“How strange it is to view a town you grew up in, not in wonderment through the eyes of youth, but with the eyes of a historian on the way things were.”
Gracie is having her morning nap on the couch. She’s snoring. Maddie is under the lamp staying warm and Fern is sleeping on the couch cushion in the other room. Our routine is back.
I awoke to the sound of raindrops, but they lasted only a little while. The day, though, is still dark, overcast with light grey clouds. The weatherman says it will be warm, even hot.
The first few days of summer vacation when I was a kid were joyous days lacking routine, wide open days when I could do whatever I wanted. A long, wonderful summer stretched out in front of me. My bike never got put away. It stayed against the fence in the backyard. I used it to go to the library or to take a leisurely ride with no purpose or destination. I knew every corner of my town, every street. I knew all the places of interest. Some days I walked my bike on the sidewalk uptown while I looked in the store windows. Most times I hadn’t a cent, but I didn’t care. Looking was fun. In those days the square was filled with stores where you could watch the proprietors work. The shoe repair man always wore a leather apron. In the bakery you couldn’t watch the baking, just the wrapping and boxing of all the baked goods people bought. Meat hung in the window of one store and lobsters swam in a tank in the window of another. Cheese, huge round cheeses, filled the window of the buttery. The men’s store window had half mannequins wearing suit coats, shirts and ties. I always wondered why they didn’t have legs, but I guessed maybe the window was too small. The gas and electric appliance store had ranges in the windows. They were all white. People also went there to pay their electric bills. It was on the corner so half of the big door was really on two streets.
I’d get my fill of the square and bike home. I used different routes to vary the ride. I had a favorite house on one route which had a huge front porch and was painted red, my favorite color. On another route I went by the empty school. Sometimes I even rode on the dirt beside the railroad tracks as that was the shortest way home.
I never got tired of biking around town. When I go back, I drive on some of those same routes. The red house is still there, but the railroad tracks are gone. The square now has very few stores, and the remaining stores lack the character and individuality they had when I was young. I miss the lobsters the most though I do like the restaurant which has taken their place. When I go uptown now, I always think of what was and can name where all the stores once were. That restaurant was the Gloucester Fish Market.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: bike riding, grey day, lobster tanks, looking on store windows, mannequins, railroad tracks, rain, round cheese in the window, routine, shoe store, summer vacation, warm-even hot
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
June 19, 2015 at 11:28 am
There were so many stores around where I grew up and I too can remember them vividly. We had several grocery stores, one in each corner of each block so I think we had at least 8 of them rather close to us. One was the old fasioned kind where they had everything behind the counter. I loved going there but my mother didn’t like the owners so we only went there when the other stores didn’t have what she wanted.
The butcher also sold cheese and the owner was said to be a bit cheesy 🙂 My mother rarely bought anything there, as You now well know she wouldn’t know what to do with the meat anyway 🙂 but she did like the cheese he sold and one of her best friends didn’t mind the owner being a bit cheesy so she married him 🙂
We had several candy shops and tobacco shops too, I remember liking the smell from the cigarres they seemed to smoke in there constantly (now days I can’t stand that smell at all), they also sold note books and silk paper (an odd combination don’t You think?) I often made kites (we call them dragons) and silk paper was a must. Unfortunately silk paper breaks easily when the kite goes straight down into the ground but the paper was very cheap 🙂
Further away, close to my school, there was a grocery and cheese store (cheese didn’t seem to come natural in a grocery store here back then 🙂 ). The owner was called Miss Andersson. Miss Andersson was a man and he usually had one or two people employed. One was a woman who always worked there, the other one was his boyfriend for the moment 🙂 The boyfriend did change from time to time 🙂
The drugstore was close to the street car stop and I loved going there. It smelled heavenly from all the perfume she was selling but she also sold toys and all kinds of chemicals. The owner was a very patient lady who seemed to love children so she never minded that we went in to look at all the toys we all wanted but couldn’t afford. I did buy plastic models that I loved to glue together when I came home, sometimes my brother wanted to be kind and help me doing that and I hated it, he just showed me how lousy I really was compared to him 🙂 🙂 🙂 He is after all seven years older than me 🙂
The pet store was the neighbor to the drug store and they too didn’t mind us kids going around watchjing things we all wanted but couldn’t afford 🙂 I did have an aquarium so every now and again I could buy a fish or two and they always made sure I didn’t buy something I couldn’t take care off. I remember the smell and I don’t know if it is because I was a kid I remember it smelling different from what it does now days in pet stores or if they just know how to make it smell less now days 🙂
Have a great midsummer’s eve!
Christer.
June 19, 2015 at 6:19 pm
Christer,
You have the most wonderful memories of all the places from your childhood. We never had as many grocery stores as you did. We did have a few corner stores, but they carried few groceries though they did have a great selection of penny candy.
I don’t think I have ever seen silk paper, but it sounds lovely. We sometimes flew kites but we never made them. I think I would have liked to have made mine so it could be decorated the way I wanted it.
Our drugstores also sold perfume. They each had soda fountains where I’d get a made t the counter Coke for a dime. They used water and syrup to make it. I always chose a vanilla coke. My brother made all those plastic models. Seven years is a long distance between brothers.
I think the pet store in my square smelled like the aquariums or the cedar shavings in the lizard cages. I once bought a chameleon there. My mother wasn’t thrilled.
Have a wonderful Midsummer’s Eve too!!
June 19, 2015 at 8:10 pm
Hi Kat,
I’m still in the town where I grew up and it has changed a lot. The theatres are gone. One burned down and was replaced by a grocery/bakery/office building. The fancier theatre remains but it is now apartments. All of the old grocery stores are gone as are all of the old department stores and the butter and egg store. The butter and egg store had a distinctive smell of strong cheese. The A&P always smelled like ground coffee and sour milk. 🙂
There were also a few small Italian shops for meat, cheese and baked goods. My mother would go to those shops because they were close to the house and it wasn’t easy walking around with two small kids and a third in the stroller. Those shops are all gone too but practically everyone my age remembers them still.
Our pet store was almost into the next town. They had everything in there. They also had an African Grey Parrot named Reggie. He would announce his name to all who came through the door. Repeatedly. The shop smelled like cedar shavings and bird seed. It finally closed a few years ago and was replaced by three condos.
Someone once said you know you’re old when you find yourself telling people what used to be where other things are now. 🙂
I am happy to say that the cobbler is still where the cobbler always was. Everything around him has changed including him but I’m not saying anything. 🙂
The weather up here is mostly cloudy but sometimes sunny. It might have gotten to 80 but it isn’t anywhere near there now.
Enjoy the day.
June 19, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Hi Caryn,
I think we loved our towns when we were kids because they were so familiar, almost like family. I knew who ran what store and they knew me. You could find just about anything uptown including cheese, a kite or a balsa plane. A dime was almost a fortune in Woolworth’s or Grant’s though I always thought Grant’s was really for older people, not kids. Nothing was better than a vanilla coke at Middlesex Drugs at their marble soda fountain. The firemen always sat outside and were happy to chat.
I will always remember what was because it was colorful and filled with townies as my dad would have called them.
June 19, 2015 at 8:23 pm
Whenever I go back to my old neighborhoods I’m always amazed how small our old houses look. I guess growing up changes your perspective. The trees have gotten bigger and the house have shrunk. 🙂
I’ve been in Toronto all week and the weather has been spectacular. Highs in the upper 70s or low 80s with clear skies. Going back home to Dallas where it’s been hot and humid.
June 19, 2015 at 10:00 pm
Bob,
I felt the same way when I went back to my school. The halls had shrunk, but then again I was a lot taller.
The weather you’re describing is what we have had. The humidity has held off but rain is expected for father’s day, the remnant of the tropical storm.