{"id":22428,"date":"2018-12-08T16:40:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T21:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22428"},"modified":"2018-12-08T16:40:46","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T21:40:46","slug":"essays-from-the-east-side-the-milkman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/essays-from-the-east-side-the-milkman\/","title":{"rendered":"ESSAYS FROM THE EAST SIDE: The Milkman"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Corrie Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was growing up in small town Ontario, there were few things that delighted us local kids more than the sight of the ice cream truck and the sound of that sickeningly sweet, yet slightly psychotic, circus tune approaching your street.
\nLike the Pied Piper, kids would come out of all sorts of places to greet a man in a van for a delicious treat.
\nBack then the act of the ice cream man luring children to his business was a relatively normal one, as many entrepreneurs and businesses approached your street every day. Our mothers got milk from the milkman, and bread from the bread man. The bread man of my childhood even sold penny candy to all the kids, because he really liked kids.
\nAnd he did it in a way that would give heart attacks to parents today.
\nWe went into the bread truck and picked it out from little bins. In the poorer neighborhoods he just gave kids the candy.
\nIt was the 1970s and everything was the set up for a Movie of the Week.
\nBut these deliverymen usually had a route for years, kept a community together and provided an essential service to those who weren\u2019t mobile enough to be able to go and get supplies.
\nThey knew what people needed.
\nThe milkman and the bread man are long gone these days, even though some of the jokes we make about them still linger.
\nThere\u2019s something to be said for the mobile business or delivery person. There were also the local salespeople\u2026ones who sold encyclopedias, or Amway or Avon.
\nMy mother sold Avon briefly when I was a kid and I remember going door to door with her and her big blue bag. They were the same doors we hit up every spring trying to sell Girl Guide cookies. Often these were people you already knew. The ones doing the selling to you were family or friends who needed some extra cash.
\nA community is made up of large and small businesses, even the travelling or mobile cart variety. Ever notice the lack of \u201cno solicitors or peddlers\u201d signs now? That\u2019s because there aren\u2019t that many peddlers anymore.
\nWe live in a world of packaged goods sold on keyboards. But sometimes you can still hear the music of the ice cream truck navigating along the streets of your neighborhood on a warm summer\u2019s day. Once in a while you\u2019ll hear the clanging of a bell\u2026 \u201cDing, ding\u2026 ding, ding\u201d of the knife sharpener. This mobile business always looks nostalgic as if he\u2019s been driving around the community without stopping for 50 years.
\nIn fact, he probably has.
\nA lot of these peddler cars and carts have long histories and began in large cities.
\nAround 1900, there were thousands of mobile businesses in New York City. Today, less than a dozen mobile grinders or sharpeners exist.
\nSure, you can get anything from Amazon dropped at your door, even your groceries\u2026 but it\u2019s not the same as the solitary entrepreneur with time to talk and an expertise in his product of service.
\nThis is a person who is happy to see you and feels like they are part of your day and community.
\nThe first official hot dog cart started in 1893 in New York on Coney Island. And for over decade or so in Aurora, you can get a good dog and drink served up with conversation and connection right outside the Home Hardware on Wellington Street.
\nEvery day in the summer months you\u2019ll see a small gaggle of hungry lunchers gathered around this contractor\u2019s connection spot.
\nThat\u2019s what these services and little businesses are\u2026 connectors. And it\u2019s a great memory of a time where the people who sold to us or gave good service were as important as what we bought.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Corrie Clark When I was growing up in small town Ontario, there were few things that delighted us local kids more than the sight of the ice cream truck and the sound of that sickeningly sweet, yet slightly psychotic, circus tune approaching your street. Like the Pied Piper, kids would come out of all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5PK","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 10:00:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}