Over the hill and around the bend from our house, a grocery store opened. My mom and the next-door neighbor, (Aunt Jennie to me), took me along for its Grand Opening.
Colorful streamers flapped in the breeze overhead. In the 1950’s the Loblaws corporation raffled off a car at each new location on opening day—drawing crowds. Shiny new carts, pushed mostly by ladies wearing dresses, heels, and seamed stockings, filled the aisles.
Like a library before anyone borrows a book, the shelves are picture-perfect. I remember coming home holding a stringed balloon and free samples—my favorite, the tiniest bottle mysteriously labeled ‘Toilet Water.’
The following year we moved. Instead of less than a mile away, now the store was just four houses from home. Closed on Sundays, it made the ideal, mostly level place to ride bikes. Two-wheeling was new to me, so I did not copy the boys as they jumped the curbs from the sidewalk. I did dare to pedal along the sidewalk and coast down the slope put there for shopping carts. The concept of ramps to accommodate those with mobility issues would come decades later. Between the back of the building and a hillside was an alleyway for deliveries. It called to the boys; unappealing to my friend Anne Beth and me.
I tagged along when my mother did her weekly shopping. My behavior was often rewarded with a new Wonder Book (with Washable Cover)—sold for thirty-nine cents. Picking one out from the wire rotating book stand was better than a candy bar any day! We received one free volume of the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia with our purchase each week. Later, if our grocery receipts reached a certain threshold, we could purchase a volume of Compton’s encyclopedias for ninety-nine cents. I remember having the complete set of Funk & Wagnalls but only volumes A through G of Compton’s! Customers were rewarded ‘Lucky Green Stamps’ from shopping there and it was my job to glue ours into the Premium Merchandise Catalog. Like school fundraisers, you needed a gazillion to get a decent ‘premium.’
From age seven on, I walked to the store multiple times each week. If I could not read one of the words on my mother’s list, I took it to the office and the manager told me what and where the item was. Once while reaching for a bottle of ginger ale, it slipped, and glass and liquid fizzed on the marble floor. At the far end of the aisle, another shopper saw the accident, turned her buggy, and detoured. I panicked and left the store. I was afraid to tell my parents. When my brother came home from work, I confessed. He took a quarter from his pocket, and told me to walk back to the store, and knock on the office door.
“Tell them what happened and that you want to pay for it.”
Armed with his quarter, I did as he suggested and the manager responded with, “It is all right Honey. You do not have to pay. We already cleaned everything up; don’t worry about it.”
My brother let me keep the quarter.
My mom was, by necessity, a bargain shopper. She scoured the weekly grocery ad and made her plan. Excited to read that grapefruits were on sale for three cents each, I got my marching orders.
“How many should I buy? “
Get all they have!”
And so, I pulled the cart next to the produce counter and began loading grapefruit. One by one—except for a couple of bad specimens and those I could not reach, I put grapefruit into the cart. One by one I moved them onto the checkout counter. Scanning barcodes would not begin for another dozen years or more, so the cashier typed in ‘three cents’ probably seventy-five times. She just could not get over that I was buying so many, and I explained my mom’s instructions. I placed each back into the cart and paid. I pushed the mounded load down the street, into my driveway, and up the sidewalk. I announced I was back, and that the grapefruits were not in bags so come to the porch. My mother was stunned! My dad gently reminded her: “You told her to ‘get all they have and she did!” Every morning we had grapefruit at breakfast—for quite a while!
Most everyone on my street wheeled their groceries home and returned the shopping cart in a day or so. If we saw one by someone’s door, we pushed it back on our way to the store. We kids thought it was fun to corral abandoned carts from all corners of the parking lot and force them back into a row. We did not get them all. One buggy rolled off the property over the hill and lodged in the creek.
Once when my mother was breading and frying pork chops bought at Loblaws, she detected an odd smell. Mom convinced herself that the meat was spoiled. She packed the chops into a washed-out milk carton and had me take them back. I stretched to ring the service bell for the butcher and told him why my mother wanted a refund.
“Ok,” he said, “you finish shopping and I’ll check the meat.” When I rang the bell again, the butcher came through the swinging door wiping his hands on his apron saying “I will write a slip for you to get her money back at the register, but you tell your mother those pork chops were delicious! That was my supper tonight!”
For my sixth-grade project on Brazil, I went into our store and snagged a couple of stray coffee beans from the base of the coffee grinder. It felt a bit like stealing but glued onto the cover page gave my big report that little extra!
I shopped in that store for almost 40 years. I knew the employees and saw the younger neighbor boys whom I had babysat advance from baggers to stock boys to cashiers to managers. Somewhere along the years, Loblaws became Foodland. We thought that was the dumbest name; yet pleased we still had the full-size grocery store close by. Decades later, I sent my own child on missions there when we stayed with my parents in their last months. Like all eras, it came to an end—replaced by a pet supply store. ‘Gone to the dogs’ one might say—except in my memory.
Lilly Kauffman is a non-fiction writer who was privileged to work as both librarian and a teacher. Her essays, whether serious or humorous, capture the experiences that allow us to laugh and grieve. Family and faith inform her writings. She is currently working on several book projects: A Mother Grieves in Ink, Ampersand, and Lil Letters.