THE RAGMAN: Jake, the “Ragman,” must have been quite a
character.

“Rags, paper, junk!” was the chant. “You heard him a block
away,” says Bill Ayers of Bradford who lived on Seward Avenue at
the time. Jake – who he called Ike – hauled and peddled all his
junk on an old truck.

Bill also told us a story we had heard before: The kids would
take material off one side of the truck and sell it back to the
Ragman, who either didn’t know or didn’t really care. Our previous
caller said he knew but didn’t mind and that he “got a kick out of
it.”

Meanwhile, Bill and his friend John Alexander got “very familiar
with old Ike.”

Old Ike had a barn on South Kendall Avenue where he lived. It
was heated with an old gas stove. He lived alone and all those
years, he wanted a car.

Finally, he bought a brand new four-door sedan. This Dodge, Bill
remembers, was a bright blue color. “He never drove it at all.”

Once a week, Bill and John would visit him in that barn. “We’d
take the blankets off the car, drove it a few feet, ahead and
back.” That would be it – They’d cover it back up with the blankets
until the following week.

Ike did have a son who lived near Buffalo, N.Y. And when old Ike
died, “the kid came down and took care of the funeral.” He also
took care of the car and, Bill recalls, “it was the only time I saw
it on the road.”

We also heard from Jack Gorton of Aiken: “I remember Jake the
Junkman. He would come through Gifford in the ’50s and root through
everyone’s junk piles. They called him ‘2-cent Jake.’ Junk was a
penny a pound.”

“There was also a little old guy named Harry Nesselson who would
go door to door selling suits and those knicknacks made of tree
bark. Remember the moon with the stairs and stars they hung on the
wall?

“By the way in ’57 my brother and I delivered 100 Bradford Eras
through Gifford for a ,1.25 a day.”

Finally on this subject for today, we heard from George Hanes of
Claysville, Pa., who tells us the Ragman’s real last name was
Lovitz.