When I was a little kid I didn't just run around in the street and play stickball and scully. I had to do chores. Throw out the garbage. Go to the stores. I went all over the place even when I was in the second grade. When I was old enough to cross the street I was sent on errands all the time. My grandmother especially sent me out shopping. Why not when she was supposed to be in the second grade she was already working in a shirt making factory. So she didn't take any bullshit.
She would send me to Columbia Street where the push carts were. They had a bunch of stuff that came from the docks. Legal and otherwise. I had particular people I had to patronize. Friends of my uncles who made sure I didn't get ripped off.
I miss those days. Now I go to Stop and Shop.
8 comments:
When I lived in Bristol, CT there were at least 6 or 7 Italian markets. I think there is one now. Of course, although we had a lot of Micks, there weren't any Irish markets; unless you count the package stores[liquor stores for the non easterners].
Should I say the world was safer when white people ran it or when Americans (as opposed to Democrats) ran it?
I remember going up the street for a strawberry ice cream cone when I was 6. Alone.
Several of the Italian markets around here have expanded into chains, Butera's and Caputos. Dominicks started as an Italian market, expanded into a chain and went kaput after being bought out by a west coast conglomerate. The bakeries no longer have their own shops but sell through grocery stores. The only ethnic markets left are mainly Polish and Mexican. The Mexican ones are almost exclusively owned by Greeks. LOL on Irish markets, they don't even rate a section in the International aisles of grocery stores.
The change for our children is a dollar store no longer being a dollar store.
Dollar Tree, which just announced they'll be raising prices beyond a dollar, started the year the first SonM was born, 1986.
In other news, the shipping price for a container from China just went to $35,000.
And a list showing up of items shoppers are noticing missing from grocery shelves:
Juice Products*
Bottled Water*
Bread
Pasta
Toilet paper*
Paper towel*
Lunchables
Pumpkin
Meat
*Items we've noticed missing or in low/limited supply
Looks the Scamdemic is back.
amper, I didn't know the history of Dominick's. We lived in Chicago in the 80's and they were supermarkets when we got there.
As women who've been through childbirth more than once will attest, memory can be selective when it comes to pain. Perhaps men have a comparable experience, I wouldn't know.
It seems to me that life in this world is always a dual encounter with joy and hardship, loss and gain running side by side, if not operating as a tag team.
While I understand and appreciate stories that recollect some of the freedoms and responsibilities that were part of living through a different earlier season of life, reality suggests it was likely not quite as wonderful as nostalgia would paint it to be.
What do you truly miss about those days? What was the most enjoyable part? The camaraderie? The adventure? The bustle, smells and sounds? The thrill of being out on one's own in the streets with a task and money to spend? The sense of being taken care of by family and friends. Working out the buy? Coming home with the goods? Pleasing a grandma who knew how to run the show?
What was the most difficult or least appealing part of that experience?
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