Hook

When I was 5-6 yrs old, I used to follow service vehicles with my dog. One day I was following a mail truck when the driver asked me where I lived. So I walked home & he followed. When we got there he rang the doorbell and told my mom that he noticed I was following him and he was about about to cross a busy street and was worried I would try to cross as well.

Our favorite vehicle was the street cleaning truck, as it made a lot of noise and my dog would go crazy barking at the twirling brushes.

exactly like these brushes:

 

Edited January 23, 20251 yr by Mike A
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2 hours ago, Mike A said:

Our favorite vehicle was the street cleaning truck

I haven't seen a street sweeper in decades! I used to see them all the time. It's the three wheel version with the round nose.

I can't find a good picture, but if you google "Elgin Street King" you can find plenty of pics of the ones I saw.

Hook

Edited January 23, 20251 yr by LHookins

I remember an episode of “The Real McCoys” where Grandpa Amos snuck into an Air Force base to complain about the noise their jets were making.  He hitched a ride on base on one of those “tricycle” street cleaners if I remember correctly.

Good dogs/animals and humans!! Thanks!

12 hours ago, LHookins said:

I can't find a good picture, but if you google "Elgin Street King" you can find plenty of pics of the ones I saw.

Like this one?

30 minutes ago, n4gix said:

Like this one?

By the looks of it, that's the current version, the Elgin Pelican. The view from the back doesn't show the rounded front. But yeah, that's it.

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Edited January 23, 20251 yr by LHookins

9 hours ago, LHookins said:

I haven't seen a street sweeper in decades!

Mentioning street sweepers brought back memories.  When I was a kid, the street sweeper would come on Fridays between 9:00 and 10:00 AM.  We had a hedge between our lawn and the sidewalk that had small leaves, so it was my chore to sweep the sidewalk to remove any fallen leaves and whatever dirt was on the sidewalk into the gutter.  I only saw the street sweeper during summer vacation, as I would normally be in school at that time of day.

My mother, on the other hand, would watch the street sweeper every single time.  She would look out the window that was over the garage door and driveway.  She was originally from Germany; I kind of guess for her it was a ritual to observe that everything was in order and the street was properly swept, like watching a parade go by. 🤷‍♂️ There were some days were I started sweeping a little late and could hear the sweeper coming and hurried to finish. When that happened, as soon as I finished, I would run to the driveway and stand at attention, with my broom held at my left side.  When the sweeper was about 10 feet away I would do one of those British palm forwards salutes and stare straight ahead, never making eye contact with the driver. I'm sure the driver thought we were nuts.

One day when I was in my teens and was sweeping the sidewalk, my mom was sweeping some dirt from the yard onto the driveway. She wanted me to sweep it into the street. I thought I would have a little fun by challenging her on this, see how far into the weeds I could discuss it.  I said that her dirt was our private dirt, that I couldn't mix it with the public dirt I was sweeping.  The street sweeper was a city service to clean the public streets and dirt from the public sidewalks. I finally allowed her to put some of our private dirt, but not too much, for me to sweep into the public dirt.  But only this one time 🤣.

A preface to introduce the next bit. I would have to say my all-time favorite TV show is Candid Camera, especially the episodes from the early to mid 1960s.  My fantasy dream job had always been to come up with stunts for that show.  So, one day I went with my mother to the local supermarket for groceries.  We're at the dairy department when this guy comes by, sees my mom and says, "YOU'RE THE LADY THAT ALWAYS WATCHES ME WHEN I DRIVE THE STREET SWEEPER BY YOUR HOUSE!  SO WHAT DO YOU THINK, AM I DOING A GOOD JOB?"  It was hilarious!  He was obviously joking about it, but it kind of put my mom on her back foot, she was a bit flustered. I thought "Good! You had this coming for all the times you watched him 🤣😂".  But then she unintentionally turned the tables on him.  Here was the street sweeper, the "authority figure" to go to about the question she had, as the German stereotype respects authority.  She asked "Is it okay if vunce in a vile I put some of zeh private dirt in vit zeh public dirt?" The guy's smile disappeared and was replaced with a dear-in-the-headlights look.  Not only did it put him on his back foot, but it threw me for a loop because what I started unintentionally ended up being a successful Candid Camera-type gag.  My mom transformed into a Wally Cox/Woody Allen-type character from that show, a person sincerely asking a question that was totally ridiculous! The guy finally snapped out of it, looked at me and asked "What is she talking about?"  I had to bite my lip, because if I started to speak I would have burst out laughing, so I just shrugged my shoulders.  Then he walked away and shook his head.

 

That poor dog's teeth!  Seriously needs cleaning.