we had all kind of vendors come to our door. There was the garbage collector who I have already written about a few years ago.
There was the kerosene delivery man who pushed a cart with cans full of kerosene, later he upgraded to a Vespa tricycle delivery vehicle. He would pour the kerosene through a huge funnel into our cans which my dad had placed at the front door for him. He would come by on a weekly basis during the winter months, I think. Every room in our house had one oven that heated with kerosene.
There was also the potato/onion grocer, who delivered his goods by donkey. We bought a lot of potatoes and I am sure we were one of his better customers. He weighed the goods on a hanging balance scale. As weights he used rocks. My parents would buy maybe 10 kilo potatoes and that is the exact amount that he would give them. My dad re-checked the weight once to see if he got it right with the rocks he was using. I guess his scale was well calibrated.
Once the donkey was restless while waiting for the business transaction to finish. He stepped backwards a few steps, and one of his hooves landed right on top of my dad's foot. Being a stubborn donkey, he would not budge. The vendor was pulling and pushing, trying his best to get the animal to move forward again, but the donkey would not oblige. After a few moments and probably the use of the whip, my dad finally got his foot free. He had a big swollen toe for days.
We thought it was really funny, he not so much.
I found this print on Amazon, which resembles the way the vendors would stop by at our door.
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| Print for sale on Amazon |
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