This is an old school practice that you really just don't see much anymore. A guy in his truck driving around the neighborhood ringing a bell for people to bring out their shears, knives, mower blades, and anything else they need sharpened. He lives in Staten Island and drives around all day. In my neighborhood you see 75 year old Italian women run outside with their knives wearing nothing but slippers and a nightgown. They then haggle in Italian over the prices (which are a bit steep..here he charged me $30 for 3 knives but then again I don't know how much it costs to have knives sharpened. I've read that it's important to have your knives very sharp and that more accidents occur because of dull blades rather than knives that are too sharp. He was hesitant to have me take his photos so I tried to not get up in his face.. this guy has probably been doing this his entire life, it's a dying profession I assume. Nice guy. I sneezed and he asked if I had allergies. I said that in fact I did. He told me to eat a piece of chopped garlic before I went to bed every night and then eat some Italian parsley so my girlfriend wouldn't be offended. I told him my girlfriend doesn't live with me so he said, "Well skip the parsley then!"

This was one of my discoveries at the Vestry House Museum in Wathamstow, London E.17. This is a Wadley Dairy milk barrow which dates from around 1900 to 1910. Hand barrows were once a rich part of the London street scene and were used for everything from knife grinding to food sales. I can still remember a portable knife grinder coming around the streets of Chadwell Heath [Essex/East London] in the 1960s. The guy knocked from door-to-door offering to sharpen kitchen knives, chisels, scissors or garden shears.