Seventy years ago, mothers had no qualms about sending children to pick up a few items at the neighborhood grocery store. That was way before big boxes and parental guilt.
Wow ... how things of changed. I think my earliest memories bread already came pre-sliced. However, I do remember Dad talking to the butcher about just how he wanted the meat cut. The beef would arrive in quarters at the back of the store and the butcher - an actual butcher - would break down the quarter beef into steaks and roasts, and grind the rest into hamburger.
I remember you telling me about this. It must've filled Vic with a warm feeling to talk meat with someone who knew it as well as he did ... rancher to butcher. Now, I can't even identify a steak from a roast unless it's labeled.
Great memories Sue! I remember the IGA store so well. And as you mentioned, the automatic door! Although I kind of think it only opened automatically if you were going OUT!~. “David, run down to the store and get … [milk, bread, eggs, spagetthi). And yes I never qualified for buying the meat either. But we got most of that at the Locker by the railroad tracks, and I got sent there too. “Take this key, our locker is #xxx. Pull out a package of hamburger and bring it straight back!”
We were entrusted with so many things, I sometimes wonder about today's kids. Then again, I hear about some of the errands my daughter has endured during her work life and I KNOW I would not be able to manage them. An odessey to pick up lobsters at the Sacramento airport challenges anything Odyseus ever imagined doing. Her accomplishment there was Homeric, to say the least.
I grew up in NE Minneapolis in the 50's and 60's. Raised to be independent. Chores to do. Mom worked, so my older sister and I often started supper. I learned to bake too. Cakes snd pies from scratch. All this was good for me as i never got married. When young my mom would give me money to walk to walk to the corner store to buy, whatever, but the bigger market was too far so that one required driving. By bigger i mean one like Dan's in your story. If i had kids they would have learned!
Delightful, Sue! This small market is exactly as I remember it. Mine, as a child, was Grady's in Capitola. Same scene. Imagine - toilet paper in packs of two. And we were a family of four! "Stocking up" was not possible in our poor family, but one of us kids could just "run to the store" when we ran out of anything. FREE-RANGE, indeed. In the 1950s our folks didn't even know where we were most of the time. And frankly, I placed just as much trust in my own son in the 1970s. It was a different life for kids - one that built strength and independence early on. Thanks for the lovely walk into the past this morning.
It may have seemed safer back then, but we were drilled on not talking to stranger, following them, or getting into cars with them, either. The dangers were out there, but it seems that parents are more paralyzed with fear today. A lot of that, I would say, is the guilt-trips laid onto parents by other parents and the media. It's truly bizarre and reaches to include one's animals. When a coyote killed four of my chickens which I chose to free-range after their six years of laying, I got reamed by the fine folks at Next Door. Yup, a lot's changed, sad to say.
Oh for heaven's sake. People dearly love to judge. A major flaw in the human species. Makes you want to go out and buy a Hummer to park in your driveway... really give them something to judge.
HAHAHAHA! I love it. Especially if it's one of the original military vehicles rather than one of the made-for-Yuppies versions.
This is right up there with how I was tempted to buy a camo fabric swimsuit at Cabelas and wear it to the pool at Tahoe Donner. Oh, the heads would explode!
I don’t read as much as I would like but I sure enjoy your posts about growing up in SLC. It transports me to all those known places with great memories! Love ya, Mark
Thank you, Mark. I'm glad you take the time to read my stuff. AND to make a comment. It warms my heart more than you'll ever know. I miss you and Judy so much and hope all is tell. I've been thinking of you a lot these last couple of weeks especially. There will be more SLC stories to come, so we can keep in touch that way. 💖
Wow ... how things of changed. I think my earliest memories bread already came pre-sliced. However, I do remember Dad talking to the butcher about just how he wanted the meat cut. The beef would arrive in quarters at the back of the store and the butcher - an actual butcher - would break down the quarter beef into steaks and roasts, and grind the rest into hamburger.
I remember you telling me about this. It must've filled Vic with a warm feeling to talk meat with someone who knew it as well as he did ... rancher to butcher. Now, I can't even identify a steak from a roast unless it's labeled.
Great memories Sue! I remember the IGA store so well. And as you mentioned, the automatic door! Although I kind of think it only opened automatically if you were going OUT!~. “David, run down to the store and get … [milk, bread, eggs, spagetthi). And yes I never qualified for buying the meat either. But we got most of that at the Locker by the railroad tracks, and I got sent there too. “Take this key, our locker is #xxx. Pull out a package of hamburger and bring it straight back!”
We were entrusted with so many things, I sometimes wonder about today's kids. Then again, I hear about some of the errands my daughter has endured during her work life and I KNOW I would not be able to manage them. An odessey to pick up lobsters at the Sacramento airport challenges anything Odyseus ever imagined doing. Her accomplishment there was Homeric, to say the least.
I grew up in NE Minneapolis in the 50's and 60's. Raised to be independent. Chores to do. Mom worked, so my older sister and I often started supper. I learned to bake too. Cakes snd pies from scratch. All this was good for me as i never got married. When young my mom would give me money to walk to walk to the corner store to buy, whatever, but the bigger market was too far so that one required driving. By bigger i mean one like Dan's in your story. If i had kids they would have learned!
Delightful, Sue! This small market is exactly as I remember it. Mine, as a child, was Grady's in Capitola. Same scene. Imagine - toilet paper in packs of two. And we were a family of four! "Stocking up" was not possible in our poor family, but one of us kids could just "run to the store" when we ran out of anything. FREE-RANGE, indeed. In the 1950s our folks didn't even know where we were most of the time. And frankly, I placed just as much trust in my own son in the 1970s. It was a different life for kids - one that built strength and independence early on. Thanks for the lovely walk into the past this morning.
It may have seemed safer back then, but we were drilled on not talking to stranger, following them, or getting into cars with them, either. The dangers were out there, but it seems that parents are more paralyzed with fear today. A lot of that, I would say, is the guilt-trips laid onto parents by other parents and the media. It's truly bizarre and reaches to include one's animals. When a coyote killed four of my chickens which I chose to free-range after their six years of laying, I got reamed by the fine folks at Next Door. Yup, a lot's changed, sad to say.
Oh for heaven's sake. People dearly love to judge. A major flaw in the human species. Makes you want to go out and buy a Hummer to park in your driveway... really give them something to judge.
HAHAHAHA! I love it. Especially if it's one of the original military vehicles rather than one of the made-for-Yuppies versions.
This is right up there with how I was tempted to buy a camo fabric swimsuit at Cabelas and wear it to the pool at Tahoe Donner. Oh, the heads would explode!
👍🏻👍🏻
Love this, Sue. Transported not simply back in place, but in time. Thanks.
Thanks, Paul. More coming on that line. I have 75 years of material to sort and "stack."
I don’t read as much as I would like but I sure enjoy your posts about growing up in SLC. It transports me to all those known places with great memories! Love ya, Mark
Thank you, Mark. I'm glad you take the time to read my stuff. AND to make a comment. It warms my heart more than you'll ever know. I miss you and Judy so much and hope all is tell. I've been thinking of you a lot these last couple of weeks especially. There will be more SLC stories to come, so we can keep in touch that way. 💖