EDITOR’S NOTE BY MARIE ELIUM
“The ____Man is Here!”
…And Why That Was a Good Thing
Dad’s been giving us stories for eight decades. They’ve finally found a home.
The grandkids gifted him a subscription to a storytelling program that sends writing prompts to his computer tablet each week. His responses and photos will later get uploaded and committed to print. We’ll get the book sometime next year.
These treasures are tales that Dad’s been telling us for years: How he stood on a street corner hawking The Akron Beacon Journal’s special D-Day Invasion edition. Or going to the movies with his mom on Thursday nights for the free dish giveaways.
The book promises to be a best-seller, at least in our family. The prompts give structure to the memories, both for Dad and for us. One recent one was especially interesting: “The ___ Man is Here.” It’s about the people who peddled wares and services to the working-class city neighborhood of Dad’s childhood.
A small army of workers visited the dead-end, cinder-paved street, sometimes daily, others every few months. The knifeman brought a grindstone to sharpen cutlery. The junkman traveled in a horse-drawn wagon and collected newspapers, rags and metal. The iceman dropped off blocks for the icebox (and chipped pieces for the kids). There was the coal man, the milkman and the postman. An insurance man stopped by monthly to collect premiums on small policies that covered not only my grandmother and grandfather but their three kids, too.
Community Ties
It took a lot of people in a lot of jobs to keep a household going, even a home as modest as the one Dad grew up in. A few carried over through the decades. We still have a mailman and a garbage hauler, today’s version of the junkman. And many of us have a cable man, but that’s usually not someone people like to talk about.
I’m struck by the communities that these men helped create in neighborhoods far beyond the Akron of Dad’s youth. People depended on others for basics: heat, cold food, butter, sharp knives — connections that nurtured a community.
While I’m interested in learning about the men that came to Dad’s neighborhood, I’m not nostalgic for a time softened by years and memory. I know that being a white, working-class family in the ‘30s and ‘40s was a lot different for my family than it was for Black families, Jews, and others who weren’t like us, or who lived somewhere else.
Instead, Dad’s ___Man Prompt reminds me of the importance of making connections today, as we slowly work our way out of a pandemic, connections that may have been tenuous two years ago, and have all but dissolved since. I know my mailman’s name — Tim — but I haven’t met the people who live up the hill from me. That’s on my to-do list. But to be honest, I’m not eager to have another conversation with our cable guy.
We’re celebrating our Place & Time in this issue. Connecting with family is part of that, and our Family Reunion story can get you started. Nature is always grounding. Plan to visit some of Northeast Ohio’s public gardens and start your springtime with the season’s delicate blooms. Check our list to see how many you’ve already visited or to make plans for ones you haven’t.
I’m not sure what’s next for Dad’s book. He hasn’t written about the war (World War II, as if there was any other), or much about his school days. I don’t know if my siblings or I will make the cut with so much other stuff to fit in. He’s 88, and there’s a lot.
Podcasts, in a way, are taking the place of the men who visited dad’s neighborhood. For example, I could use a sleepman, and there’s a podcast that tells boring stories in a soothing voice that does that job. Maybe when my grandkids get me a gift like Dad’s, I’ll write about the podcasts that I listened to, or the apps that connected me with friends across the country. Will it seem as quaint as having a junkman? I’ll let you know when I’m 88.
Marie
