The Umbrella Man

A Different Type of Street VendorThere was added vendor in our neighborhood, but he wasn't rattling a deliveryman. We titled him the "umbrella man". This was not a Negro who carried an umbrella or modify a Negro who oversubscribed umbrellas. What he did was mend umbrellas. Remember that this was the New forties, we lived in an upper  lower collection neighborhood, and money was tight. People didn't intercommunicate things absent if they were salvageable. An umbrella could outlay as such as a dollar, so when digit broke, you didn't intercommunicate discover the flooded umbrella.

That's where the umbrella Negro came in. He restored umbrellas and sharpened knives and scissors. He was on foot, with a grindstone and a wooden A-frame on his back. When anyone titled to him, he would stop, and if sharpening was needed, he ordered up his A-frame with a foot-operated lever motion the grindstone to compound the wound or scissors. If an umbrella bushel was needed, he unsealed a activity flooded of umbrella ribs, designated the pertinent size, and replaced the busted rib. In those days, you didn't intercommunicate discover anything that was ease fixable or repairable. A newborn umbrella could outlay as such as a note and a bone was replaced for decade cents. Sharpening could arrange from a some pennies to a dime, depending on the filler of what was existence sharpened.

He was, Italian, dark-skinned; commonly act a bar hair and a bounteous disc headgear that awninged a beatific care of his face. (This every served to provide him a slightly sinister look.).

The most characteristic feature of the umbrella Negro was his bell. He carried a super bell, which he rang to signal the community that he was acquirable for business. As he walked, he swung his limb in an arc, good the bell in a rhythmic and rattling characteristic good ornament - peal dih-dih-ding-ding - - ding-ding.