Once there were corner stores....mom and pop owned a small cape and turned it into a variety store and usually lived in the apartment out back.....the store was in the neighborhood and the owner knew what his customers wanted....he took care of the kiddies with packs of baseball cards and coca cola in bottles along with Hostess cupcakes and pies and potato chips....he had bread and milk and cigarettes and a tiny inventory of dry goods ...maybe he carried cold cuts and a ground a bit of hamburger each day for the customers. Since there were at least 3 or 4 of these corner stores, at least one of them could put up a roast beef or some chops and offered some vegetables and fruits. In my case, the stores were usually owned by Italians and they catered to our ethnic desires and ran a tab for the regulars...Penny candy and the Leominster Enterprise, Popsicle and drum sticks. The kids did most of the shopping. Mom would make a note with a list of things she needed and the grocer filled the bag and computed the cost on the outside of a paper bag with a pencil....we had a chicken farm for fresh poultry (they killed the bird on site) and fresh dairy. Most of us had a bread man and a milk man and a garden with enough veggies to last all year long if someone knew how to can or jar them. Enterprising little kids would steal chickens from the farm and sell them to the highest bidder. Live chickens were in demand in the 60s, the old timers would take em out back and cut the head off, soak the body and remove the feathers and make three or four meals out of he unfortunate. A walk up the hill brought 3 or 4 more corner stores on French Hill...if you were brave enough for Poutines(sp) they had them....Desileets market ground the best hamburg says mommy....Sauves had cuts of meat for Sunday dinner....Senays had a drug store and sold liquor on Sundays (if you were connected....CVS, suck on it.....we didnt need Artie T or CEOs or pensions or health plans cuz we had neighborhoods...if you wanted a cookie you went to the bakery (Roma or Tonys or Mutual), there was a store for everything and the money went back into the community and put food on the owners family table and paid his bills.....Id buy mortadella and cheese and salami at jackie Cellis fathers store and cross the street to Roma for Italian bread and take it all home. Mom would fill the bread with cold cuts and tomato and lettuce from the garden and we had a real sandwich and it didnt take Five Guys...what was a supermarket? I think it was a marketing technique to take the money out of the neighborhoods and put it into the pocket of the nebulous shareholder....milk, bread, meat and produce , pears and apples grew on trees....the customers were never rude, nor were the grocers, though they might boot you in the ass or call your mother if you got out of line....the grocer was like a doctor, he knew your business and he knew your situation and he knew how to take care of you in a pinch...I think small was better, and I know I would rather spend my money in the hood than on the market....The grocer had a family like mine, he ate a supper like ours and he spent his Sundays much the way I spent mine....these were real people, and they closed shop on Sunday and went home early in the evening...prescriptions, bakery, milk and bread, neighbors would give each other produce for free, we lived close to the food and we never fought over parking cuz we rode out bikes to the store....but that was then and this is now and now we are all shopping on Wall Street.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 18:50:50 +0000
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