"COKES, CHOO-CHOO TRAINS, BLACK COWS,
SANDSTORMS and POTATO CHIPS"
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There was once a time in the good old USA, (about 1939)
when little kids of five or six years, could buy a "soda pop"
for a BIG FIVE CENT BUFFALO NICKEL!
(Dimes were okay to us little guys, but nickels were bigger---
and thus better!)
We bought the Magic Steam Laundry in Clovis, N.M in the
summer of 1938. It was located at 417 West Grand, just
four-plus blocks west of big, busy, bustling Main Street!
We left W.Texas and journeyed to our new town, pulling
a cotton trailer with all our wordily goods in it, covered
with a tarp.
A good many people in those tough times were barely
surviving The Great Depression, which was still going on.
Thus we moved into a drafty old house behind and
connected to the laundry.
Grand Avenue was actually Third Street---three blocks north,
parallel to the railroad tracks. The Round House where railroad
locomotives were taken apart and repaired, and there were all
manner of side-tracks, and switching, joining and unjoining cars,
went on all day.
Oh, the blissful nights I grew up with---sleeping to all
those interesting railroad sounds. . plus the SPEWING
STEAM being released from engines.
And sometimes...the sound of a whistle...cutting through
the air...I grew up loving Choo-Choo Trains!
What did that vignette have to do with five cent soda
pops? You young 'uns have to understand the times,
and visualize the scenes...
A dollar was a dollar in those days. A nickel was a nickel
and quite a bit of money. Ladies worked all day pressing
pants or shirts or feeding sheets through the mangle, for
twenty cents an hour---good pay at the time---and never
blamed anything on the government.
People worked...or they starved. About as simple as that.
So to hot little bitty kids like me, hanging out in a steamy,
summer-time laundry, with only a giant fan blowing---
(AC was unheard of), when Mama said "Here's some
change---go get us some "cokes" and candy bars, I was
off in a flash a block west, to 521 West Grand, to Tom
Phelp's RED and WHITE STORE, on the corner, facing
north.
Tom was a tall, slender, older fellow---and having a nice
white little meat counter in the back, he thus wore a white
apron and clothes --plus a ten-inch butcher's hat, with a
"puff" at the top!
Anyway, I'd always take empty pop bottles or there was a
two-cent deposit to pay. My little brother would tag along
to help carry the drinks...and CANDY BARS!
Generally we would get Barq's Big Orange drinks, maybe
eight or nine ounces...or big NEHI grapes; Hires' Root Beers
helped break the monotony. Flavor drinks were popular
with little kids.
Mama and Dad were fond of the thick little green coke
bottles full of six-and-a-half ounces of the strongest
Coca Cola you could ever imagine.
Once or twice I bought me a Coke. in the fascinating
little thick green bottle. They were eye-watering-strong
to a relatively new-being-on-the-planet!
Recently B.E. spotted some old-fashioned green cokes
in a carton and brought a six-pack home. Just for old-
time's-sake, I drank one. The bottles are thinner- made
with less "green glass." And they have added a RED
LOGO which was not there in 1939.
Ah, but the kick was still there, even to an old timer. No
canned cokes ever had that MAGNIFICENT strong
flavor!
Mama's favorite candy bar was (a rare ten cent bar)--
a Best Pal. Dad was so busy working that he paid little
attention to snacks, and we always got him a Hershey.
We kids bought something different every time---Baby
Ruths, Butterfingers, Milky Ways, Snickers, O Henrys,
Bit-O- Honeys, or even a Black Cow caramel sucker,
now and then.
There was an old fridge in the corner in the Magic Steam
Laundry, and it was full of brown bags as the ladies
brought their daily lunches.
I'll never forget it---a "snack vendor" came by one afternoon
and talked Dad into putting one of those five cent Potato
Chip racks on top of the ancient laboring fridge. It held on
chip-clips about twelve nice little bags of potato chips---six
to a side. A little dish was there under it for the nickels.
Being about five, and always hungry, I watched it constantly.
No worker ever bought a single bag of chips. A NICKEL
WAS A NICKEL in those hard times. Why nine cents would
buy a loaf of bread! Or almost a whole 5 lb. bag of potatoes.
We were never allowed to eat those...until one fall afternoon
late...the laundry run was done for the day---and that
incomparable smell lingered in the air---of clean, starched,
ironed, pressed clothes---
No customers were dropping by---for a massive sandstorm
was coming in down West Grand, from west of town..
Mama said: "Why don't we open a coupla' bags of potato
chips...it seems like a good time!"
I will tell you; "Those were the best potato chips I have ever
eaten...and to this day, I can still taste 'em, seventy-seven
years later." And you got twice as much for a nickel--then!
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BY MIL
7/26/16
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