Today, you’ll see dozens of big carts in the aisles of most any grocery store as the store employees select products that the customers ordered on line. Sometimes, customers pick up their orders at the curb of the store and sometimes they are delivered.
In the 1950’s, we picked up the orders and delivered. We ran the errands. Kids on our bikes.
At least twice a week, Mom would hail me in from a street football or baseball game with a small list of things she needed from the store. Usually, a loaf of bread, maybe some milk or a pack of cigarettes. Armed with a short list and maybe a dollar (a quart of milk was a quarter, and a loaf of bread was 13 cents) I hopped on my bike and headed to the neighborhood store, Cigs, by the way, were about 20 cents a pack in 1954 and they didn’t care how old you were, as long as they were for your Mom.
I didn’t mind running the errands because Mom usually let me keep some of the small change and a kid could buy a lot with just a nickel – a Milky Way Bar, for example. Or maybe a piece of Fleers Bubble Gum, a stick of red licorice, a Mary Jane Candy, a Fireball, and a Tootsie Roll – all for 5 cents.
In those days, small grocery stores were a dime a dozen. There was usually one on every other block- often the first floor of an older house with the owners and store operators living upstairs. The stores had large glass counters and creaky wood floors; I remember that.
With my trusty Schwinn English Bike, I could be at one of the stores in a jiffy, fill my basket on the handlebars with the grocery list and be back at the game in fifteen minutes.
Several years later, I would beg for the opportunities to go to the store for Mom because then I could drive the car.
Today, I still make special trips to the store for Nancy (she needs canning stuff this afternoon) but it was a lot more fun on an English bike in the 1950s.
