Picture a back lot where kids played softball and tag football, sandwiched between two parallel alleys for their respective streets. In addition to the non-refrigerated milk truck that delivered to the back door, there were other sights that would be unusual today. One was this little elderly man with a grinding stone strapped to his back. He walked the alleys shouting "Scissor grinder." Homemakers would run out to have their scissors sharpened, He may have also sharpened kitchen knives. Poor old guy had to be 65 at least and suffered from kyphosis (humpback). Imagine making a living that way. But I tell you, he did a brisk business. Then there were horse-drawn wagons with vendors selling produce or trying to collect rags and cans. For some reason, they were called "Ayrabs" by the locals. Could stand corrected but it's my understanding that my city was unique in having this type of "commerce." There were a surprising number of stables within the city of one million people, even one near the waterfront. The horses left their calling cards in the alley, and one day BFF and I scooped up a bunch of these jewels and deposited them around mom's rose bushes. Instead of being pleased that we enriched her soil, mom pitched a fit. That's the thanks we got for trying to do a good deed. If you visit that back alley today, you see none of the above, not even kids playing on the back lot. You will see a number of hypodermic needles on that lot and a couple of years ago, a dead body in the alley.
Exactly why I live where I do very rural looking out my back window all I see is cattle and horses of ours
I grew up on a tobacco farm in south GA, so no "alleys" that I recall. A couple of memories from my 'hood would be the "chain gang" from the prison wearing black & white stripes operating road grading equipment to smooth the dirt road we lived on every few months. When they'd appear my mother would yell for me to "get in the house!!" Also an occasional traveling salesman... encyclopedias, insurance, Fuller Brush, etc. would come by. They'd sit on the front porch and get a drink from my mother, who seldom bought anything but got caught up on local gossip. I had a stable of stick horses at my disposal (tobacco sticks) and most days would be galloping around the pasture, stopping to lick the big yellow salt blocks that I shared with the cows.
I grew up in rural suburbia. In Indiana there was a 4H farm that was my backyard. Much of the time they kept livestock back there, but ranching and farming were never part of my daily life. At 9 years of age we moved to Northern Virginia outside of DC. Again, just a life in the 'burbs (although back then you could shoot rabbit in your backyard and not run afoul of the law.) It's amazing all the different lives we lead in this country. I don't recall hearing anyone's stories here of anyone growing up on a coast (a surfing/deep sea fishing/water skiing childhood.) We would vacation outside of Ocean City, MD where I would be out old-style crabbing (chicken necks+sinkers+string+net) every time the tide came in. It made for great summers, but it was just vacation and not my life. I've been to Baltimore off & on over the decades, Boris. Breaks my heart to see what's been allowed to happen there. I forget what the current vacancy rate in some of those neighborhoods is these days, but it is VERY high.