JUNK MAN: Bill “Gus” Gocella writes us from Crossville, Tenn.:
“I remember growing up during the WW II and after and there was a
‘junk man.’ His name as I recall was ‘Mr. Shine’ and he not only
took scrap but newsprint, rags, corrugated boxes, bottles and even
shoes. I made a lot of pennies, nickels and dimes off of Mr. Shine
and he was quite the business and gentleman.”

“… I would cruise on my 24” Schwinn Bike (girls – we shared)
with twin baskets over the back wheel and pick up anything
marketable. I would put a clothespin and playing card on my spokes
to let everyone know I was coming.

“My grandfather Mike Viola owned Viola’s Restaurant which, by
the way, is the oldest proprietorship in Pennsylvania, and he would
pay me two cents a bottle for returnable beer bottles and a penny
for Coca- Cola bottles. We lived on Brennan Street, with the
‘Viola/Gocella familias’ and it was a win-win thing for me.

“I rode the B&O Railroad tracks south to the Tie and
Creosote Plant and north to Hilton Street picking up railroad
spikes and rail hold-down fasteners or any other scrap someone
might toss out. Most everything was recylable before it was
politicized and boys like me made good money on scrap since the war
was going on and the manufacturers needed scrap.

“Mr. Rickenback and Mr. Shine both paid 1-3 cents a pound for
‘good scrap’ which were rail materials and tin which I would ‘find’
around old ‘power houses’ that were abandoned. It may have been
illegal to pick up spikes and stuff on the RR areas.

“The RRs were big business and detectives were all over the
place but I never was challenged … rode fast on my speedy Schwinn.
What’s strange was the junk men would say … ‘now, you didn’t find
this junk on the RR did you, ‘Sonny?’ If I said yes they wouldn’t
give me as much for my scrap so I didn’t respond.

“You learned to ask a question in response to one and it never
was counted as a ‘lie.’ Fun time growing up and we didn’t even know
we were poor … we thought we were just blessed with the opportunity
to learn to be a sales entrepreneur and make money for spending and
contributing to the ‘New Deal.'”