The pocket change of my youth
I grew up in a world of ubiquitous corner stores – forever beckoning me to spend my pocket change on penny candy, and stuff.
That’s how it was. I’ve never regretted it.
On the East End of Uniontown in the 1950s, there must’ve been a dozen family-owned stores.
I think I visited all of them, with the hopes I could at least buy a pretzel stick or some licorice.
We were a fairly religious family. But heaven, to me, was a Sugar Daddy.
(Stop it. I was kidding.)
My Aunt Ethel used to tell me that I was going to pay the college tuition for the kid down the street because his parents owned the nearby corner store. And with every nickel I got, she’d say, “Money burns a hole in your pocket.”
I’ve never denied that.
I’m proud to say it still burns those holes.
During the 1950s, there weren’t nearly as many cars as there are today.
Neighborhood stores and medium-sized grocery markets were all over the place. So, people could easily walk to them.
I remember being tasked to accompany my mother to the Thorofare Market up on Connellsville Street on Fridays and Saturdays, while she made her weekly “order” for food and other necessities.
I can hear her now saying, “No! Stop whining. I’m not getting that,” as I feigned urgency with endless requests for the stuff I’d seen advertised on cartoon shows.
The reason I was so relentless? Lots of kids (mistakenly) think their parents are rich.
Now I realize that, as an 8-year-old, I could’ve easily been asking her to buy me an Oldsmobile.
It wouldn’t have mattered.
She held firm.
Her words crushed me. Fortunately, I didn’t grow up an introvert.
She did give in, somewhat, in the cereal aisle.
I was perpetually eager to convince my mother that certain sugary cereals (especially the ones with those cheap prizes inside the boxes) should be on the Owens family’s pantry shelf.
Wheaties, or Shredded Wheat, for instance, didn’t have the lure of, say, Sugar Pops.
I suspect my mother may have been a fiber freak. We always had Wheaties in our house.
Back then, because we didn’t have a car, that Thorofare store had a nice lady who’d load up our “order” on a truck and bring the bags of groceries to our house.
A wonderful gesture.
Mom and Pop stores and restaurants all over town kept attracting baby boomers willing to spend their nickels and dimes.
I loved those balsa airplanes.
I even managed to save enough change (probably about a quarter) to get one of them with its flimsy rubber band used for propulsion.
You’d wind up the propellor that was attached to the rubber band – and then let it go. The little propellor did the rest of the work.
They’d sail aloft for a solid 15 seconds before the rubber band would either give out, or the balsa disintegrated.
To me, it was 25 cents well-spent.
If you were fortunate enough to get ahold of a buck or two, you might’ve bought a kite.
Kites were plentiful in my neighborhood in the 1950s.
If you walked outside in late spring, in those days, you could always look skyward and see a kite flying above your head.
I had a kite. I could never get the doggone thing to fly more than about 10 feet. One of the tragedies of my youth, I suppose.
Down on Coolspring Street, there was a hallowed place called Smith’s Bakery.
Nothing, I mean NOTHING could compare to the aroma of their freshly made donuts.
You didn’t even have to go inside the store for the experience.
They had an exhaust fan on the side of the store that would attract you with the heavenly smells that only delicious, glazed donuts would make.
Smith’s Bakery was situated smack dab in the middle of a residential area. It was handy for every school kid who had a nickel or a dime that burned holes in their pockets.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 40-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.