History

[Jim DiSpagno]

As a little kid in the fifties, I can vividly remember an old Italian man with a horse and wagon coming around once a week past my Grandmother's house to pick up anything metal and glass. It would be placed at the curb in wooden crates and the crates were put back in place when emptied. There was a slew of cowbells on the wagon so you knew when he was there and we would run out with carrots for this old horse and water for the old man. This was in Staten Island in the fifties. One of the five boros of NYC, Staten Island had venders with fresh produce, milk, juice, and eggs, bread and cake, potato chips, sharpeners, paper and metal collectors, and fish mongers all coming through neighborhoods in a variety of vehicles from push carts and horse and wagons to modified cars and trucks. to supply a variety of services to their home community. Grocery stores and delis delivered without charge, soft drink companies delivered to homes on a regular schedule and kids helped elderly neighbors with everyday tasks such as weeding, lawn mowing , leaf raking and snow removal at no charge. You were not allowed to take money from the older folks who were just getting by. This built character and respect. Now those tasks are let to the immigrant workers and you pay dearly for them. SHAME ON US.

[MarketHunter]

I can't remember nickel Cokes but I can certainly remember them for a quarter out of glass bottles. When I was visiting my grandmother and aunt in Herrin Illinois we used to go to Bailey's Toy Shop (also the Greyhound Bus Station) to get a strawberry or orange Nehi out of their .25 cent vending machine nearly every day during the summer. On down the road in Energy Illinois was The Polar Whip with their .10 cent hamburgers and .25 cent cherry Cokes (over shaved ice and made with real cherry syrup while you waited).

I still think of sitting in my Aunt Eva's kitchen while she was making dinner (lunch).
I used to go between her house and my grandmothers during the summer vacation visiting for a week at a time each place. They didn't have air conditioning so we'd have a big rattling brass blade fan blowing on us at the table. Would be hot as blazes in there with the gas stove (the kind you lit with a match) going while she cooked. She'd get in her ancient Philco gas refrigerator and get me one of those big tall Cokes to drink with my food. The best lunch was either her fried salmon patties or fried squirrel that had been put through the pressure cooker for a few minutes to make it more tender. She'd sing a little off key wordless tune as she cooked, I can still just hear it like I was there yesterday.

Uncle Phillip would come in from the garden with his shirt off to eat with us. He was the first person I ever saw with tattoos. He'd gotten them "working for the state" during prohibition while doing a stretch at the P Farm for bootlegging. He still wore a pencil thin mustache and smoked King Edward cigars from the drugstore. I think the first cigar I ever smoked was filched out of the box by his chair.

I still have his old Elgin nickel silver pocket watch and carry it on occasion. Big as a turnip and heavy too, he'd had it down from his father.

Funny how thinking about drinking a Coke out of a glass bottle can make you remember so many things. It's hot here in Michigan today, makes me think of those hot summers in Southern Illinois. They're long gone I'm sad to say, I sat in that kitchen the last time with the both of them when I was about 13 years old.


Destry

[Bruce Day]

When I bike through Iowa in a few weeks, I'll remember what you fellows like and will concentrate on focusing on Americana and life beyond Wal Mart. That's the nice thing about a bike.....you move slow enough to see things. Too bad I can't post a scratch and sniff for the hog farms or bring to you the sound of an old fashioned hit and miss engine running an ice cream maker.

[B. Dudley]

I am a younger guy and personally know nothing about much contained in this thread from first hand. But I can say that times were different and in most ways better. I do firmly believe that the 1950's was the best era in the last century for this country. In more ways than 1.

[MarketHunter]

I guess I never thought you might be younger than me, I'm 42 and the story I told would have been mid 70's.

DLH

[charlie cleveland]

i remember an old gent who said he would quit drinking cokes if they ever got to costing a quarter...old gent had to eat his words cause he kept drinking and buying them till they reached 50 cents...he past own at the 50 cents mark... but heh i said id never give a dollar for a bottle of water but some 10 years or better i was at a car show in alabama and there was only beer and water for sale there...well the beer was 50 cents and the water was a dollar...well i didnot drink and i sure hated to give a dollar for a bottle of water but after about 1 hour later i broke down and gave a dollar for that bottle of water..heh it really was worth the dollar and then some... but give me a nickel coke anyday... charlie

[chris dawe]

I'm on your heel's Destry at 39 ,and I too have vivid memory's from the early 80's of getting off the school bus in late fall ,running the last half mile to the house to grab my older brother's 12 bore single barrel topper & pulling on a pair of wicked heavy Black diamond knee rubber's...
Then it was on my old rickety ,hand me down ,found in the ditch 10 speed to Morgan's store,where a Canadian dollar would by me a Coke ,a foil bag of Hostess ketchup chip's ,a big Turk and a handful of jelly candy ...I was all of 12 I geuss ,not legal to carry a gun... but in my home town I would walk through the store with it broke over my arm ,a full belt of shell's ,and no one ,not a soul ever questioned my intent, the only query ever was "How'd ya do yesterday me son ,any bird's on the go ? rabbit's ?" (I'm from Newfoundland )

There was a gully we had to skirt to get to where the the bird's and rabbit's were, beaver gully we call it...every shaggin time I rounded the last little cove up came a lone duck ...and every time with out fail I would up gun and miss,how many shell's in christ's name did I throw at that duck with not a feather cut !!!

I alway's imagined he was the same old bugger year after year ,so wise ,so tough, and wicked enough to keep me out of range time after time.


Come to think on it,he had sharp teeth too ...or was it horn's ? none the less he was awful big

[SXS OHIO]

1965-1970 ish I remember 10 cent cokes in the 7oz bottles and 5 cent hershey bar ...both items are availible today same size but 5.89 for six pack of cokes and 1 dollar to 150 for a hershey bar....gas was 27 cents to 34 plus cents. two bergers two fries and a med coke was 1 dollar at the golden arches..(-: The fries were cooked fresh and the beef had no green slime added! 65 impalla SS was about 2250.00 NOBODY WAS ON WELFARE...families helped family and we all new who are dad was!!! thanks all SXS ohio....................................

[Angel Cruz Ortiz]

I was ten when the family move from Puerto Rico to The Bronx, NY in August of 1968. Being dirt poor while living in Puerto Rico I remember fighting with a friend over a penny on the ground. So there was no money for a coke or any drink. The reason we fought for that penny was because we could get five pieces of candy at the store. And belive me that was big.
Now back to NY. The building we moved into had a liquor store on the first floor. The owner of the store also owned the whole bulding and I remember my father taking me to the store to meet Al. Somehow I came out of there with a Saturday job cleaning and dusting and restocking the shelves with liquor bottles. I still remember when at the end of the day he payed me 2 bucks. I could not believe my eyes, 2 bucks. I lived in the fifth floor and let me tell you I never ran up those stairs faster than I did that day. I scared the heck out of my mother as I busted my way into the apartment. I was yelling "Mom Mom this is the best country in the world. I just made 2 buck. It was amazing one day I'm dirt poor in Puerto Rico and the next I'm earning 2 buck a week. What a country!!

[Fishtail]

The good old days were good but not as great as we all remember.

As for WalMart, I generally avoid going there, but it's easy to pile blame on them without really looking at the big picture. WalMart was one of the leaders in a few areas that help customers. For example, they were leaders in allowing returns. I clearly remember in the 70's when you bought something it was yours. Mom n' Pop generally would not take returns or gave you the third degree if you did try to return it. WalMart? They couldn't care less if you returned it. I don't like people who abuse return policies but sometimes you just buy something in error.

Home Depot? For the first time in my life I could go there and expect to find enough of a product to actually finish the job. Mom n' Pop's hardware store? They'd have a bin with three 1/2 conduit hubs, one of which was missing the nut - and I needed 12. Go back a week later - they'd be down to 2.

And Mom n' Pop stores seldom actually had people working there who knew much more than the dopes at Home Depot. About 2 years ago I went to Mom n' Pop's because I needed a piece of 1/8" iron pipe threaded. They have a Ridgid threading machine...I can run those all day long. The guy there, about 50 years old, assured me it was impossible to thread 1/8" pipe - only 1/4" and bigger could be threaded. I asked him how 1/8" pipe got threaded and he informed me 'they can only do it in factories.' I asked him why they had a set of dies marked 1/8" sitting right there and he said they came with the machine but didn't actually work. I decided to give up while I was ahead and went to HD where they threaded the pipe for 50 cents and 3 minutes.