Ah, those good old days, running around town, getting out of my mother’s hair until I heard the cow bell ring. My father thought that was hilarious, that cow bell. We lived on the edge of town, still very much in town, and there were no cows, but having his wife call his five kids home with a cow bell suited his sense of humor nicely. What did I know? I thought all kids went home when their mothers rang cow bells.
My childhood neighborhood was dotted with small stores; we didn’t have to go farther than a block or two to buy anything we might need.
If my mother needed cigarettes, one of us would be dispatched to Bootsies, a tiny store that sold mostly cigarettes, beer and candy, just a stone’s throw from my home at that time. I’d go through Suzie Cook’s back yard which was adjacent to mine, cross Stevens Street, and buy a pack. I was very young when we lived in that house, no more than seven, but old enough to be entrusted with money, and able to cross the street all by myself. By the time we moved from that house to another very nearby, I’d been walking, alone, to school a half mile away, for two years. A big girl!
Even closer to my home, and just across the street from Bootsies, a resident had a sundries shop that he operated out of his garage. I can only remember getting candy from that one. Beeman’s gum. I still like that gum on those rare occasions that I find a pack.
If I needed a present for a birthday party, I had to walk one long and one short westward block to a larger store on the corner of Pearl and Brooklyn streets, where there was a small variety store. When I was about ten, my mother sent me for a present for one of my brothers’ friends. I can still see her face when I returned with a stuffed animal, a toy for a much younger boy. She was not happy she’d have to go get that present herself.
If anyone had a hankering for the best cinnamon rolls ever, it was off to Frederick’s for me, the same long plus one eastward short block away. There, we could also buy milk, bread, cheese, paper, small toys and the like. This was the biggest store on our side of the railroad tracks.
Despite all these wonderful stores very near my home, I did have a favorite. Just down the street from my second home in town was a butcher, Mueller’s. The owner was the grandfather of a good friend of mine and his shop was just behind her house, so I spent a lot of time in there. Patty’s grandfather and his assistant were jovial sorts, always welcoming, kind, and generous with bits of candy they’d take out of large candy jars on the counter. At Christmas time those jars would be full of ribbon candies, peanut clusters, mints and other candies that my own uncle Steve had made just one block away. I remember that the front of the store, east facing, was quite dark, but that the back of the store behind the counter and where the meat was cut, weighed, packaged and stored, was very bright. Perhaps this was because of the welcoming greeting we kids always received when we walked in.
I’ve moved back to my hometown, to the very house my uncle made all those candies that my friend the butcher sold at Christmas. We have very little trouble in this town, but beware should you cross the law in some way! Your name and address will appear in the local newspaper, along with your offense. Alas, drugs are here. These small communities take whatever money they can get from government agencies, and allowing rehab and group homes comes with a lot of money. Drugs follow. We have homeless people, meth labs, drug runners and all that now, but still very little crime, possibly because in this hillbilly town, nearly everyone is well-armed.
All the small stores are gone though, lost to Kmarts and regulations. Where the butcher once did a very brisk business, there remains only a foundation of the building. Bootsies still looks the same from the outside, without the store visible through the oversized front window. Fredericks is a laundry mat. The variety store is a storage building. There is one small store that is stilI in semi-operation – one vending machine on the porch noisily dispenses sodas.
I walk by the locations of these stores I once knew so well, and reminisce on those good old days, living in a town that seemed idyllic to me then, and still does today. I’m happy I returned.
Maybe I’ll open a little store in my garage.
This is my participation in the first week of the year-long initiative Memoir Monday hosted by @ericvancewalton.
I'm out of town until Tuesday, and so I have no pictures of these establishments, now or then. I'll edit this post with pictures of all these places as they are now when I get home. Gotta have shots for the memoir!
The image is of me and my younger sister sitting on the front steps of the house we lived in when buying cigarettes at Bootsies was on my daily to-do list. I'm sure I put on shoes before I took the 200 foot trek, but I wasn't much older than I am in this shot. Things sure were different back then!