he column I wrote two weeks ago regarding door-to-door sales including insurance at very small rates and the Fuller Brush man, brought forth a number of comments from readers which I always appreciate and I would even say that, by-and-large, I enjoy.

Several readers mentioned the Kirby Vacuum salesman. Kirby is indeed still in the business and continues its sales through door-to-door demonstrations rather than from on-line and store front locations. I checked to see if there were Kirby distributors in our area by entering the 56258 zip code into a locator on my computer.

Sorry, Marshallites, the answer back from the Kirby website was: “We regret there are no authorized Kirby Distributors in your area.” Of course I could have done some more clicking to find how I might get to a distributor, but I’m not really in the market for a vacuum cleaner at this time.

I do remember, however, the Kirby man coming to our house with all of the equipment attachments and the basic machine. As I recall, part of the demonstration was that my mother ran our vacuum over an area as well as using an attachment for our vacuum to clean the sofa pillows.

After doing that, the Kirby man used the Kirby vacuum over the same area and then showed how much more dirt that his machine picked up. I was young enough to wonder why we did not immediately buy a Kirby.

As I recall, the response from my mother was essentially: “too expensive.” The in-home sales distribution model has been criticized sometimes for high-pressure sales techniques.

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The Kirby business was named after James Kirby who designed a vacuum, but the first manufacturing of that vacuum was by the Scott Fitzer Company and based in Cleveland, Ohio, which, because of its location, I suspect caused there to be more Kirby sales people per household in Ohio than one would find in Minnesota.

However, the company did become national and international with offices in some 50 countries with one-third of its sales coming from outside the U.S. The Kirby vacuum has essentially gone through three distinct models of its machines.

The first generation was from 1935 to 1969, the second generation 1970-1989 boosted sales to new prominence and its third generation is from 1990 to the present. In 1986 Kirby and Scott Fitzer Company were bought by Birkshire Hathaway under leadership of Warren Buffett. Marshall folks may recognize hearing about Birkshire Hathaway because Edina Realty is a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate.

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Feedback on that column from two weeks ago came from afar. Across the street from us when I was in the second grade, was a girl, Alicia, that I “had to” walk to school where she was just in kindergarten. School was about five blocks from us. We continued in that same neighborhood through high school.

My date and I and a boy friend of mine (now living in ND) and Alicia double-dated to my senior prom. So our friendship is one of about 75 years even though in between I have lived in five other states and she also has moved around, now living in Florida.

Alicia’s memory is better than mine because when she read about the insurance man; she even knew his name. She then proceeded to tell me, via email, about two other door-to-door type sales people who came fairly regularly through our neighborhood during WWII and shortly thereafter. I had mentioned these sales pitches to her, but she supplied more details.

One of those sales persons was a man with a small pony who plied the street offering to take a picture of any kids who wanted to sit on the pony if the parents would be willing to buy the picture. The detail she had was that another neighborhood boy about our age had his picture taken on that pony and she still has a copy of that. Sadly that boy, who had remained and worked in Dayton, died just this past year.

The other sales person was the produce man who came down the street every week or so with fresh produce from his garden. The housewives would come down to his flatbed truck to make purchases and then to visit a bit – a regular social event. Alicia supplied the farmer’s name. Very memorable: Biggie Longo. The reason this had been remembered is that he had a daughter named Twinkle because she was born on Christmas Eve. The daughter was the same age as Alicia and they met again when they both became teachers. Biggie had eventually opened a restaurant called Twinkle Inn.

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Though there were other door-to-door sales people over those early years, I remember one more that fascinated me: The knife sharpener.

The grinding stone, a round stone of approximately 18 inches in diameter was mounted vertically on an axle and was turned so that the flat edge of about an inch and a half could be used as the sharpener. It was mounted so that it looked much like a tricycle with the operator seated using a treadle with his feet to spin the wheel.

That knife sharpener was so much faster than me sharpening my fish fillet knife years later using a whetstone.

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!