A GOOD Memory

I hope you all don't mind if I do some reminiscing but I have the need to share. When I was cleaning the house up yesterday, Friday, it reminded me of the routine of my youth, for Fridays. Mom always did her grocery shopping on Fridays, so we girls, my sister B and I, helped with the chores of washing and drying the breakfast dishes and vacuuming. Usually around 10a.m. all was in order and we would head out to the grocery store. Where my brothers were in this mix I don't remember, I'm the oldest in a family of seven children, 3 girls the rest boys, so I'm thinking they were probably along for most trips or stayed at the home of their friends. Staying at your friend's house while your mom ran an errand was pretty common place back when I was a youth. The conversation always went something like this:
Mark: "I have to go Mom just hollered for me."
Gary: "Where do you have to go?"
Mark: "To the store."
Gary: "Let's go ask if you can stay at my house!"
Mark: "Ok"
Gary: "Mom can Mark stay here while his mom goes to the grocery store?"
Gary's Mom: "Sure but you boys go outside and play and take your little brother with you, and NO Mud!" If some action was not stated to be off limits then it was usually interpreted that it was Ok to do that action!!!!!!! Oh yea you remember, your defense statement!
"BUT, you didn't say we/I couldn't insert action here! Classic defense, never really held up against Mom logic though! Still used today by youth! I really thought my youngest son could grow up to be a great defense attorney he could twist any situation into a "It's not my fault because you didn't say I couldn't do that!" ~~~~~~~~~~Any who back to shopping. Mom bought groceries at Boogaarts, a chain no longer in existence, but one that had been my father's career choice since I was born. He worked his way up through the ranks, to become store manager, it was long hours, but had a few perks from my point of view. He would bring home overripe produce, I loved all the great seasonal fruit, leaky gallons of milk, dented cans, moldy cheese, crushed boxes of whatever, etc. you get the idea. So while you may be thinking EWW that's disgusting, it was a bonus to our large family. While some of the dented cans could be marked down and sold back then, if the label was missing it came home to us and was always a ?????? experience opening the can and finding a way to use whatever was inside!! The store received credit for the damaged goods and so instead of trashing it,  my father could bring home the "goodies" to us. But even with these occasional goodies, Mom still shopped once a week on Friday. At the store we always felt like celebrities.  Everyone knew us! Staff AND customers.   Small town folks love to talk, so it always took at the least an hour to shop with all the visiting that Mom would have to do. When we reached the checkout, Mom's carts..... yes it took two most times (I always pushed one) would be unloaded onto the belt and sacked into approximately 12-16 paper sacks and once again loaded onto two carryout upright carts for transport out to the car! The total for this shopping trip...... are you ready for it.......... $100! A lot then, but with bread at .19 a loaf it seems so cheap now!!
Well I'm going to stop here but in a later post I'll have to share more of my grocery store years experience, we helped stock shelves after hours, (lots of fun plus free samples of Brach's candy) and when I was 15 I started working as a checkout clerk.  My first after school job!