Come on in with me: A PLACE IN MY MEMORY

At the other end of our block from Weltner’s Drugs was a wonderland filled with tastes and smells strong enough to make a little girl almost glad to go to the store for Mama. Our grocery, first called Crooks, later the A & P, had a small sloped tiled entrance - perfect for skating down after the store closed. Around its corner was a vestibule-exactly right for hiding in when Buster was ‘It’. Inside, the odor was fresh and strong as customers put their red and yellow paper bags under the grinder’s spout as the beans clanked and banged and miraculously came out Eight O’ Clock Coffee. It was so much fun just watching. Sometimes ladies let me flick the switch to start that fabulous machine and I could feel the tingle of electricity as it gently tickled my fingers.

 

The screen door, ripped near the handle, slammed loudly as customers went in and out, music to Mr. Crooks ears. My eyes always widened and my mouth watered when I walked past the slanted cases holding big, thick, round cookies, thinly topped with dark yummy chocolate. Daddy loved them, too. Once in a while we’d have a treat and get a few in a brown paper bag to have with milk or hot tea. There were also lemon and sugar cookies with a hole in the middle. I ate those in circles, trying hard to keep the roundness even.  If the cookie broke, it wasn’t fair. I’d have to have another to try it again. There was a shelf of
boxed animal crackers, wafers filled with gummy marshmallows, fig newtons, and other cavity makers. I ate and loved them all.

 

The counter was so high I had to stand on my toes to pay the white-aproned man. When he was too busy, or didn’t see me, I didn’t care.

 

Alongside the counter burlap bags bulged with barley, rice, dried beans, split green peas. Each bag had its own silvery scoop. Digging in, watching the mounds rise and fall was a game to me, better than (and lots cleaner than ) sand. The crunch of the scoop as it plunged was a lovely sound.

 

On the shelves, Domino sugar and Gold Medal flour leaned against jars of chow-chow, pickles and rotten Ritter ketchup. (Mama said only Heinz was good–really thick.) Argo Starch, bottles of bluing, Fels Naptha, Octagon,  Lux and tall, blue boxes of Ivory Flakes (99 1/100% pure) were stacked on the other side of the store.

 

In the rear, the butcher shop consisted of a chopping block, a few meat hooks and a small wooden refrigerated walk-in case. It didn’t smell very good back there. Mama never bought meat in that store. She only used the two kosher shops near by. Merely thinking of all those pigs feet made me shudder.

 

Against the always locked side door were all the things any schvatze could need–scrub brushes, wash boards, wet and dry mops and thick brooms, their skirts tied with red and green twine. The two or three white fly-specked light globes had pull chains, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never jump high enough to reach them. I knew it but kept on trying (I was growing, wasn’t I?) I ground the coffee, played with the beans and Daddy had a longing for cookies.   

IT WAS ALMOST AS GOOD AS MY BIRTHDAY!