I have criss-cross curtains, which are hanging in my office windows in the front of the house, that my mom paid a little each week for from one of these door-to-door companies, back in the 60s. They had good, long lasting stuff! Yes, sad to see them go. Same with the hucksters (sp?). Hugs! Lynn Mary wrote: > WE had Jewel T door-to-door until about five or six years ago - whenever > it > was that they finally went bankrupt. I really > miss having the salesman, who became a friend, coming around every two > weeks. I got to know him when I was going > through my divorce and lived with my aunt 21 years ago; and my aunt had > done > business with him for a long, long time. > Sadly, Jewel T followed the road that many others have followed. I miss > the > 'mom and pop' stores.

Talking about delivery men brings back fond memories. After Grandpa Brandon died nobody in the family had milk cows, so mom started buying milk. The milk man would deliver the milk to the back door, and during the winter we had to be quick to bring it in the house so it didn't freeze to the porch floor. If it froze the bottom would break out of the glass bottles. The Fuller Brush Man also came around from time-to-time and mom would buy stuff from him. My parents had State Farm Insurance on the car and the house. When a payment was due the agent would come to the house to collect the money. The life insurance agent also came once a month to collect his money. When my Uncle Teddy (Theodore) died my Aunt Toots (Delphia) started selling Avon products door-to-door. She made a modest living doing that. My wife has sold Avon products for a little over 23 years, but she makes very little money at it. Mom baked all our bread, but if she didn't, the bread man would deliver bread to the house. We had a little country store about a half mile from the house. If mom needed something and dad was at work (we only had one car in those days), the owner of the store would bring it to the house and would put it on mom's bill if she didn't have the cash on hand to pay for it. The day after payday she would always go to the store or send me to pay her bill. We had an old ice box, but we did not use it for food as we had a "fridge". If we used the ice box, the ice man would bring a block of ice when we needed it. We would see his truck often go by the house. Mom used the ice box for storing her lye soap that she made every time we butchered our pigs. There are many other fond memories, but I don't want to turn this e-mail into a book. It does seem, though, that life was much simpler then, but we sure did a lot of hard work compared to today. Don in AZ