Every old picture has an interesting background.
It attracts the attention of the old-timer and newcomer as well. In a series of old scenes of San Antonio that have appeared in The Express from time to time, the old settler's memory has gone back to the days when he was a barefoot boy making the rounds of the business district between school hours, looking for a job for the summer vacation days or collecting business cards from the various firms along the streets. Collecting business cards was quite a diversion among the school boys of those days, as popular as stamp collections are today, and as ardently pursued, and stamp collections were then also in vogue, as were collections of empty cigar boxes or cardboard boxes, which were used as receptacles for the business cards in the absence of a scrap book or album. Every firm carried a variety of business cards illustrated with pictures in colors and gladly supplied the boys with these when they called. When the boys were not collecting business cards they would be fishing along the old river or playing baseball, tops or marbles on the streets.