[AT] OT NuGrape, Beeman's Pepsin Gum etc (Country Store)

[Chuck Bealke]

Mercy, Dean, I thought it was regulation that the delightfully frigid bottles from those coolers had to be downed while wet or wiped on your shirt if you were under 13.  In the mid-50s, in such country stores in Missouri you might see
a fetching likeness of a young Sandy Duncan on a painted RC Cola sign. Those stores were wondrous places - worn out floors, pipe tobacco in the thin cans (Prince Albert sold well),  Bull Durham in the white sacks with pull strings, Cracker Jacks with a real plastic toy, always some new candy or other snack, tube repair kits (like Monkey) and LOTS more.  There was one I could hike across creek, fields and woods to reach about a mile from our farm, though I seldom had the coins, free time and permission needed together.  Like most such, it had an outhouse best avoided in July.  Oh yeah, gas was about a quarter a gallon, including - if you wanted to wait, your windshield wiped, oil checked and maybe some news of neighbors.

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On 5/29/2007 at 9:31 PM Dean Vinson wrote:

>Ice-cold drinks in glass bottles, roger that.  Dad used to stop now and
>then
>with us kids at a dinky little gas station in Gavers, Ohio.  Old metal
>cooler in the corner, filled with pop bottles in icy water, with a faded
>red
>rag hanging right next to it so you could wipe off the bottle.
>
>Dean Vinson