My Daddy used to say "If that ain't good, grits ain't groceries." Of course, grits ARE groceries, so whatever "that" was, it was good. I think one reason he liked that expression was because my mother hated any of us using the word "ain't." She was a stickler for good grammar, a trait she passed to me. Her mother was also a stickler, as was my great grandmother, Granny Butler. I am a 4th generation stickler. I digressed.
I wanted to write today about groceries. Sean wrote about the Piggly Wriggly over at Sean of the South.The last Piggly Wriggly I know of is on Hilton Head Island and I love going in there. My parents had a timeshare one block away, for years, and we all knew the Piggly Wriggly very well. Last time I was on the island, a couple of years ago, I took my son in there. It's now really crowded and touristy, alas...
One of my earliest memories is going shopping with my mother, at a tiny grocery store in Augusta called Carpenter's 50/50. We walked in, and I got my own tiny child-sized buggy, and if I was lucky, an icy cold Co Cola in a small bottle. I followed along behind Mom with my small buggy, just like a grown up lady. Carpenter's did not resemble the enormous stores of today in any way. It was small, badly lit, and smelled like musty old fruit. It was old school. First of all, there were usually only 2-3 choices of whatever canned or boxed good you wanted, not 55 choices like today. Second, the cashier had to look at the price on each item and physically tap the cash register. Nothing was scanned. Scanners didn't exist. Thirdly, there was no offering of a choice of bags. Your groceries got put in paper bags, period. If it was necessary, there might be a double bag situation. The bag boy went to your car and loaded everything into the trunk or back seat. You tipped him, usually .50 or a dollar.
I still remember being small enough that Mom would sit me in the buggy and grab a box of animal crackers to distract me while we walked around the grocery store -- other stores, where I didn't get my own buggy. Often my brother would be in the buggy too. If we misbehaved, there was no time out. There was Mom's hand swatting our butts.
In my parents' view, any time a child bothered anyone in a public place, they were scolded and told to hush, and if that didn't work there was a swift removal, to the car. I now see parents all the time letting their kids scream and run around crazily and bother people, and I am appalled. Just remove the child. (My mom used to say when a child acts out in public it's because the child is overtired and that's the parent's fault.)
I digressed again.
When I was a kid, some grocery stores offered S&H green stamps when you paid for your groceries. I was always in charge of stamp handling, because I was a busybody. When we got home, the stamps had to be licked and neatly pasted into paper booklets. When there were enough completed booklets of stamps, you went to the green stamps store and "bought" things. I remember buying lamps, lamp shades, suitcases, serving bowls, etc.
When we moved to Knoxville, we ended up shopping at The White Store most of the time, because it was 5 minutes from our house. It was a big, well-lit, well-stocked store. I think they gave green stamps but I could be wrong about that. We always wound up taking forever to check out because one of the cashiers loved my mother and would always chat with her. She called Mom "Miz Eva." Mom never corrected her. [Mom's name was Elva] Other cashiers referred to Mom as "Eva" or "Elvira" or "Miz T." It became a running joke amongst our family.
I also vividly recall going to the A&P store in Knoxville, in the early 70's, because they offered matching kitchen items. There would be a display of dishes or glasses or flatware at the end of an aisle and it was usually pretty, nice stuff. You bought a certain amount of groceries and then you could buy 1 glass, or one casserole dish, or whatever. I always remember wanting to be rich enough to just go in there and buy the whole set at one time. Mom decided she liked the stainless flatware they were offering once and we shopped at the A&P exclusively for months until we had all the knives, forks, and spoons Mom wanted.
Whatever grocery store we went into, my mother bossed the guy in the meat department like she was the Queen of England. She was always smiling, always polite, but she would say things like "I know you didn't run that through the grinder enough times. I'm going to stand right here and watched you grind that piece of sirloin THREE TIMES." I watched my memaw act exactly the same way in a grocery store. She would also criticize the meat. "Why look at that hen, it looks like it died of starvation. You get on back in the back and find me a nice fat hen. I'll wait."
Just FYI, I've never been dictatorial with anyone in the meat department of any grocery store. (I also don't wear girdles or bright red lipstick either..)
In later years, Dad often went with Mom, on Saturdays. He was tasked with getting heavy stuff like dog food or sodas and putting those items in his buggy, then he could go into the book section and read until Mom whistled for him. In any store, we could locate each other by the Family Whistle. I taught it to my kids, too. It came in handy before we all carried cell phones in our pockets.
Going grocery shopping when I was a kid was always fun. I miss those days.
