Remembrances... Installment #8: Trains, Real and Toy

REMEMBRANCES OF A CHILDHOOD

By Lynn Harrington

Part I: 1918 – 1927, continued

Lynn Harrington's fascination with trains would last beyond his childhood and throughout his life. He took this photo of a New York Central locomotive near Syracuse more than 20 years after what he recounts below took place. -SH

14. 1923 or 1924: Trains, Real and Toy

In my description of the Cannon Street house I did not mean to be depicting a typical house in the neighborhood. Ours was almost surely one of very few which were without either electric or gas ser­vice. Some of the homes nearby were very fine upper­ middle-class residences. One such was the home of Mark Conan, a boy my age and one of my kindergarten through sixth grade classmates. Mark's father was a lawyer, active in civic affairs. My especial remem­brance of Mark relates to two or three occasions, when I was probably five or six, when he invited me to come to his house so I could see some of his toys. Those were great occasions for me.

Of houses, there could be no other like his in the world. The rooms were large and beautifully furnished. Not only did it have elec­tricity, with reading lamps and table and ceiling fix­tures, but it also had something I had never seen before. When Mark's mother called us to the kitchen for cookies and milk. there was a stove that burned gas. All Mrs. Conan had to do to start it was turn a lever and then strike a spark close to the burner. The thing that made the spark was a pincher-like wire frame bearing a flat surface like a small section of nail file, and when the device was squeezed a piece of flint was scraped across that. A spark flew off and the gas was lit. The burner was a circular ring of iron pipe with many small holes around its upper surface. There were four such burners on the stove. When the gas issuing from the little holes burned it formed a ring of beautiful little dancing lights, which Mrs. Conan could make burn higher or lower just by turning the small control lever.

Best of all at that house was Mark's elec­tric train. He laid out the tracks on the floor in a figure-eight arrangement, plugged the lead wire into an opening in the wall, put the engine and cars on the track, hooked them together, and the train was ready to run. He could make the train go slow or fast by turning a lever on a box he said was the transformer. I didn't know what a transformer was, and probably Mark didn't either, but it worked just wonderfully, and he let me run it too. I was a little puzzled to see three rails in the tracks instead of the two that street cars and real trains ran on. I asked Mark about that, and he said it was because his train was a Lionel, and Lionel trains used three rails. I didn't understand, but it was Mark's train, so the explanation suited me just fine.

1920's-vintage Lionel electric train equipment. (Photo by and copyright Frank Tellez. Please view this image large on his Flickr photostream.)

Even at that early age I was fascinated by trains. I loved to walk up east Colvin hill to the D.L.&W. Railroad crossing occasionally, and wait in the hope a train would come by. It was wonderful to see a steam engine, its exhaust barking rapidly as it pulled a string of five or six passenger cars at an already fast and still accelerating speed up the long grade out of the city. Better yet would be the times when an even bigger locomotive crept more laboriously up that grade, the very ground trembling as the roar­ing exhaust sent black smoke billowing high out of its stack, and cinders showering down on me as the engine worked past me. Trailing along behind would be a long string of freight cars of all kinds, swaying and rock­ing in their heavy passage. As often as not such a freight train would be helped up the grade by another big locomotive shoving hard against the caboose which marked the end of the train of cars. And a trainman would always return the wave of a boy who thrilled to stand at trackside to catch the sights and sounds of such an impressive passage.

I never felt envious of Mark for his elec­tric train, nor did I ever expect to have even a wind­up train of my own. We were poor and knew it, but I don't remember ever feeling bitter about it. It was just the way things were. By the time I was seven or eight I had decided to have a train of my own, and this is the way it came about:

First of all, Dad had had a tool box and a work bench in a closed-in end of the back porch. Any time he was working there I just loved to watch. He encouraged me to do little pieces of work with scrap wood he brought home from the shop. He also encouraged me to use his tools, but there were rules I must obey. First, I was never to use any tool until he had taught me how. Second, if anything hap­pened to any tool I used, such as if I broke one of the delicate coping saw blades, I was to tell him at once, and he would go over the incident with me, and show me what I had done wrong. And, last but not least, when I finished what I was working on I must put what­ever tools I had used right back where I found them, and clean everything up where I had worked. I might add, in this, connection, that by the time we moved from Cannon Street, he had built and equipped for me a very nice small toolbox of my own.

Windup toy trains from the 1920s (photo from the Milford, NH, Antique Show website.)

In our back yard that summer of 1923 or 1924 there was a pile of dirt that we boys liked to play on. I resolved to build a railroad on that mountain. I had for some time been collecting sect­ions of the kind of track that came with wind-up trains. It was simple material, with tinplate ties to which little hollow rails attached. Sections, either straight or curved and eight or 10 inches in length, could be securely connected by metal inserts that fit tightly into the ends of the hollow rails. On trash day, people placed their ash cans and boxes of discarded materials out by the curb for pick-up by city sanitation men. I had learned by observation that at the time of traditional spring house-cleaning all kinds of interesting discards appeared in the dis­posal boxes at curbside. Wind-up trains were common Christmas presents for young boys. Those train sets were not especially durable. The engine spring would break, car wheels would get lost, cars would get step­ped on, and kids in general had lost interest in their toy trains. Cars without wheels appeared in the trash, but they were no good to me. Sections of track held up better, and they were what I rescued whenever I found them.

Windup train tracks from a modern EBay antiques offering.

With the track I could lay down a very nice, curving railroad around Dirt Mountain. What I needed was cars, and I found a way to get them. We had always known that tobacco shops accumulated empty cigar boxes in quantity. In those days cigar boxes were nicely made of fine-grained, smooth wood about one­ eighth inch thick. All a boy had to do to get some free boxes was to go to the tobacco shop and ask the man politely if he had any empty cigar obxes. I don't remember coming away from such an expedition empty­ handed. The boxes had many uses --all members of the family had one or two or more, for storage of letters or trinkets or private little treasures. They had no tobacco odor, either. As I learned many years later, the wood was sycamore, the same kind as used in much larger pieces for butcher blocks and butter tubs. It possess the unique characteristic of neither taking on odor from nor imparting odor to materials with which it comes into contact.

My purpose for the cigar boxes was as wood I could work with. The work was quite precise and demanded considerable care in measuring and cutting and assembling. What I did was to cut out a substan­tial number of rectangular pieces, alL a half::~inch or so wider than the space between the rails. For each bottom piece I cut two side pieces about a half-inch shorter than the bottom. Then I cut two end pieces, as long as the bottom was wide, and the same width as the side pieces. Then, using Dad's tack-hammer and vice, I would nail together (using little brads Dad had given me) an open-top box, the bottom of which extended out a little way on each end. Placing the open-top boxes on the bench, I drove a brad into the top of the platform at each end. Turning the affair upside down on the bench, I drove into the bottom of the platform four brads deep enough that their heads extended down about a quarter of an inch from the bottom. Those four brads, two an inch or so in from each end, had to be opposite each other and spaced just far enough apart so that when the rig was placed right side up on the track, they would allow the wooden box to be slid along the rails, with the downward protruding brads holding it in position from side to side. If the box slipped left or right, as it would tend to do on a curve, the brads between the rails served the same purpose as the flange of a real train wheel.

All that remained was to make a set of small loops of string, one of which could be dropped over the upright brads standing on the platform ends of every two adjacent cars. And so the cars were coupled together to form a train. I put the joined cars on the track and, by inserting a finger into the first car I made of it the engine. Then I could crawl along beside the layout, and my train of cars slid right along the rails, moving up grade and down, and negotiating curves flawlessly. Of course, the train had to be drawn gently, and not too fast. But it held the rails, and I could produce my own sound effects as I moved the train along, and I was pleased as punch with my very own homemade train. I doubt very much that Mark Conan enjoyed his Lionel electric train any more than I enjoyed the train I had made for myself.

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Next week: Rat tales and more from Arthur G. Harrington
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Remembrances... Installment #7: A Frightening Ride

REMEMBRANCES OF A CHILDHOOD

By Lynn Harrington

Part I: 1918 – 1927, continued

13. 1920 or 1921: Colvin Street Hill, Syracuse

As overworked and as generally hard-pressed as our Mother was, she made every effort to see that each of us understood that no matter how busy she was nor how many of us there were, we all shared equally and generously in her love. However infrequent the occasions were, she took advantage of every opportunity to to do something we boys would enjoy and that she could share with us. On one fine summer day, for instance, she found the time to prepare a picnic lunch and take the three of us boys for a walk to Onondaga Park. Bob, Jim, and I were probably seven, three, and five, respectively, at the time. Reaching the park meant walking the long block to Colvin Street, turning west there and walking about six blocks to South Avenue, a street busy with trolley cars and other vehicles and pedestrian shoppers. Small shops lined both sides of South Avenue at that corner. That avenue marked the western boundary of the flat bottom of the Onondaga Creek valley in that area. From there West Colvin Street climbed very steeply up the west slope of the valley for a very long block to a broad natural terrace, west of which the upward slope resumed. Onondaga Park lay on that terrace, and was a very popular picnic, playground, and swimming pool facility.

We possessed a rather old cart, consisting of a shallow rectangular box body mounted on four wheels. The axle on which the front wheels were mounted swiveled to allow for turning. The handle extended up from the front axle, and pivoted forward and back. When the cart was being drawn, the handle was extended forward; if a child were riding in the cart, whether propelling it by kneeling one leg in the box and pushing along the pavement with the other foot, or by being pushed along by someone else, or coasting down a slope, the handle was swung back into the box so that the rider could steer the vehicle.

With picnic supplies to carry and little Jimmy much too small to make the long walk and too heavy to carry very far, it seemed advisable to take the cart along. All went well, and Bob and I shared the pulling of the cart, with Jimmy and the picnic lunch riding along behind us as we made the long ascent up Colvin Street hill.

Then for a time we all lay down in the shade on the thick green grass, watching birds and squirrels come and go...

The picnic was a most enjoyable one. We couldn't swim, but we had fun in the wading pool. The park was beautifully landscaped, and great old trees shaded the picnic tables, sand boxes, swings, and sliding boards; and a circular platform bearing small wooden horses would rotate when pushed, and made a safe and delightful merry-go-round. We played until we were hungry, and then enjoyed the nice lunch Mama had put up for us. Then for a time we all lay down in the shade on the thick green grass, watching birds and squirrels come and go in the trees overhead, and saw the dappling sunlight slipping through the canopy of the trees as a light breeze stirred the leaves.

... I had what I thought was a good idea ...

All too soon it was time to go home. What little remained to be taken home we put into the cart, and a tired Jimmy, too, climbed in for the ride. Bob and I ran as we pulled the cart, just to hear Jimmy squeal in delight. When we emerged from the park onto the sidewalk at the top of Colvin hill, Mama was some distance behind, calling to us to wait for her. As we stood there looking down the long, steep slope of the sidewalk, I had what I thought was a good idea --why not coast just a little way down, for the fun of it and to give Jimmy another fast ride? Now, carts of that kind had no brakes at all. When coasting, the rider would control the speed by putting his legs over the side and dragging his feet on the pavement. Bob was doubtful, and thought we should wait for Mama. But I could see no reason not to coast along past a few of the houses, to stop and wait for her there. And so I pushed off and hopped in, with Jimmy behind me, holding on to the sides of the cart.

... like free fall ... I was in pure panic ...

In a very short time I had the shock of my young life. I would never have imagined that a cart could get rolling so fast so quickly. It was almost like free fall, but in those days I didn't know what that expression meant. My first and only thought was to stop the cart. I swung my legs out and pressed my bare feet on the cement sidewalk. This had no other effect than to burn the soles of my feet as if I were sliding them over a hot stove. By that time I was in pure panic, trying to steer the cart over onto a lawn. But by then we were speeding so fast that the front axle began whipping back and forth, from side to side, so fast that the handle was simply snatched from my hands, and I could do nothing but cling for dear life to the sides of the cart. Like a runaway horse the cart continued to plummet, at ever increasing speed, down the sidewalk in a frantic left-to-right and back again zig-zag motion. I was frightened out of my wits, as were Bob and Mama as they tried to race after us afoot down the hill. They never had a chance. I remember Jimmy screaming behind me, and suddenly hearing him no more.

The ride seemed to go on forever, but it had probably extended past no more than a dozen houses when it came to a sudden, crashing halt. One of the zigs or zags had sent the cart (and me) headlong into a utility pole that stood between sidewalk and curb. And then, abruptly, all was still and dark and far away. I opened my eyes to see a lady kneeling beside me. Several people were gathered around, with Mama standing with Bob close beside me. Jimmy was in Mama's arms, his eyes wide in his tear-stained face, staring at me.

... barely missing a trolley car and an automobile, then bouncing over the curb and into the front wall of a store, an iron wheel ...

It turned out to be a miraculous ending to a terrifying ride. Jimmy was unhurt. It had been our great good fortune that he had been thrown clear of the cart during one of the switches form a zig to a zag, at just the right point so that his trajectory sent him rolling and tumbling over a nice wide lawn. He could just as well have been pitched out onto the Colvin Street pavement, but he wasn't. The cart was demolished, the wood split loose from the frame, the front axle bent, and the handle broken off. One of the iron wheels was missing. In the group of spectators were two men who lived in houses we had passed, and who had seen the finish of the ride. When I became aware of what was going on, they were busy patching up the cart so that Mama and Bob could pull me home as I lay on it. I had not progressed nearly half way down the hill, but the missing wheel had. A man standing on the sidewalk on the east side of South Avenue had been startled to see, rolling very fast across the street right toward him, barely missing a trolley car and an automobile, then bouncing over the curb and into the front wall of a store, an iron wheel. As he puzzled over it, he noticed a group of people gathering on the sidewalk and a lawn well up the hill. So he picked up the wheel and carried it up to the site, just as the men working on the cart began to look for the wheel.

I suppose that if such an event were to occur today, someone would call the police or the paramedics and, at the very least, first aid and transportation would have been provided. But minor accidents then were matters more of curiosity than of alarm. The kind men succeeded in rigging a platform supported by the wheels and axles, provided a rope by which the rig could be pulled (or held in check), and I was hauled off homeward. Near the corner of South Avenue and Colvin was a doctor's office, and Mama took me in there. The doctor was rather amused by the account of what had happened. But he checked me over and said that my nose was probably broken, but that it would heal; that I was going to have a headache and two beautiful black eyes, but they would clear up, and that some ointment he would put on the soles of my feet would make them feel better. He proved correct on all counts.
And so another memorable childhood experience ended.

I did not think of it at the time, but I wonder now how poor Mama slept that night.

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Next week: Trains, Toy and Real
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Tales Told by AGH, Installment #2: Motorman's Memories

Street Car Stories

Electric trolleys on North Salina Street, circa 1915 - 1917, when Arthur G. Harrington was a motorman. (From the collection of Michelle Stone.)

Editor's notes:
These reminiscences by my grandfather, Arthur George Harrington, were transcribed by his daughter Mary when he was an old man. See the sidebar pictures for birth and death years of each.
The three illustrations in this post are from a wonderful collection of old Syracuse postcards from the collection of Michelle Stone, presented on this Onondaga County Genweb page. Please visit that page for more images and captions. - SH

Note [by MEH]: Before Dad worked for the Syracuse Rapid Transit, there had been a number of horse car lines. For example --

The People's Line - with a carbarn on Colvin St. [Syracuse, NY] near cCannon - ran from Elmwood to Onondaga Lake.
The Geddes Line - up Fayette St. to the Onondaga Pottery -- 5 cents all the way, or 3 cents just to Geddes St. The barn, just beyond the Pottery, burned one 4th of July, killing 13 horses.
The 5th Ward Belt Line
The E. Genesee Line
The W. Genesee Line - first to be electrified.
Salina Line
Etc.

All these were owned and run by separate companies, until Syracuse Rapid Transit bought them up. -- MEH

(Now Dad speaks -)
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1) That winter (probably 1906 - MEH) we lived in your grandmother's (really my great grandmother, Betsy Prisby West Hobert - MEH) house on Gifford Street. I used to get up and walk down to the carbarn on Tallman Street. It was cold, and almost every night it would snow, and I'd have to break a path for myself in the morning. But I didn't seem to mind the cold at all. It didn't bother me. Then on Washington's birthday we had quite a bad storm. We were out with the plows all night. In the morning they told us to back in there by the Weiting Opera House, and stop to eat and rest. I got some breakfast, then I went into the sleeper and turned on the electric heat and lay down. Three or four others came in to sleep, too. A few hours later, I woke up, almost frozen. Some smart guy had turned off the heater, and opened both doors. I never got warm again that winter. Whoever did it knew what I thought of it. I told the whole crew in plain language.

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2) One morning when I was going to work there was an awful snowstorm, a regular blizzard. I got down on Tallman St., just below Onondaga Circle. I heard a woman. I could barely see her out in the middle of the road, and she kept saying "Oh, my God, where am I" Oh, my God, where am I?" I went out to her and asked her where she lived. She was about nuts, she was so scared. It was dark, only about 5 a.m., and the snow was coming thick. She said she lived on Putnam St. I asked her what she was doing here, and she said she was going on her way to St. Lucy's Church. I said "You'd better forget St. Lucy, and come with me."

She did. I took her to the barn, and put her on the first Dudley car going out.

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3) One night in the fall, some of the University students were having a dance at Empire Hall, and they had us take a couple cars to run up to the University at 2 a.m. The rails were slippery -- it had been raining, and there were lots of wet leaves. We could hardly make the hill, and of course somebody wanted to get out at nearly every corner, but we finally got there. Then coming back down, the brakes wouldn't hold it. At the crossings the rails were sanded some, but not enough to slow us down, then we'd be going faster at the next crossing. I opened the door, and yelled to the conductor to get down on the steps ready to jump. I was down on the steps, too. When we hit that corner at the end of Crouse Ave., I guess we went around on two wheels. I don't see how we ever kept on the track. The trolley yanked off, of course. Wand when we got it on and got going again, -- SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! The wheels were flat.

The next day, Holstack (a boss - MEH) called me in and told me the chief mechanic wanted to see me in the barn. I went out and asked him what he wanted. He asked if I'd had car number so and so the night before. I said I had. He said "I just wanted to know how you put four flat wheels on that car." So I told him.

"Well," he says, "That eye-talian is paid to sand the whole length of that hill, and either he'll do it or somebody else will have the job."

That night, the whole of Crouse Avenue was sanded, and we never had any more trouble there.

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4) One night when I was on the Elmwood - Eastwood run, I took the car from old Jim Ferguson down on Genesee and Jefferson. When one motorman relieves another, the one taking off is supposed to sign a card and give it to the relief. The card has places to check anything wrong with the car. But there was never anything wrong with old Jim's car. He never put anything on the card.

In the very early 1900's, the New York Central railway ran through downtown Syracuse on city streets. The above postcard, from the collection of Michelle Stone, is probably circa 1905 -- note the early electric trolley car at far right. Below, from the same era and the same collection, a big train steams along Washington St. near City Hall.

Well, this night I hadn't gone far when I found there wasn't any sand in the box. You let some down on the rails in front of the wheels when you stop, besides using the brake. I got along as well as I could without it. But coming down from Eastwood, down James Street hill to the railroad, I put on the brakes and it began to slide. I could see an engine coming. I figured if I left on the brakes, I'd stop on the tracks in front of the engine, so I took off the brakes, gave it the power, and shot across just ahead of the engine.

The street inspector was at the crossing and saw it happen. The next day Duffy called me in the office.

"I thought you were a good motorman," he said.

"I never claimed to be," I told him.

Then he went on to ask how I came to do that. I explained.

He said "If there's no sand in the box, no one else would have as good a chance to know it as the motorman."

"Listen," I said, "I took that car from Jim Ferguson downtown, and he reported nothing wrong with it. There was a standing load on it, and I had no chance to lift up the seats to see if the sand boxes were filled."

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Next week: forward to the 1920's again, and the Coal Delivery Sleighride
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Remembrances... Installment #6: Deliver Me Almost Everything

REMEMBRANCES OF A CHILDHOOD

By Lynn Harrington

Part I: 1918 – 1927, continued

12. Delivery Men

In our neighborhood in the early 1920s, the local distribution of goods was still predominantly by delivery men and their horses. Supermarkets and shopping malls lay far in the future. Small neighborhood grocery and other shops were abundant, but to many the most convenient way to shop for specialties was to have them brought to the door.

The Ice Man Visiteth

Everyone needed ice in the summer, because mechanical refrigeration was in its infancy. So the ice man with his one-horse wagon traveled the streets of his route, looking at each house for the sign that would request delivery. These signs, about a foot square, were of cardboard, bearing in large, clear letters the name of the ice company which had distributed them, People's or Rice's or whomever's. Each sign was so printed that a number appeared at each corner in such a way that the device could be hung in a window diamond-wise, and the desired number, indicating the size of the ice block wanted, would appear upright, reading either 10, 25, 50, or 100. On spotting the sign, the ice man would stop his horse, go to the rear of his wagon, chip from a 100 pound scored block the weight of ice indicated at the upper corner of the sign. This chunk he would carry, using his ice tongs and resting it on a thick pad worn on his shoulder, to the customer's ice box, usually in the kitchen.

Milkman

If we boys happened to be up and out early in the morning, we might see the milkman and his horse at work. The man had an established route which he covered each day. Our parents told us how, not many years earlier, the milk wagon carried large cans of milk in bulk. The route was worked later in the morning hours, when people in the houses were up and about. As the milkman drove slowly along, he would make his approach known by clanging a bell and calling out, "Milkman!" Then the housewife, or a child she might send, would go to the wagon with a bucket or a jar.

The man would dip into a can with a long-handled measure and pour the milk into the customer's receptacle, often along with a stray fly or two. Payment was by cash on the spot.

By the time we boys came along the system had been much refined. In the establishment of a route or the addition of a new family to the neighborhood, the milkman would call at the house to sell strips of tickets, one of one color for quarts, another for pints of milk bottled at the dairy he represented. He would also leave a price list, showing, with prices, the various specialties he carried in his wagon, such as cream or buttermilk or cottage cheese. With this information at hand, the customer would, before going to bed, put out on the porch the washed bottles from previous delivery, together with the number of tickets indicating how many quarts or pints of milk were wanted at the next morning's delivery. If specialty items were wanted, a note and payment in coin would be tucked into an empty bottle, or under one.

"The horse knew just how far to plod...

In most cases the milkman came to know quite well what the customers along the route would want each day. He was carrying two delivery baskets, of metal frame and compartment construction to accommodate a dozen bottles. As his carriers provided stock for deliveries, they also made a place to carry back to the wagon the empties he would pick up. By using the carriers that way, he could walk along in front of several houses, filling orders, before he had to make another trip to the wagon. It did not take a good delivery horse long to learn to know the route as well as the driver did. Once set into motion, the horse knew just about how far to plod along before stopping again. This was a great saving of labor for the milkman. When he needed a refill, the wagon was there, and the only times he would have to double back was when a customer ordered specialties.

It was a pleasure to watch that close teamwork between horse and man. Before we moved from Cannon Street, trucks had generally replaced horses on the milk routes. It was one of the sadder marks of progress; trucks did not have to be fed, nor their stables cleaned. Early in the transition period we were amused to see the milkman with his carriers of empty bottles walk to the curb, look about in surprise for his wagon, and then express himself in very positive expletives as he walked back to the stupid truck, standing right where he had left it.

Breadman

The breadman, working from his wagon with his large basket containing not only bread but also cakes and doughnuts and other delicacies, also had a fairly well established route. He too walked from house to house, his horse following along the street. But baked goods were not the regular staple that milk was, so there was less precision in the operation. In fact, he just didn't bother stopping at our house; Mama did the baking there.

Vegetable Man

Of all the regular route men, the vegetable man was the most conspicuous. As he walked along beside his wagon he sang out in a loud and rhythmic chant his specials of the day, such as, "STRAWWWBERRIES, CUUUCUMBERS, RAAADISHES", and similar cries for bananas and lettuce and potatoes and tomatoes and other standard items of produce. As he called his loud sing-song housewives along the street would hear him, and by the time he was before their houses they would be at curbside waiting for him, basket and purse in hand. Milk and ice they would accept as delivered; the produce, however, they wanted to select for themselves.

"The Broken Man Is Coming!"

I remember quite well the vegetable man who worked our street for several years. Mama would now and then want to be sure she knew when the man was on our street. She might be working upstairs or in the kitchen and not hear him call. So on such days, when we boys might be playing outside, she would admonish us to let her know when he was coming. It just happened that the vegetable man had only one leg, and he swung along as best he could, his crutch under his right arm and his left hand resting on the wagon. We boys, in the innocence of childhood and without thought of any unkindness, would run to the door and call to our mother, "Mama, the broken man is coming!"

Coal Shooting

The coal man's deliveries were something special to watch. Dad seldom ordered more than a half ton at a time. Our coal bin was in the cellar, accessible from outside only by a low, ground-level window that was hinged to be swung inward and upward and held open by a hook. The coal was delivered by a low-slung wagon in spring and fall, and by a box sleigh when the streets were coated with a thick, hard-packed layer of snow in winter. There was not room for the coal man to get his rig between our house and the house next door, so the man halted his wagon at curbside, then carried to the cellar window a straight metal chute which he lowered through the opened window and secured in place by legs extending to the ground from the chute's upper end. Then he would go back to the load, place his carrying bag on the ground or the snow beside it, and shovel it full of coal. The carrier was of canvas and shaped like a pack basket. A cloth strap-handle was attached to the rim at the top, and another on the side near the bottom of the pack. I don't know just what the weight of that carrier filled with coal would have been, but it must have been at least 50 pounds. When he had filled it, the man took hold of the pack with a handle in each hand and, with a swift, deft motion, swing it up onto his shoulder. Then he would trudge to the chute and just as deftly dump it onto that device, down which the coal would rattle and bang as it slid down into the bin.

The noise induced by the coal's descent was a roar which reverberated all through the house. For the usual half-ton delivery that would mean at least 20 carries for the man; for the occasional full ton order, 40 trips. He was a short, stocky man, clothes and hands and face black with coal dust, but cheerful and friendly with us kids, and often flashing a wide smile that showed his teeth startling white in contrast to his blackened face.

Instant Messaging, 1920's Style

Deliveries of quite another sort were handled by an elite group of uniformed older boys and young men. These were the telegraph couriers. The telephone was not then the universally-owned instrument it is today. Especially urgent messages were dispatched and delivered by telegraphic wire services. Two major companies competed for this business: Western Union and Postal Telegraph. Both of these companies maintained service offices in virtually all cities throughout the country. At those offices, messages received from a distant station on their lines were printed out on tape as they arrived over the wire. Clerks would cut the tapes into appropriate length strips and stick them to sheets of paper bearing their company's letterhead, together with the address of the recipient and the point of origin, with the names of both parties, sender and addressee. Each message was stuffed into an envelope, address showing in the glassine window. Such messages were held at the receiving office for only a short time, usually just long enough to allow accumulation of telegrams for several addresses in a given section of the city.

Posted at the ready in the office would be a number of carriers, just waiting to be handed a sheaf of envelopes to be distributed in their assigned districts. Each had his own bicycle, and immediately upon receipt of his messages, placed them in his cap, ran to his bike, mounted, and sped away. The courier had to be thoroughly familiar with all streets in his district, even more so than taxi drivers. The cab driver could often get help from the passenger in finding his destination. All the courier had was the printed address.

A job as a telegraph messenger was a responsible and respected position. Telegrams were not generally dispatched for casual messages -- they were usually urgent and of a serious nature. In his effort to make the earliest possible deliveries, the courier was especially vulnerable to the risks of bicycling through heavy traffic. When snow made that means of delivery impossiple, he had to travel as far as possible by streetcar and run the rest of the way. Those hard working, dedicated couriers have by now disappeared from the scene, displaced by much more sophisticated, computerized transmission systems. We are the richer for bhe inv~ptionof those mechanical devices, but the poorer for the disappearance of the couriers.

The Coal Delivery Sleigh Ride

Early one memorable Saturday morning in the depth of winter, when the coal man had finished a delivery to our house, he told us boys that he was going back to the yard to get a big load to deliver to the boiler room at the Netherland Dairy, located about a mile toward downtown from our house. He said we could come along if we wanted a nice sleigh ride. We were overjoyed at the prospect, and ran into the house to tell Mama we were going for a ride with the coal man. We offered no particulars, and she probably assumed he was going to give us a ride to the coal yard, not far up East Brighton Avenue. Then out we dashed to climb into the sleigh, and we were off.

At the coal yard, loading up was quickly accomplished. The storage bins were overhead, and the teamster (after telling us to hop out and wait for him by the street) simply drove his team to the proper spot where the sleigh rested under the hopper from which the measured quantity of coal was dumped straight down into it. As the team pulled out into the street we climbed aboard and settled down in comfort to enjoy our princely ride all the way along the busy streets which led us to the Netherland Dairy. Unloading there was easier than at our house, even though the load was much larger. All the man did was drive the sleigh up beside .~ pair of big iron doors, flush with the ground. The fireman in the boiler room swung those doors up and open, the driver removed one section of the side of the his sleigh, and proceeded 'to shove the coal off and down into a large storage chamber which the iron doors had concealed. When the fireman saw us boys standing beside the sleigh he asked, "Are you kids with him?" We said we were, and he said, "You'd better come with me, or you'll freeze before he gets that coal off."

We followed with alacrity as he led us into the boiler room, a warm and pleasant place where we sat on a bench and watched him rake and poke around in the fire. After a little bit he disappeared for a few minutes and returned with three Eskimo Pies, one for each of us. Those foil-wrapped, chocolate coated ice cream bars were the most wonderful treat we could imagine, and our pleasure in them was diminished not in the least by the grime on our fingers.

Then the coal was unloaded, and it was time to go. This time we traveled seated on the edge of the sleigh box, with our feet and legs inside. Few winter diversions are more fun than a sleigh ride, and we felt quite important, riding there in state as the team plodded south along Salina Street. At Colvin the man stopped the horses and we got off, with many thanks for the ride. He said we were ~ery welcome, and that well could join him again mos t any Saturday, as tha twas a regular run. We knew, as we walked home, that we were quite dirty. Just how dirty we were hadn't really sunk in until we entered the kitchen at home, and Mama explained it to us in no uncertain terms. Needless to say, we didn't take any more Saturday afternoon rides on the coal sleigh.

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Next week: more from Arthur G. Harrington

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