Good Morning! This is a typical winter morning in the mid-sixties for me. Every day started at 5 in the morning delivering Star Ledger papers between Park Ave & Second Ave. X Roseville & 7th St., if you enjoy drawing rectangles.
All mornings were cold, it didn't matter what you wore, you just felt cold. I lived in the building next to Rausch's Luncheonette and like clock work, I'd pick up my paper bundles in unison with baggy eyed Harold Rausch as he began to open the store. "Good Morning, Mr. Rausch!" The ground is dusted with about two inches of snow and the din of silence is interrupted by the sound of a single vehicle with snow chains. Ah, snow chains! The best invention next to curb feelers!
My first duty was to assemble my papers folded with rubber bands tied around them in the vestibule, where it was wall to wall marble and if you coughed it would echo into the adjacent hall of the five story square spiraled staircase above.
I used a semi-rusted Food Fair or A&P grocery cart that was abandoned on the street to deliver my payload. I would never take a cart off the property itself. Just borrow what I found along Roseville Ave. Well, I'm ready and my cadence is double that of the blinking traffic lights. Cart wheels wiggling, I'd just follow my breath.
(40 minutes, later) It's gotten brighter and I can see the line of Brown & White Cab Company drivers crossing the street heading to the White Circle from the railroad. Now, the my work starts! Twice a week, I had to carry the 18 or so, garbage cans from the side of the building to the front. As always, some of the cans were packed loosely, so I'd end up stomping the trash. "Ah, geez!" My foot just went through this garbage bag with dirty diapers. The family on the third floor had a baby boy. As I recall, his name was Allen Kimball. Today was an easy day, because I could slide the cans on the snow.
Next, I'd open up the cellar doors to Rausch's and carry their three industrial cardboard cans to the curb side along with what other boxes that had accumulated. The aroma of fresh coffee permeated the store along with the candy, smacking you in the face as you opened the door. There was the constant {{{Ka-ching}}} of the register collecting coins from the sale of papers, coffee and cigarettes. Cigarette's are up to 30 -35 cents a pack, now! I'll be back after school to stock them and remove the 5 cent returnable quart soda bottles. I received a whole five dollars for the week, working just about every day. (Ain't I lucky!)
Aaah, I can sit down and enjoy two slices of toast and a cup of tea. Opening the paper, "What the...would you look at this trash! Nixon thinking about the GOP ticket and the Giants thinking about moving to Jersey!" And I deliver this crap!
I should be reading the real news,..............Enquire! Gotta get ready and be at my Safety Patrol post! (Bye!)
Joe, your so descriptive that you bring me right back to those times. Of course, the baby you refer to is my brother Alan. Disposable diapers must have just come out, because I'm sure a diaper service delivered to us when he was just born. My mom must have switched over. Alan was born in '63, I think. I'll tell him you have fond memories of his droppings.
Seems you were a busy buck back in those days, but you were always a high-energy guy.
That would have been the '64 election campaign, with Nixon looking for the republican nomination. The GOP ran Goldwater that year, who unfortunately lost in a landslide to Lyndon (Great Society) Johnson.
The local busses you mention were the 6 Crosstown, 34 Broad & Market, and the 22 Roseville.
Thanks, Guys! It's not the first time I got on the wrong bus. lol I used the buses alot back then, especially when I had to get something on sale at Sear's on the southside of town. Now, that was a mouth full of exhaust.
As for Cythia, she was a Saint, I Loved that Lady with a capital "L!" I was talking with Eileen Strallow at the reunion (My replacement.)and she mentioned that Cynthia passed away about 4 yrs. ago. Cynthia made the best pizzaburger's I ever tasted in my life and nobody has ever matched her skill today. My favorite drink behind the counter was the chocolate soda! I'd take a tall glass, two squirts of chocolate syrup, one tsp. of milk, a little ice and let the cabonated soda fly. Stir and (Huh?)I just revealed my energy source. Now for all you Yaho drink lovers, this will take you to a different dimension and make your ears wiggle on every burp.
We lived on the corner of 7th Ave. and 7th. St. in a house owned by the Hubert Family, then.
Across the street (West) was Elaine Walsh's house, that had the lead pipe fence.
The fence was always an attraction for tight ropewalker fantasists. And "want-to-be's"
of the Ted Mack, Happy Hour Show. But all notions would be dispelled by that one
regrettable slip that sent boys singing soprano. By the way, if anyone has Elaine's
email address, I'd deeply appreciate it, if you'd send it to me or a snail mail address.
I can remember the daily action coming up and down the streets. Before the stores came out with those fancy wax cartons of milk, we had the Borden's milk trucks (The ones with the rounded front fenders with Elsie's picture on the side.) delivering the bottles of
whole and chocolate milk, along with those small creamers. I can see the truck coming out of 6th st. and rounding north on 7th Ave.
This was all before they put in that new Post Office across the street and before that Post Office, it was a parking lot. At this time of year, before Xmas, Mr. Smith sold Christmas Trees there. He lived in the hugh yellow house on the corner of 6th St. and 7th Ave. along with his wife and three young daughters, whom I enjoyed playing with daily.
Then came the garbage trucks, heading from Roseville down 7th Ave. making a racket of noise you couldn't ignore with the throwing of metal cans.
The mornings would be topped off with the sound of the heavy bristled brushes of the street sweepers. I'd get close to the curbside to make sure it picked up everything and rewarded with that terrible stench of sewer smells for my attentiveness.
If all this noise didn't wake you up, then here comes the coal truck!
The trailer would be lifted high and the deliveryman would assemble the slides that were an erector set dream. The {{{sssssshhhhhhhh}}} of coal chunks flowing down the slides were so loud, you had to cover your ears.
Rallo's pizza is still my favorite, because it was the first pizza I ever tasted in my life. Crust was very crispy and sometimes they burned the bottom, but I enjoyed it anyway, nonetheless.
