empty-handed for the kids. There was always a lollipop waiting for me before he left our home. Around the month of November, he would even sell a few items for Christmas: dolls, train sets, books.

                                                   Me and Dad                             

One day, my dad happened to be home when Mr. Curtain Man stopped by. My dad was a conductor on the trolley system; the old PTC system that later became Septa. My dad was making good money at the time and on the day he was home, Mr. Curtain Man had something new to sell. At that time, no one on our block owned a television set.

                                                        

When Curtain Man explained the payment system, my dad was hooked and the set, ordered. It wasn’t that big of a screen, maybe 8 by 10 inches, but every Saturday night, most of the neighbors came over to watch a variety show. In 1949, there were only three stations and a handful of shows to watch. All were done live. Eventually, as the economy got better and our neighbors were making better money, they began to purchase their own sets.

                                                                

 

As more cars filled up our empty street and as people became more mobile, my mother and the other women would head out to Gimbel's or Wanamaker’s in Center City Philadelphia and, the magical Curtain Man came to our house, less and less.

Conclusion

Everyone drives to the malls nowadays to do their shopping, or they order online. We buy our groceries from big mega shopping centers. Strangers at our doors are seldom welcomed with open arms. The world has grown caustic, and now, we worry that the salesman at the door might possibly be a thief or worse.  

When I tell my grandchildren that milk was delivered fresh to our door every day, they assume we kept a cow in our backyard. When I tell them about the Curtain Man and his magical suitcase, I get blank stares or sarcastic comments, “Was this during the dinosaur days?”

                                                               

I’m surrounded by stand-up comedians! My grandkids look at a suitcase as nothing more than a container for their vacation clothing. But to a three year old child in 1949, the Curtain Man was a wizard and his suitcase held loads of treasure.

Waiting for the Train

                                                           

There is this little girl that I’ve been babysitting for since she was three months old. Isa is an amazing singer and was featured in an earlier blog of mine here. Now that Isa goes to school full time, I watch her little brother.

                                                       

This past winter was too harsh to go wait for the train, but the other week Isa and I were lucky enough to reach the center of town just in time to wave to the conductor. We don’t know the train’s schedule and most of the time, we miss the train.

                                                           

Once or twice a week, Isa and I make the journey to the center of town with snacks in hand. While we sit under the shade of that old gazebo we chat about everything her little five year old mind can think of.

                                                                 

I intend to contact the Mayor to see if he knows the train’s schedule because when you love trains as much as Isa and I do, it’s no fun missing them. On the bright side, waiting for the train to pass gives me time to chat with this little girl, who has become like family to me. We talk about nature, about planets, about her school project for that week. We talk about everything and, sometimes we sing songs while we wait for that distant whistle that warns of the approaching train.

I like waiting for the train, even when it doesn’t come. It is during these quiet moments shared with this amazing little child that I feel at peace with the world. I’m not rushing to finish a writing deadline, I’m not thinking about household chores or doctor’s appointments or family drama.


                                                                                                                           

I’m waiting for a train that may or may not pass. I’m learning, or should I say re-learning what it means to be a child. It feels good to sit and chat about the many possibilities that seem possible to a child. When you’re young the world is yours to command. Train schedules, on the other hand, or not, but that’s okay for now. When you’re a child, the excitement lies in the hope that the train will be on time.

Life with Fred & Lucy, Part 26: Grandmom's Exploding Chicken

                                                                        

     Aunt Anna,                                Grandmom Marie                                              Lucy

I loved my maternal grandmother. She was a loving, funny, generous woman who made each of her grandchildren feel special. My mother was not allowed to hit us if Grandmom was around, and when we were very young, Grandmom was at our house a lot.

                                                              

My mom was not your Betty Crocker type of housewife and had no interest in cooking, so while my dad worked at as a conductor on the old Trolleys, Grandmom would come over and help my mother prepare the meals. Sometimes she would bring her dog, Blackie and sometimes she would bring her pet chickens. She traveled by taxi. She was afraid that Grandpop Chiusolo would kill the chickens and eat them while she was away. The chickens had Italian names, but I don’t remember what they were.                                                                            
                                                                   

I’ve always thought it strange how nice the taxi driver was with Grandmom, helping her out of the cab as she clutched both birds in her arms. She paid him from her black change purse. Do you remember those change purses? Every Italian grandmother had one.                                                

Once inside our house, Grandmom put the chickens in our yard and began helping mom with dinner while Jane and I played with the chickens. The chickens were not at all happy with Jane and me dressing them in doll’s clothes. 
                                                                                                                                     
These chicken visits went on for a while, until one of the chickens got hurt in Grandmom’s yard. It became Sunday dinner….well it would have been dinner if it wasn’t for the explosion. Grandmom had an old kitchen. Her stove looked just like the one on the Honeymooners.

                                                                           
 She had to light a match and ignite the oven, which she did after she put the roasting pan and chicken in the oven. Grandmom’s kitchen was small. All the houses on Ellsworth Street in South Philly were small. Grandmom had two windows in her kitchen. The one directly across from the oven faced her neighbor’s kitchen window. The distance between houses maybe six feet, so by now I think you know where this story is going, right?

Somehow, the flame went out in the oven while the chicken was cooking and Grandmom, for some strange reason, took too long striking the match to re-ignite the oven. There was a loud blast and the door of the oven flew open, knocking grandmother to the floor.  The roasting pan with chicken flew through the closed window and continued through the neighbor’s window to land on their table.

 

My mother got the call and packed Jane and I into the car and rushed over to help Grandmom. The Fire Department was there because of the gas explosion, as were all the neighbors. My poor Grandmom was a bit shaken and covered in soot, but otherwise, okay. The neighbors returned the roasting pot with a chicken that was burnt and covered in glass. Later that year, they build a concrete block wall. I wonder why?
                                                                                                                                    
After we helped Grandmom clean up the mess, my mom ordered cheese steaks from the famous Pat’s Steaks on 9^th street and we ate in the yard because the kitchen still smelled like smoke. They had to get a new range.

                                                                 

Grandmom continued to visit with her dog or chicken even after we moved into the grocery store. I still remember the expressions on our customers’ faces whenever Grandmom walked into our store, clutching the chicken tightly in her arm.

Love you, Grandmom.

Life with Fred & Lucy, Part 23: Coupon Clipper

                 Fred behind counter, Jane with customer                                                          

Back in the fifties and sixties, my father had a love for coupons. It started when he had the store. Since the supermarkets were accepting coupons, my father had to do the same in our store or lose his customers. We had lots of customers and they liked saving money, so you can imagine the amount of coupons collected over a month’s time. The only problem was that someone had to separate the coupons before Fred could mail them out to the manufacturers and regain our losses. Guess who got stuck with that job? Yep, Jane and I. As soon as Michael and Lucy were old enough, they were also shanghaied.

                                                             

                                                                     

Every Wednesday right after dinner, Fred would place the paper bags full of coupons on the kitchen table. Then he would repeat the same instructions, word for word, that he did every Wednesday night. “Separate by company, then by product, then mark down the amount in the copy book. Don’t mess up.”
We kids hated sorting coupons. There were hundreds of stinking coupons and it took hours to sort them all. One day, the four of us devised a plan to stop the flow of coupons that made their way to us every Wednesday night. 

We started stuffing the coupons down our shirts whenever a customer handed them over with their payment. The plan was to dump the coupons down the sewer at the end of the street. We were able to dump two full bags until a neighbor caught us and told Fred. Darn snoopy neighbor!
                                                                    

                                                                  

Fred went ballistic. “Are you *&%&$#&* nuts? Coupons are the same as money. Go to your rooms.”  All four of us were grounded for a week. Eventually, the companies changed their redemption policy and it was less work for Fred to redeem his profits. We were set free!!

We were young and didn’t understand the importance of those coupons to Fred or that those coupons were paying for our clothing, school, doctor’s visits, summer camp, etc.

I swore that I would never clip coupons when I grew up, but here I am sitting at the table clipping coupons and I swear, every once in a while, I hear Fred saying, “Separate by company, then product, then mark down the amount………”

Life with Fred & Lucy, Part 22: Batty

                                                          

                                                                   

My cousin Annie, on my mother’s side, reminded me of an incident with her brother Dennis when he had stayed at our house. My father was in the hospital recovery from surgery and Mom had asked her sister, Ann if Dennis could come down and help in the store.                                                                          

                                                                  

                                                                       

My Aunt Ann had five children, starting with Dennis the eldest and only boy, Annie, Susie and twins Gracie and Gladys. I loved whenever my cousins would visit us. We got into a lot of adventures together. They learned about life in the big city and when we visited their home, we experienced the wonderful world of nature. Bugs did not scare my cousins, but we city kids ran for cover.
                                                                        

                                                                     
cousins Gladys, Gracie, Aunt Ann, Susie, Anna with me
                                                                                                                                   

My Aunt Ann lived in New Gretna, New Jersey, and to us city dwellers, this was considered the middle of nowhere, hick town, and the big scary Pinelands. Goes to show you how much we knew. My mother was afraid of nature in general so anything not covered in tar and cement was too wild for her to visit.

                                                                                                                                  

Mom would occasionally allow us to spend a few days with my aunt and cousins at their home, but most of the time, my cousins visited us. Now that I’m older, I wish we would have visited their home more often, because I feel we missed out on a lot of fun with our cousins… anyway, my older cousin, Dennis, spent the week with us, helping my mom run the grocery store. He also handled the heavy stock boxes and whatever else needed to be done.

                                                                                                                                       

It was summer and we slept with the windows open. We had window screens but, my brother poked holes into most of the screens. When asked about this, he told my mother that it was a science experiment. Michael did a lot of science experiments and there were holes in most of our walls. He loved playing pirate and was looking for gold…he never found any.

                                                                       

                                                                Brother Michael
Now before I go further with this story, you have to understand that in South Philly during the late 50’s, there weren't that many  trees for blocks and blocks. Our version of wildlife was squirrels, pigeons and the occasional sewer rat scampering along the curb whenever the streets were dug up for one reason or another.
One night, as my sisters and I were settling in, we heard flapping and squeaking sounds. What the heck? I switched on the overhead lights and saw this big dark shape flying around the bedroom. We had never seen anything like it…except in horror movies. It was a vampire and it was in our bedroom. All hell broke loose.

                                                                 

 

My sisters and I began screaming that a vampire was in our room. My mother, groggy from sleep, realized what it was and tried to cover our heads. “Don’t let it get in your hair,” mom screamed as she pulled a pillow case over her head and tried to do the same with us.

                                                                       

Dennis and my brother Michael ran into our bedroom when they heard the commotion. But, after the initial fright, my sisters and I pulled off the pillow cases. We watched as Dennis captured the bat with one of the sheets from our bed. All this time, my mother was still screaming for us to cover our heads.

Dennis finally caught the bat in the sheets, carried it out the front door and released the poor thing. When he returned to our bedroom, there was blood on his hand. He had been bitten during the rescue. My mother cleaned the wound and wrapped the hand in bandages. She never bothered to take Dennis to the hospital, which I thought was strange.

                                                                       

Needless to say, my siblings and me believed that Dennis would turn into a vampire because he was bitten. That whole week he stayed with us, I would sneak up on him with a mirror to see if he had a reflection. Jane took to wearing a cross around her neck. Michael hung fresh garlic around his bed, and little Lucy poured holy water into Dennis's soup, waiting to see if he would burst into flames

                                                       

In the end it all turned out well. Luckily for Cousin Dennis, the bat did not have rabies and Dennis never became a creature of the night, but... I'm not sure the Bat survived its encounter with the crazy humans living on Porter Street.