Guard cum Babysitter

Baila has a great "only in Israel" type post here. It brings back memories, which I posted to her as a comment:

Great post. You covered a lot of issues.
In the "old days," the guards here would walk around the neighborhoods doubling as babysitters, since there were few kids old enough to work in the profession. My eldest had almost a monopoly at one point.
Well, if there was a yishuv party, the guards would check on crying babies, too.

Those were the days...