Tag #129108 - Interview #78031 (Arnold Leinweber)

Since we lived in the Aparatorii Patriei quarter, we would go to the Berceni Dr., which was full of caravans of carts loaded with vegetable and fruit. Of course, we, the kids, followed them and cried: ‘Won’t you give us a tomato or a pepper? May your horses live long! Won’t you give us a water melon, Mister? May your horses live long! May you have a good sale at the marketplace!’ The people were good-hearted and they gave us peppers, eggplants, tomatoes and water melons. We would eat the tomatoes and the water melons on the spot, in the ditch by the side of road. The drive was on higher ground, and there were bushes on the edge of the ditch. Everyone put down his ‘harvest’, and we didn’t go home for lunch anymore. The first time I came back home with fruit and vegetable in my shirt, my mother was scared and astonished: ‘What happened to you?’ She was preparing to beat me. ‘How could you beg?’ - ‘Well, all the other kids did it, so I did it myself!’ This was part of the fun too.