A few months ago I wrote about vendors who drove, biked or walked though residential communities selling milk, ice cream, pastries, meat, vegetables, fish, manapua, tofu, ice, brooms, etc.
This type of thing made sense before modern supermarkets, in the days when few housewives worked and few families had more than one car.
Vendors saw a street as a “target-rich environment” filled with moms with coin purses in need of a few things to make dinner that night.
Many readers of my column were kids back then with good hearing. They could hear the distinctive music, honk, ting ting, toot toot or sounds of the various vendors and alert mom, “The yasai man is here!”
Yasai man
Sandy Char said: “As a little kid spending after-school hours and summers at my Japanese grandma’s house, the ‘yasai man’ would come. ‘Yasai’ means ‘vegetable’ in Japanese. I’m not sure what the other ethnic people called him.
“He’d park his truck in front of her house and toot his horn. She and neighbors who heard the horn would come with their little coin purses to buy fresh fruit, vegetables and meat.
“My grandma usually bought meat as she had a backyard garden filled with lots of vegetables. This, in addition to a chicken coop for fresh eggs and the occasional fresh chicken.
“When we kids would hear the horn, we’d run out, hoping grandma would also buy us some candy!
“My dad was a milkman, as they were called in those days. He worked for Dairymen’s and would get up and go to work at 2 a.m. He’d be done working by noon and pick me up from elementary school.
“In the olden days no one locked their doors. So homes whose owners were away at work would leave specific instructions for the milkman to enter and place their orders in their iceboxes, as they were called then.
“Here are a few notable stories I remember Dad telling my mom. One was of a milkman who loved turkey rumps and helped himself to one in someone’s icebox. They called Dairymen’s to complain and the guy got reprimanded. He said he just couldn’t resist it.
“Another was of a milkman who kept getting salacious invitations from a housewife whose husband was away at work. He had to keep telling her, ‘No thanks.’
“I didn’t understand what this meant until I was older. There were also complaints of them tracking dirt from muddied shoes during the rainy season. But if they stopped to take off their boots at every home, they’d never finish their routes in time!”
Sakana-ya man
An anonymous reader said: “There was also a ‘sakana-ya-san,’ which was a fish vendor. His truck was blue and squarish. The back of it was an icebox, which held a bounty of assorted fresh fish and seafood.
“He also had a selection of cold cuts, which included whole slabs of bologna, luncheon meat, chopped ham and pimento/olive loaf.
“He served a large area extending mauka to makai, from Bingham to Lime streets, and Diamond Head to Ewa, from Isenberg to Washington Middle School.
“He had a balance scale and pink butcher paper to wrap purchases in. Just seeing my mom walk back to the house carrying those pink-wrapped bundles would start me hungering for either fried cold cuts with eggs or sandwiches made with Love’s bread and lots of Best Foods mayonnaise.”
Clorox
Clyde Matsui remembers that in his neighborhood “there was a Clorox man, who drove a flatbed truck. Riding alongside bottles of the bleach was a young boy. In a strong, clear voice, he would shout, ‘Clo-ROX,’ with a melodic upward lilt on the second syllable.
“No wonder it was melodic, because the young man was then known as Lance Curtis, who at a later age often appeared in Tom Moffat’s ‘Show of Stars.’
“When his singing career took off, he became a headliner and a bona fide Waikiki showroom entertainer, as well as a recording artist — then known as Dick Jensen (his real name)!
“We had a manapua man in the McCully/Moiliili area. His cry was a distinctive drawing card of, ‘Ma-na- pu-aaaaa!’”
One group came through the neighborhood to pick up, rather than deliver. Families would leave scraps of food in cans for pig farmers.
“The pig farm slop collectors often had to walk between houses to reach the cans. To not startle sleepy residents in the early morning hours, they would intone, in a moderated and calm voice, ‘Buta kaukau man,’ which translates to ‘pig food man.’
“There was also a Hadley’s Bakery truck, which made its rounds in the evening, probably choosing that time to attract people wanting an after-dinner dessert treat. They made killer glazed and stick doughnuts.”
Distinctive sound
Ted Takai remembered that each vendor in his neighborhood had a distinctive sound. “We lived on Hayden Street in Kapahulu. Vendors had their own way to let residents know they were there.
“‘Toot-toot’ was the grocery man’s truck. Housewives ran out with their coin purse to buy meat, vegetables and canned goods to prepare dinner.
“‘Honk’ was Mr. Yoshida, the bread man. The back of his truck had drawers filled with pies and Love’s bread.
“The manapua man was a small man with a hat, literally running up and down each street: Duval, Esther, Francis, George and Hayden. ‘Mana puaaaaaaa! Pepiaaaaau!’
“‘Cloraaax!’ I would hear his voice from our back window as he traveled from Monsarrat Avenue to Trousseau Street. I can still hear his voice — ‘Clo-orraaax!’
“‘Ting ting’ of a bell with circus music was the Rico Ice Cream man on a three-wheeler.
“Milk man, Mr. Naito from Dairymen’s, entered our home’s unlocked door, rinsed/wiped/ refrigerated the milk, took the empties on the kitchen sink and left samples of any new product.
“Our weekly pickup/ drop-off dry cleaner was Davenroy.
“We had a covered gallon can for food waste in the kitchen, and it was my job to empty it into the covered Wesson oil can hanging back of the garage for the slop man to pick up once a week. Yuck!
“Last, the rag man came and bought all worn-out clothes to make into mops.”
Guess the weight
Gene Kaneshiro said: “I grew up in the Liliha area in the mid-1950s. Bates Street and Liliha Street to be exact, and we had a yasai man stop on Hanalima Place.
“He would honk his horn and open his truck sides, and the neighborhood housewives would buy vegetables and meat and stuff, and us kids would beg our moms to buy us candy.
“But my story about the yasai man goes back to the 1950s, when I used to hang around with my classmate whose parents owned a wholesale vegetable store, one of many that lined River Street between Beretania and Kukui streets (where the Chinatown Cultural Plaza is today), just around the corner from the original Columbia Inn” (which his family owned).
“The yasai man trucks would back up at their chosen wholesaler and buy their vegetable products and socialize with the other yasai men and vegetable wholesalers before going on to their regular routes.
“The one interesting thing I remember is seeing a group of yasai men and wholesalers gathered and staring at a large floor scale that had an assortment of vegetables, a slipper, a hammer and other things. They would place bets as to the total weight on the scale platform.
“At a certain time the scale lever would be turned to reveal the weight, and the winner would claim the prize, and the yasai men would go on to their routes.
“The yasai men were proud of their skill (and maybe made a personal game) of guessing the weight of vegetables because they sold their products by the pound using a hanging scale on their truck.”
Pastries
Jo Ann Inoue-Lee grew up in Aiea in the 1950s. “I recall a red panel truck selling fresh pastries would pull up in our neighborhood.
“As soon as the doors of the truck opened, the aroma of pastries was unforgettable. I remember the vendor always wore a straw hat and had a distinctive mole on his face. When he opened the back doors, it displayed drawers full of different pastries.
“Where have those good ole days gone?” she asks. Into our rearview mirrors …
If you remember playing with those milk bottle caps, tell me about your experience. I’ll write a future column on POGs.
———
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Email your questions, comments or suggestions to him at Sigall@Yahoo.com. Sign up for the Rearview Mirror Insider, his twice-weekly free email newsletter that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. Join and be an Insider at RearviewMirrorInsider.com. Mahalo!
