"All kinds of self-employed tradesmen and vendors were around all the time, creating a ruckus and yelling in the back yards
and alleys. Tattered fellows with burlap sacks came along to enter into lively deals with those who sold their worn-out
clothing or newspapers for a potential 15 cents… Scissors-sharpeners came along pedaling carts with a clanging bell and a
whirling sandstone wheel on which to sharpen knives right there on the street."
For kids, amusement was a do-it-yourself proposition in those decades before TV and video games. The subject is treated with
respect in the foreword to Gauer's "The History, Vol. One: Growing Up the Hard Way in the 1930s" (Precision
Process/Urge Press, 277 pp., $19.95).
