As a young child I spent a lot of time with my mom. There were always errands to be done; things that ranged from dropping off rent checks to, my favorite, grocery shopping. Back then the grocery store of choice was Pantry Pride. The produce section had a clerk on hand to weigh your purchases. The cost of a bunch of bananas was marked with a thick black pencil, meaning once they were weighed and tagged it was okay to eat them as Mom pushed me and the cart up and down the aisles.
The bananas were usually treat number one. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I'd get a box of animal crackers. They came in a red, rectangular box that was meant to look like a circus train. My favorite part, besides the cookies, was the little string handle. The string made for some high-swinging fun and allowed the empty box to double as the perfect little-girl purse.
Way back then, at the Pantry Pride, there was one other treat that I always asked for but rarely got. It was common for grocery stores of the day to have a large metal cage that held rubber balls of different sizes and colors. Some were bright red, others were swirly blue and some were the little pinkies. I liked the swirly blue. Perfection at the Pantry Pride came when I was able to walk out of the store holding my mother's hand while my right arm hugged my new swirly blue toy.
21 hours ago
Nice. "Can we get a ball?" was always one of our questions at the store, too.
ReplyDeleteAnd what about those pickles in the barrel? Did PP have them?
And the grease pencil on the bananas-- that was another awesome detail. Come to think of it, so was the string on the animal crackers. Yeah. I liked this one.
ReplyDelete