Pop's Water Ice is a South Philly institution that has been around since 1932. Recently remembering great summer days with our grandfather brings back memories of him taking us there.
My first memory of Pop's was back when I was a boy of about maybe five or six years old. My grandfather, after his retirement from Budd Company, would take my brother, sister and myself a few days a week during the summer to Marconi Plaza (or as we called it, "Down the Park"). Marconi Plaza was somewhat different back in the years prior to the city rehabilitating it prior to the Bicentennial in 1976. It was well-worn in those days. Water fountains - the type you drink from, not the ones used for landscaping - could be found on the Broad Street side where the Columbus statue now stands. Those were the days when you wouldn't think twice about drinking at a public outdoor fountain. Grandpop spent hours with us down there playing with us. He didn't care that the park had seen better days. He enjoyed the time with us.
After what was always a nice day playing with Grandpop watching out for us, he'd walk us over to the water ice stand near Broad & Oregon and buy us each a small "lemonade" as he would call it (although at the time they had cherry and chocolate too), and some pretzel rods. It didn't matter. To him, it was still lemonade, or as he pronounced it in his Sicilian accent, "lemonada". It was that same accent that kept him from pronouncing our names properly. He pronounced my sister Lisa's name as Eda. Matc, my brother, was called Marco. I could never figure out what he was trying to call me. He would always motion to me to come to him and would just say "Eh, come...". It figured I would be the kid with the first name that would be found in more Irish families than Italian ones. I remember he would call my cousin Robert what sounded like Ahbee. Still, as kids, we thought those days were the greatest. What could be better than spending time with your grandfather and him treating you to water ice at Pop's? Some of the kids on the block got to go there every week, but we were guaranteed at least two trips weekly with Grandpop. That didn't include the times Mom took us. When a friend accompanied us and Grandpop bought him a water ice, the word was out. Every once in a while another friend would ask to come with us.
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| My Grandfather |
After we married years later and my wife moved into the neighborhood, she too became a fan of Pop's famous water ice. We'd take a walk for the few blocks from 17th & Oregon and get our treats and eat them mostly before returning. Even after we moved to Darien St. for a few years, we'd make the trek, although there were vendors closer to home. They say your tastes change with age. Forget water ice. I've had plenty of others and they were still the best. With Pop's having gelati on their menu, she's been hooked on them for years. And they have many more flavors than the few in our youth. We make it a point to stop by when family came in from out of town. My cousin from Tampa was here a few years back while his oceangoing tugboat was docked at the refinery. We treated him at Pop's and he was truly enthused. "What's this? Look's like shaved ice, really good!", was what I remember him saying.
As we get older, good things change. Grandpop died in 1982. In the words of a medic, he was as strong as a bull when he had a diabetic episode just before he passed at 90. He didn't want to go to the hospital and struggled with them before my grandmother had the last word. Those days with him "down the park" and Sundays at Guerin playground were priceless. Those were sad days when he left this world. Likewise, Pop's is a memory although they're just a few blocks away. As much as I'd love to, having water ice can send me to the hospital or worse. I'll still stop by to get a gelati for my wife if I'm out with my brother. But like with Grandpop, those days are gone for me.
AND YOU MAY REMEMBER...
* Times with your grandparents. In our family, while Grandpop liked yo take us places, Grandmom liked to feed us. And have us stay over when our parents went out on Saturday nights. She's let us have the run of the house until bedtime. When she said lights out, there was no arguing. She did make a great Sunday dinner though!
*Your own favorite water ice vendor, especially when the heat rises. You may have to wait in line for a while, but it's well worth it. And beside New York, our area is one of the few to have authentic water ice, or as they call it in NYC, Italian ice
*Water ice in paper "dixie" cups in the candy store freezer. I guess it was a reasonable facsimile when you couldn't get what you really wanted. But come on, given a choice?
*October. No! We have still have most of summer ahead of us!
Pop's Water Ice is a South Philly institution that has been around since 1932. Recently remembering great summer days with our grandfather brings back memories of him taking us there.
My first memory of Pop's was back when I was a boy of about maybe five or six years old. My grandfather, after his retirement from Budd Company, would take my brother, sister and myself a few days a week during the summer to Marconi Plaza (or as we called it, "Down the Park"). Marconi Plaza was somewhat different back in the years prior to the city rehabilitating it prior to the Bicentennial in 1976. It was well-worn in those days. Water fountains - the type you drink from, not the ones used for landscaping - could be found on the Broad Street side where the Columbus statue now stands. Those were the days when you wouldn't think twice about drinking at a public outdoor fountain. Grandpop spent hours with us down there playing with us. He didn't care that the park had seen better days. He enjoyed the time with us.
After what was always a nice day playing with Grandpop watching out for us, he'd walk us over to the water ice stand near Broad & Oregon and buy us each a small "lemonade" as he would call it (although at the time they had cherry and chocolate too), and some pretzel rods. It didn't matter. To him, it was still lemonade, or as he pronounced it in his Sicilian accent, "lemonada". It was that same accent that kept him from pronouncing our names properly. He pronounced my sister Lisa's name as Eda. Matc, my brother, was called Marco. I could never figure out what he was trying to call me. He would always motion to me to come to him and would just say "Eh, come...". It figured I would be the kid with the first name that would be found in more Irish families than Italian ones. I remember he would call my cousin Robert what sounded like Ahbee. Still, as kids, we thought those days were the greatest. What could be better than spending time with your grandfather and him treating you to water ice at Pop's? Some of the kids on the block got to go there every week, but we were guaranteed at least two trips weekly with Grandpop. That didn't include the times Mom took us. When a friend accompanied us and Grandpop bought him a water ice, the word was out. Every once in a while another friend would ask to come with us.
After we married years later and my wife moved into the neighborhood, she too became a fan of Pop's famous water ice. We'd take a walk for the few blocks from 17th & Oregon and get our treats and eat them mostly before returning. Even after we moved to Darien St. for a few years, we'd make the trek, although there were vendors closer to home. They say your tastes change with age. Forget water ice. I've had plenty of others and they were still the best. With Pop's having gelati on their menu, she's been hooked on them for years. And they have many more flavors than the few in our youth. We make it a point to stop by when family came in from out of town. My cousin from Tampa was here a few years back while his oceangoing tugboat was docked at the refinery. We treated him at Pop's and he was truly enthused. "What's this? Look's like shaved ice, really good!", was what I remember him saying.
As we get older, good things change. Grandpop died in 1982. In the words of a medic, he was as strong as a bull when he had a diabetic episode just before he passed at 90. He didn't want to go to the hospital and struggled with them before my grandmother had the last word. Those days with him "down the park" and Sundays at Guerin playground were priceless. Those were sad days when he left this world. Likewise, Pop's is a memory although they're just a few blocks away. As much as I'd love to, having water ice can send me to the hospital or worse. I'll still stop by to get a gelati for my wife if I'm out with my brother. But like with Grandpop, those days are gone for me.
AND YOU MAY REMEMBER...
* Times with your grandparents. In our family, while Grandpop liked yo take us places, Grandmom liked to feed us. And have us stay over when our parents went out on Saturday nights. She's let us have the run of the house until bedtime. When she said lights out, there was no arguing. She did make a great Sunday dinner though!
*Your own favorite water ice vendor, especially when the heat rises. You may have to wait in line for a while, but it's well worth it. And beside New York, our area is one of the few to have authentic water ice, or as they call it in NYC, Italian ice
*Water ice in paper "dixie" cups in the candy store freezer. I guess it was a reasonable facsimile when you couldn't get what you really wanted. But come on, given a choice?
*October. No! We have still have most of summer ahead of us!
Most of those I hung with around here remember the "Mad Barber", Mr. John Torresse at Bancroft & Oregon. It was said that John was a race car driver back in Italy. True or not, who knows? I think that the photos on his wall of drivers and race cars gave that impression. He did have a pair of Alfa Romeos that he owned. and at one time he had a third; all were the same model but different paint. He reminded me of a guy in New York City who had a number of cars, all the same make, model, but with him, they were all the same color. He was a serial killer, so the car thing only added to his mystique. John wasn't that far goneJohn was almost invisible to us, not earning our attention until our teens and then well-earning the moniker. As some of our neighbors were, John was not a man who had patience with people or could tolerate noise. He did not like anyone hanging on his corner. You could irritate him if you were a Buddhist monk in a saffron robe sitting there silently meditating. If you did hang there, you were an open target. What was strange is that if you were just walking by quietly, he would smile and nod to you as if he had a different personality.
I think every one of us had at one time or another been chased or felt his wrath in some way. I remember waiting for someone on his corner - actually not even in front of his shop but next door - and the Mad Barber burst through the door chasing me up Bancroft Street with a straight razor. Others said he threatened them with the razor too. Fortunately, my youth made me faster than he was. I may have avoided being sliced and diced that day or maybe he was just trying to put some fear into me. I didn't stop him to ask his intentions.
Another time, my friend Kenny (aka "The Professor") walked into class while we attended Bishop Neumann and told me he was going to "kill that ______! (This is a family site, no obscenities.) He said it out of anger and John wasn't in any danger, but Kenny was really upset. The Mad Barber had seen him standing on the corner with another person and tossed an M80 out the door at them. They ran off before it exploded, getting just far enough to escape harm but with ears ringing and the barner becoming a sort of Mad Bomber. Kenny didn't appreciate that. Anyone would be upset with someone who did that to them.
What was odd is that normally, we do stupid things as kids and then make peace with older neighbors as we grow older. With John, it was in reverse. The barber had a water ice stand that he operated in the garage at the rear of the barbershop during the summer months. We got to be friendly with him because of that stand. But as we got older, it seems we were perceived as the enemy and open targets for him. We all lived through it, none of us were ever truly physically harmed.
Like many of the old characters mentioned in this blog, he's no longer with us.
I remember the Barber/Bomber moved into a local nursing home some years ago and sold the property. Flocco's Painting was located there and now it's a convenience store. I heard a few years ago that he had passed away. The memories are still there though, part of growing up in South Philly.
AND YOU MAY REMEMBER...
*Vito's Barbershop on Broad near Porter Streets. Vito's was the first place my dad ever took me for a haircut. He shut the place down sometime in the late 1960s.
*Bob's Barbershop at Bancroft & Shunk. Bob was the shop owner where Johnny of Johnny's Place got his start. Bob had a glass eye. I remember Johnny telling me that he liked to play a joke with some customers where he would hang over the chair from the rear and drop his eye into their laps. That had to spook some guys. I remember him in my youth, Bob was a nice guy.
*Victor's at 16th & Oregon Ave. He had at least five barbers and you still had to wait. Some waited because they wanted to see a certain stylist but were willing to do it. Forget Saturdays. You could kill most of the day waiting to get snipped.
*Johnny's Place is now gone, leaving the block a few years ago. I remember in my early teens, I was getting the kid's rate because John didn't know my age and I didn't know at what age he charged adult rates. One of the neighborhood guys, Enzo, blew that for me. I was in the chair shortly after my birthday. Enzo was there and said, "Hey, thirteen years old now huh?" John took notice and said, "ah, I thought you were younger than that. No kid's price for you anymore." I could have had some pocket money saving the difference if he didn't know, but I got snagged on an honest error.
Originally posted in 2008.
Summertime! When you were a kid, you couldn't wait for it. If you were like me, you counted down the days before summer vacation once Memorial Day came and dreaded the final days of August when our summer came to a close. Not the official summer of the calendar, but the one that was over when the school doors opened again. Then it was time to face the sadistic, yardstick or pointer-wielding nuns again for another nine months and wait once more for June to roll around. High school came and the nuns were swapped out for priests who were not nearly as brutal with some exceptions. Then we got older and learned what some of them did to friends or classmates or even people we had a passing knowledge of and our opinions shifted. But this is a site for fine memories and good times and discussion of that will go no further.
Back in the late 60s and 70s, air-conditioning wasn't as widespread as it is today. We were fortunate to have air conditioning to cool the living room in our house, but neither ours or many of the parents of those we knew had frigid air in their bedrooms. You could forget about the kids' rooms being chilled. On the hottest of nights, my father would let us run the air downstairs to stay cool. The heatwave of this week brings back those memories. Dad and Mom slept on the couch or one of the living room chairs. My brother, sister, and I were relegated to the living room floor. Hey, it was carpeted and we spread our bedsheets across it to prevent rug burn. With more hardwood floors today, heavy blankets would be required.
If the night wasn't too hot, Dad wasn't going to spend good money running the AC through all hours. My father grew up with nine siblings in hard times, and his memories of that age caused him to be careful in his spending. My brother and I shared a room and we'd have to do with an old steel fan with openings in the guard large enough to put your hand through. Fans like that would be banned as safety hazards today. The one that we had in our room was heavy dark green steel and looked like it was a relic from some military barracks.
In those days, the daytime temps didn't seem to bother us too much, but the night was a different story when trying to sleep comfortably. Except when the extremes came, and then you couldn't seem to buy a chill. Kids don't know how good they have it today. I hardly ever hear kids say that it's too hot anymore. Maybe because there's air conditioning everywhere you go. Or maybe that's because I hardly ever see kids on the streets during the hot weather. Hey, come summertime, we were all out from morning until our parents made us come in at night. We made the most of every minute. It was our summer, and we didn't want to be in the house. It's not that we weren't in and out throughout the day, but we spent more time outside.
If you remember your mom or dad yelling, "Close the door, you're letting the cold air out!", you know what I mean. They used to worry that the "parlor" (another word that seems to have fallen from our lexicon) would get too hot if you kept the front door open for longer than five or six seconds. Most people didn't have central air conditioning at that time and our large window or in-wall units were working constantly. Now we all have air and no one thinks at much about it. Except when the unit fails and we make the mad dash in a heatwave to find a store with one in stock. That's when you really appreciate them working.
Long live the dog days of summer!
AND YOU MAY REMEMBER...
* When the weatherman used to tell you it was hot, and gave you the temperature and humidity. No "heat index", at least none that I remember. And the were all men back in the day. There were no weatherbabes, just older men like Herb Clarke at WCAU Channel 10 and Dr. Francis Davis before Jim O'Brien came along on Channel 6 when it was still WFIL-TV and they changed the call letters to WPVI. If you remember who the weatherhead was at KYW-3, you've got a good memory.
The weatherman told you about the weather once during a news broadcast, not two or three times like today.
Originally published in 2009 and updated .
Part of growing up in South Philly was that when you were bored, you ended up using your neighbors as unwilling players in a form of participation sports. It was a strange way to pass the time and it could be fun, depending on what you did. Well, maybe it was for some young people, but definitely not for some of the neighbors, especially the ones who had repeatedly given us a hard time.
Back when we grew up in the 70's, we used a certain creative flair to kill the boredom; a kind of imagination that's not found with kids today. Now just about everything's electronic, whether communications or entertainment. With us, give us something as simple as a roll of monofilament fishing line and we were happy.
In this episode, we remember a neighbor named Dave W. who was really a good guy. He was the Coca-Cola employee that I mentioned in my post about neighbors sitting out together on summer evenings. His only grievance with us was yelling about our football playing. Other than that, he was, as we often said, good people. But Dave had an unusual problem. That being that he lived almost directly across the street from our house - a home with two young, sometimes bored boys. Oh yeah, and he had one of those heavy metal door knockers that made a loud bang when you knocked at the door. Those simple things turned him into a somewhat-perfect victim.
One evening, I came upon my brother and his friend Louie hanging around. They told me they had this plan to have some fun with our good neighbor. The plan was to take a spool of fishing line, tie it to his door knocker, throw the spool over a parked car and knock on his door. My brother and I hid behind the car while Louie, being the stealthiest and fastest on his feet, ran up to the top of the step. He tied the line to the door knocker, threw the roll under the car and ran to join us. When we were in place, the fun started. "Knock, knock, knock" came with the pulling of the line, and in a few seconds, Dave was out the door looking for the phantom that he heard, but didn't see at the door. He probably shrugged his shoulders before closing the door, because; oh well, no one's there.
A few seconds later, "knock, knock, knock". Dave springs out the door, again, no one there. I can describe the situation on and on, but I think you get the picture. After a few times, Dave didn't go back to the sofa. He waited at the door; you could see his hair, forehead, and eyes peering at the top of the door out the small glass panes. After a few minutes of nothing happening, he started back for the sofa. "Knock, knock, knock"... He had only gotten a few feet away from the door. This time he's gotta find out who's doing this. Dave springs like a tiger out onto the top step, and still, no one is there.
This may be a somewhat boring story if it ended there. Since we were kids with nothing better to do, we did it again the next evening. I had my fun and let it go there. My brother and Louie had other intentions. They kept going back over and over again. They made it too much of a good thing, and this went on for over 20-some evenings. There were a couple of other times I participated, but they usually had their own fun before joining friends for the rest of the night. Sometimes we hid behind the cars, other times they ran the line across the street and into the basement window. One can only wonder if Dave's sanity suffered tremendously. After all, he never knew who was doing this or how. To make this work repeatedly, Louie had to let things quiet down for the evening before cutting the line from the knocker. If they just broke it somewhere between, Dave would most likely see it when coming home from work or returning from walking his dog.
As they say, all good (?) things must come to an end. Doing this almost nightly, they became complacent and weren't watching. So after more than three weeks, another of our neighbors came walking down the street at the same time they did their knocking. She caught her neck in the fishing line at the same time Dave came barreling out the door. He followed it across the street and caught Mark and Louie. I wasn't around that night. You could say that I caught a lucky break and didn't get grounded along with my brother because I wasn't there at the time. Then again, you could say I missed out. I didn't get to see Dave's reaction when he came storming across Chadwick street and screaming about his sanity.
When I got home that evening from a friend's home, my mom, by then furious, said, "You'll never guess what your brother and that other no-good did." I could have said, "I bet they took a roll of fishing line..." but I'm not stupid. She went on to tell me the story, totally un-amused at my laughter. She didn't know that I was in on the fun, at least at times.
Dave's long gone, passing away in the early 1980s. Hopefully. he forgave us that mental torture, but I know he couldn't have forgotten it. I remember that he walked by us without even the usual "Hey boys" for a while when we saw him. But we did eventually start talking again. Hey, I didn't forget, and we're more than four decades removed from it.
Kids today don't do these things. Maybe that's a good thing. These are different times, and a simple act like that can be met with gunfire if you mess with the wrong person. If your kids do it and get caught and are brought home by an angry neighbor, don't be too upset with them. Or with me for that matter. I'm only telling a true story. They're responsible for their actions. But if they do it and don't get shot by neighbors who are more likely to be armed with large-caliber weaponry (get the hint kids?), be glad they did something besides sit at the computer or smartphone all day or play with their Play Station, Xbox, waisting instead of killing time. They interacted with a buddy and learned how to have fun. It might be something new for you, but you'll handle it. After all, you're a parent.
AND YOU MAY REMEMBER...
* The way you would have fun tormenting the neighbors. Whether it was ringing and running or an ignited paper bag of dog poo, we all had our own way of getting some laughs.
* Something happening if you lived down this end of the block and not knowing who did it. It's true that we liked to have our fun, but we didn't do everything around here. We were accused of quite a few things and didn't do it, but because we were the only kids down this end of the block that weren't shy about it being known that we did something, we sometimes caught the blame. We knew a few guys who would really get punished - sometimes a bit too severely - if they did these things. They were really sly and didn't tip their hat to what they were up to.
Look at it this way: We remained good neighbors and friends and we turned out to be good, responsible citizens. Call it a statute of limitations. If we did you wrong, I apologize. Despite a laugh or asking "did they do that?", let's put it behind us.
* About a year or so ago, some kid rang my doorbell and ran. When I answered, another boy looked at me neorvously and said "He ran around the corner." I smiled, closed the door, and laughed. Somewhere in South Philly, there's a kid who's doing those things that we did when we were young.
Among the things that residents of South Philly like to relive are the memories of their youth. Face it, we come from a really unique neighborhood. A lot of people who live here or have moved away remember landmarks, monuments, and moments. But there is something that's often forgotten about the area: the characters that make our neighborhood somewhat different than others.
My cousin and I were talking about these characters some time ago, and he reminded me of one guy who I had forgotten about. That guy is Batman. No, not the Caped Crusader or the Dark Knight of comic book/movie/TV fame. Our Batman was the nickname of a local fruit huckster, and if he were to consider that old pick-up truck that he worked out of a Batmobile, he would have had to have had one colorful imagination. The kind that makes others want to cross the street when you walk by.
I have no idea where the name came from for this guy. I don't remember anything that would really make you think of calling him by the name of Batman. Even his hat was more like Jughead's in the Archie comics than Batman's cowl. Yet mention the name when recalling past characters around here, and a long-time neighbor may say, "Yeah! The tomato guy!"
Most folks fifty and older may remember the hucksters in the trucks with the loudspeaker who yelled out all kinds of nonsensical stuff. I remember one of them yelling out things like "Peaches... gowsie... and freshkie!", whatever that was supposed to mean. It sounded concocted to get attention. "Zuuu-cchini ... fresh cant-a-loupe! I got whatchya need!... Gowsie!" This droning went on until he made it to the end of the block and turned the corner. Then someone else had to deal with the headache that came with listening to him.
Batman was different than the others. He didn't use a loudspeaker. He didn't need to. Batman would just grab a basket off the truck and strut down the street yelling out what he was carrying for the day. "Squash!" "Peppers!" "Tomatoes!" He covered a lot of ground and had many regular customers. So many, in fact, that he would regularly run up and down the steps of the rowhomes, knowing which housewives were going to buy from him. The guys with the loudspeakers probably had to work harder. He worked with a partner who drove them around the neighborhood, but I don't think he ever left the truck. Unlike the superhero Batman, no one ever referred to his partner as Robin or "Boy Wonder". He remained nameless except for those who really knew him personally.
As likable as the guy was, Batman sometimes rubbed some of the ladies the wrong way. People just don't like to hear someone yelling constantly. They hear everything. Back in the day, it could be a minor crime with some when the ladies had the windows open in the springtime, the soap operas on the TV, and some nut was outside screaming about his romaine lettuce while they're trying to keep up with their "stories". (I know that I'm giving my age away. Like a lot of women, my mom, grandmother, and sister were glued to the soaps in the 70s and 80s. They would talk about the show characters like they were neighbors). Anyway, when you're shouting in someone's face, they don't take too kindly to it. One of the odd tales of Batman was when he bounced up the steps of a lady's house, pounding on the door with his basket of Jersey Tomatoes. She was a bit slow to answer, so he knocked again. Just as the lady answered the knocking, Batman let out his customary yell of "tomatoes!", loud enough and close enough to rupture her eardrums. Batman himself got an earful that day, the lady letting him have it for yelling in her face. Well, I did say he was a likable guy. Enough so that he kept his customers happy, even with all that yelling.
The day of the roaming huckster seems to be gone for good. Even the corner fruit stands have disappeared with the exception of a few endeavors like traveling Amish stands who set-up at a location once or twice weekly, or some neighborhoods where they have them to promote nutritious foods. You could at one time buy your produce on the street every day, down at busy corners like 10th & Oregon, 19th & Jackson, or other places where guys were set up to sell. They're all gone, scales, stands, and all. Now you have to go to the supermarket and pay more or take a trip to the Italian Market at 9th & Washington. Maybe it's because more women work today and they're not found at home as much. Maybe it's the noise statutes - wait, this isn't the suburbs, no statutes here - but I'd rather hear Batman than the crappy hip-hop music booming from cars of young wannabe gangsta types. Or maybe it's just that noise-canceling technology allows people to put on a set of headphones to tune out the world. Who knows? Probably the only yelling we'll ever hear now is what we remember in our minds. Or neighbors who want to share their business with everyone else whatever the time, like it or not.
I often say that I was blessed to have grown up in an earlier era in this particular neighborhood. If I repeat myself, just look at as an aging resident who refuses to forget the past. We'll never see some things ever again, but it was all great while it lasted.
AND YOU MAY REMEMBER...
... The Eggman: There was one man who I used to see in my grandparents' neighborhood. My grandmother was one of his customers. I can only remember him selling two things: eggs and butter. How he made a living is one of those things that will forever remain a mystery.
* Milkmen: Everyone had a milkman at one time. If my mind is functioning and memory still works well, the major dairies all had men with routes selling gallons, half-gallons, and quarts in glass bottles along with other dairy products through the 1960s. Abbott's and Sealtest were the biggest ones here.
They're a rarity now, but you may find while walking the neighborhood someone who still has a railing with a wrought iron tray for holding those bottles. And no one stole your milk back then. If you woke up late, your dairy would still be there. Try that these days.
* I doubt anyone will remember him, but the last regular huckster would come by a few times a week until about a dozen years or so ago. Maybe not a genuine huckster. He was just an older gentleman who might have been supplementing his Social Security check. He drove a station wagon with a few choice fruits and vegetables; those that everyone wanted. Plenty of corn, peaches, oranges and whatever. No kiwis, mangoes, or other fruits that were uncommon to older people. He had his regulars too, my mom and a few neighbors included. Like all the others, he suddenly stopped his route, either because of actual retirement or maybe passing away. And so ended the last huckster - alright, fruit salesman - hucksters in the traditional sense make a lot of noise - that I can remember in South Philly. Does anyone come by your home anymore with their produce?
Originally published in early 2012
