3108 Meadowbrook Drive. It wasn't airconditioned and at the time had three huge trees in the front yard.
Then about six blocks away was the shopping center where we we grocery shopping at the "super" market. Piggly Wiggly. I thought it was soooooooooo big.
This is it today. It's a Scrubs Store and probably not more than 100 feet wide. I thought it was huge as a kid. But it was probably only about 3,000 square feet. More or less, the size of the produce department now in a major supermarket. I don't remember much except all grocery stores . . .all . . .you came in the front door and went right. And the produce was always along the first wall and the bread was opposite the produce. And the meat counter was at the back. And then through the store were 3 or 4 isles that had everything a grocery store was supposed to have. Food and cleaning stuff. Period. And then when you got the front there would be "maybe" three or four checkout lanes. With paper bags only and a "sacker" who would bag the groceries and actually carry them out to the car for you. Mother might give him a dime tip. Might. And everything was paid for with cash or a personal check. No credit cards. Up until I was in the 6th grade, most grocery stores had blank checks at the front from the neighborhood bank and maybe one or two downtown banks. And you could just write you account number down and make your own check. And then, at the end, they gave you your S&H Green Stamps for one stamp per 10 cents. And we'd go home and paste the stamps in a book and when we had a dozen or more books we'd go to the Green Stamp store and buy something like a new toaster! Or a set of knives! Or? Candy bars were all a nickel. Sodas a nickel. And a whole grocery buggy full of food and meat and stuff might be a whopping $40.00 or $50.00. It was enough that'd we'd come home and my dad would start moaning about going to the poor house someday to live. Banquet TV dinners were always the big sale item. And we bought a lot of them. 5 for $1.00. A feast and we could all eat what we wanted for dinner. A Saturday night treat was making a pan of Jiffy Pop on the stove and shaking it while it popped and blew up into a big foil bubble and then cut it open and pour into a bowl and all of us watch Lawrence Welk, and then Sing Along with Mitch. I'd stay up late on Saturdays and watch Wrestling that came on after the news and then a scary B movie like "The Tree Zombies" or "The Invaders from Mars".
I took this shot to show that it wasn't much deeper than it was wide. And I remember when you came in you brought all your empty soda bottles with you, and it was an honor system. If you were getting a dozen more colas or 7-ups or whatevers, you just brought that many bottles in and set them on the floor inside the front door and then got what you wanted to take home and told the checker that you'd put the bottles down when you came in. They trust you to tell the truth. If you didn't bring your own bottles you had to pay 3 cents extra per drink. That meant the 6 ounce cokes would be 8 cents instead of 5 cents. There weren't bottles bigger than 6 ounce until I was in the 7th grade and then they came out with "King Size" which was a taller bottle and had 10 ounces in it. When I was in the 9th grade they started having some cans but you had to open them with a beer can opener.
It wasn't until I was 25 years old that I ever even saw what would equate to what we now call a supermarket. And that was the year that Skaggs Alberston's came to town and had everything in the world you'd want to buy and 20 double isles of stuff. Wow!
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