Grocery Shopping Through the Years - Time Out #477

Off the top; "Happy Halloween"  Thursday to all! It is truly one of my favorite annual celebrations.  

     Even routine exercises such as grocery shopping have greatly changed over the decades in Our Town.

     The then and now routine in this regular experience is striking for sure.   

     Back in the day when yours truly was growing up here in the 1950's and 1960's, the mom and pop grocery stores were scattered all around our wonderful little community. Local grocers routinely maintained charge accounts for their loyal customers, and a few employed local youth to deliver groceries to your home. Parking near their businesses was never a hassle, it seemed.   

You would walk into their convenient neighborhood stores, and they would personally greet you verbally, and flash you a big smile. A few chain stores such as Safeway, Humpty Dumpty, IGA, etc. were here, too, but local mom and pop grocers held their own then in that highly-competitive grocery business.    

     The "pushing the cart" experience was radically different, too. As a trivia fact, the modern shopping cart was invented June 4, 1937, in Oklahoma City by Sylvan Goldman. He owned the Humpty Dumpty grocery chain. The shoppers of my 1950's/60's youth were not overwhelmed back then with less sugar, less salt, less fat, less additives, less preservatives, etc., covering merchandise-labeling as it does today. The older packaging was much simpler and subdued, similar to the average grocery shopper's attitude then. Instead of everything being "on sale", the bonus offerings then were extra (bonus) S&H, or True Value stamps for the local shopper to lick the glue backing, and place in our stamp-saving folders/books.  Also, paper coupons were popular to remove from your local newspapers, and cash them in at your local grocery stores when you checked out. .  

Another prominent remembrance of mine was when my father, Col. Breedlove, took me along grocery  shopping with him. It was especially enjoyable when we visited (Glen) Douglas' Big Country Store on East 6th Avenue. That particular store I remember well, with its plain concrete store floors, and local farmer-grown produce that was regularly brought in by area producers. Mr. Douglas sold that locally-grown produce to the general public (us!).  His store's produce section was displayed much like a modern-day farmer's market. On every trip there, Glen and the Colonel would exchange a few pleasant words about whatever was on each man's mind. As a youth, I certainly enjoyed listening to their brief, back-and-forth discussions!   

     At the conclusion of each grocery shopping experience, the checker would manually punch the prices into the large cash register, and a sacker would place our purchases into large brown paper grocery sacks. Then, the sacker would take the loaded sacks outside to our automobile, and load them inside our car. The employees did all these activities with smiles on their faces, and pleasant attitudes.       

     Wow. What wonderful memories of those moments in time long ago in a special place, Our Town.