The Detroit street peddlers - remember them ?

[Bigb23]

I spent part of my youth around the Keating, State Fair area, and I remember the fruit and vegetable carts, the rag man, the guy who bought scrap, the tri-cycle bike knife sharpener, and a guy with a pony and western costume for kids photos. This story I ran across reminded me of those days.

A Ghost Story

Attachment 507


From: KodiakKeith posted Saturday, March 14, 2009 7:34:40 PM


My grandparents lived in a house at 699 Fairview Street, Detroit. The house is no longer there, Google Earth shows a modern housing development covering what what was once a street of turn-of-the-century bungalows shaded by ancient horse chestnut trees. They bought the house back in the 1920's and lived there until the 1970's.
The small upstairs had been converted into a second flat with vaulted ceilings because I guess it was originally just attic space. This flat was occupied for a number of years by my parents and even myself, though I was too young to recall actually living there. We used to visit a lot, but we always slept downstairs because the upstairs was largely without furniture and used for storage by that time of my life.

My parents and grandparents used to talk about the singing man that could be heard upstairs on quiet nights when they lived there. I never heard it myself, but listened to their renditions often enough that the little melody sticks in my head to this day. What they'd hear late at night was a man with an Italian accent signing "Strawberries, cherairairies, blueberries, appupuples...." And it went on with other fruits - the sing-song chant of a fruitseller pushing his cart along the street. They'd hear him faintly in the distance and then clearer as if he was just outside and then fainter as he moved away. On some nights they'd hear him again and again, on other nights not at all. The grandparents had lived there since the 20's and could not connect him to anyone they had known during their time. Oddly, they could not hear him downstairs, but had heard him often enough when they slept upstairs while family was visiting or something like that. It didn't frighten anyone, they just sort of accepted him as an eccentric neighbor.

Another odd thing was that to get upstairs, you had to open a door on the rear porch and walk up a flight of steps and then knock or open the door into the upstairs kitchen. They would hear a knock upstairs, open the door and nobody would be there. This might happen night or day. If it had been a prankster, he would have had to run down the flight of stairs and exit and close the door at the bottom before anyone opened the upper door. Yet, that upper door was right next to the kitchen table and so frequently somebody would be sitting there and just reach over and open the door while the knocking was still in progress, and nobody would be there.
I remember my dad saying that everybody liked the Italian guy, but the knocker would make my mother absolutely furious because he often caught her in the middle of something, so she'd open the door and scream down the stairwell at him to knock it off.

Family stories...

http://www.cryptozoology.com/forum/t...=36&pid=651190

And another nostalgic link.

http://www.mybaycity.com/scripts/Art...ewspaperID=198

[Bobl]

The term "streetpeddlers" has taken on a different meaning these days!
My favorite memory is of the Italian speaking gentleman with fruit in the back of his pickup truck. The grapes were the juiciest and sweetest!
Does anyone remember the "sheenyman"?

[jcole]

The term "streetpeddlers" has taken on a different meaning these days!
My favorite memory is of the Italian speaking gentleman with fruit in the back of his pickup truck. The grapes were the juiciest and sweetest!
Does anyone remember the "sheenyman"?

My husband talks about the 'sheenyman' that was in his neighborhood near Michigan and Livernois. He had a horse-drawn wagon and went up and down the alleys picking up junk that could either be sold or rejuvinated. Not like todays junkmen who will take the siding right off your house to sell it.

[grumpyoldlady]

If you're going to talk about the vegetable trucks, then you can't leave out the "jingle jingle jingle" Good Humor trucks, and their successors..the trucks with that horrible recorded music.

[Stosh]

If you're going to talk about the vegetable trucks, then you can't leave out the "jingle jingle jingle" Good Humor trucks, and their successors..the trucks with that horrible recorded music.

Hey... don't talk bad about Mr. Softee! Link to the "noise pollution" below. After a while it is obnoxious as a grown up, but as a kid in the 60's, sounds from heaven, IF you had the money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKNRG9hIxGQ

I remember street peddlers [[barely) and the junk man with a horse drawn wagon. I just must have caught the tail end of that phenomenon.

[Bigb23]

The ice cream trucks in my neighborhood always played "Turkey in the Straw", but for the last couple of years they played the "Union Label" song. That's the sad part. But the guy has a giant Golden Lab, who I give dog biscuits to, instead of buying ice cream.

[Maof]

my dad had a fruit truck in the 60's. i was a wee little one and don't remember much. poor guy worked hard to earn a living and support a wife and four girls but he never complained.

[ptero]

We lived on the West side on Ardmore near Fenkell. The one I remember from the early 60's is the sharpener. Mom would get the kitchen knives and the scissors done when he came up the street. I THINK he walked along pushing his cart in the street.

[Bigb23]

How many restrictions would be on a "peddler" now. We almost have to forgive the law, so people can survive.

[reddog289]

I lived in Garden City , But spent many days at the Grandparents in Detroit which was better. They had the real Good Humor

[9936Sussex]

I grew up in the Plymouth/Greenfield area 1950's-1960's. I remember the tri-cycled knife sharpener man [[who scared me); the fruit peddlar, and the man with the pony. I don't know why, but all of those people frightened me...well except for the Good Humor Man....I LOVED him.

[reddog289]

During the 90's , I recall the sharpening man around Michigan/Livernois area. Also the Tamale man who sold tamales around Green St. As for ice cream I cracked up seeing a man pushing an ice cream cart down Clayton St with a Chicago address on it.

[Maxine1958]

Ha! The Sheenyman! Friends who grew up in the suburbs have no idea what you're talking about if you mention the Sheenyman. And how the threat of being 'sold to the Sheenyman' if you didn't behave? I'm truly laughing out loud remembering those wonderful days.

[reddog289]

The Sheenyman was long gone before my time, But I got that threat thrown at me many a time. I tell my cousins kids that if they don't behave I'll sell them to the Sheenyman, They just look at me as if??. My Dad has called me the Sheeny more than a few times.

[iceandsnowqueen]

I was talking with my co-workers at lunch, describing how I grew up in Detroit and how colorful things were in the 60's and 70's. I remember the deliveries of ice for my grandmothers ice box, the horse drawn carts over brick cobble stones off Lysander St. and Trumbull Ave. of rag pickers that wanted only cotton rags, singing "rags, rags", the male street peddlars that sharpened the scissors, sold needles and thread, repaired pots and pans., and the fruit and vegetable sellers who would sing " you got your tomato, beans, green, potato, carrots, onion and fresh ripe watermelon. They said to me "how old are you?...and thought I lived in another century.

Well I told them I would provide proof of these memories, and have printed off your blogs to show them. Love Ya Detroit,

[gazhekwe]

Don't forget the Awrey truck, loaded with wonderful Awrey goodies brought right to your door. I was astonished to find the 'Nice Fresh Strawberries, three quarts for a dollar guy' from the early 70s selling fruit and vegetables from the same truck outside the State Plaza Building in the 90s. We'd all go out and get our produce from him, lots easier than going to the supermarket. It was the same man with the same truck that would go down St. Marys near Grand River in the early 70s.

[eriedearie]

I was talking with my co-workers at lunch, describing how I grew up in Detroit and how colorful things were in the 60's and 70's. I remember the deliveries of ice for my grandmothers ice box, the horse drawn carts over brick cobble stones off Lysander St. and Trumbull Ave. of rag pickers that wanted only cotton rags, singing "rags, rags", the male street peddlars that sharpened the scissors, sold needles and thread, repaired pots and pans., and the fruit and vegetable sellers who would sing " you got your tomato, beans, green, potato, carrots, onion and fresh ripe watermelon. They said to me "how old are you?...and thought I lived in another century.

Well I told them I would provide proof of these memories, and have printed off your blogs to show them. Love Ya Detroit,

Yeah, you musta been dreamin' in that other century!
There were no ice boxes in the 60s and 70s in Detroit. We had that new fangled thing called 'lectricity!

I know you're over here playing games - go on - get back over to your other site!

[CornBot]

Ha! The Sheenyman! Friends who grew up in the suburbs have no idea what you're talking about if you mention the Sheenyman. And how the threat of being 'sold to the Sheenyman' if you didn't behave? I'm truly laughing out loud remembering those wonderful days.

I am cracking up, too - I forgot about being told to behave or be sold to the sheenyman! I remember our sheenyman as a grizzled old guy who drove his horse-drawn wagon down the alley between Georgia and Bessemore Streets. He'd turn into the dirt lane right next to our house to cross Georgia and continue up the alley between Vinton and Raymond. Sometimes he'd stop to let us pet his horse. I seem to remember big black blinders on the beast. Also I remember thinking being sold to the sheenyman would not be so bad, because then I could play in the alley [[not allowed when I was so young), and I would have a horse!

[daddeeo]

"Strawberries...get your fresh strawberries".

[EMG]

"Strawberries...get your fresh strawberries".

I remember a strawberry truck, and I also remember another or possibly the same truck also selling vegetables and especially "sweet corn!!"

But my favorite was a brown/beige ice cream and candy truck that came up my street [[Nottingham between Britain and Morang) reliably every Saturday right after lunchtime. Every week I bought pink cotton candy for a quarter from that guy.

This was in the late 60s to possibly early 70s.

[sumas]

Yes I do remember the peddlers. People forgot to mention the Fuller Brush man that came around. Big thrill was on Sundays when the rag man would drive his horse and wagon down the alley behind my church. In the summer, a guy would come around with a pony and take pictures. Twin pines home delivery, [[every home had a milk shoot) the fruit trucks, the ice cream trucks and the guy that sharpened knifes and scissors. Probably more that I am forgetting. Our family had a car but that went to work with Dad. Took buses everywhere. Sweet nostalgia!

[gnome]

When my Dad was a youngster he worked for a milkman. The milkman had a horse drawn wagon and the horse knew the milk route. The milk man would be in the back of the wagon, preparing the orders, while Dad would run to make the deliveries. All the while the horse slowly walked the route, with the milk man in the back, and if the milk man wanted the horse to stop, turn left or right, he'd make clicking noises or whistles.

Damn smart horse.

According to Dad

[Mackenzie68]

The photographer on the west side was known to mistreat Peaches the Pony. Or so it was reported in the Shopping News.

The only actual Good Humor Man I recall was on Belle Isle. We went over for the Detroit Concert Band and Symphony concerts. We sat on a wool blanket [[anyone remember car robes?) about half way between the stage and the carillon. By the time we got home the house had cooled off by at least two degrees. But I digress.

I remember an ancient black man on a horse cart with fruits and veggies and the knife sharpener dude. Also Twin Pines and Bordens [[in my fuzzy memory, anyway) milk trucks putting the stuff in the milk chutes on the sides of houses. Those chutes were very effective at sliding the smallest neighborhood child into so they could unlock the side door when someone forgot a key.

Ahh, for several years in the fifties, we had an annual visit from the gypsies, laundry was to be taken in and doors locked. And the family of grifters that resurfaced driveways and roofs with thinned black paint that washed off by the third rain.

[EMG]

We had Twin Pines milk delivery - and a milk chute.

And before Twin Pines replaced them, we had Sealtest milk delivery. The milk came in big glass bottles.

This was in the mid 1960s.

I remember the Good Humor man on Belle Isle, but I'm sure I saw others, even a local one on my own block, at times. My favorite Good Humor product used to be the ice cream bars covered with coconut.

[Mackenzie68]

Yup, it was Sealtest in the neighborhood, not Borden. My mistake.