Back when I was 12 years old Flemings grocery store and Berridge IGA (?) had contests. IGA was for a trip to St. Louis and when you bought something you had so many points to vote for the contestant of your choice. That contest was won by Irene Reinke. As a general rule, we did not shop at IGA because that was the store the "rich people" shopped at, so mother did not vote for Irene.
Flemings had a contest where you turned in labels from cans of a certain brand of food. I stood outside the store and pushed for people to buy that brand, then save the label and I would go by their house and pick the labels up and put them in my stash. Now, the city dump was different than dumps are today! The powers that be would designate a place as the city dump and if you wanted to dispose of something you took it there and threw it on the pile. People also went there to paw through the "stuff" and pick out good stuff. My idea of good stuff was labels from cans, which I tore off and took home to my stash. My stash grew bigger every day as I waited for the closing day when I would turn them in to be counted.
Now there were 2 prizes in my contest. One was an English Racing bike which was for a boy which meant it had the bar across the frame. Girls were open in that area. The other was a radio. I had my eye on that bike and nothing was going to deter me. When the day arrived I took my labels in to be counted and I had almost 3 times as many labels as the boy who came in second place. In all fairness, he was livid. He had been beat by a girl and now that girl walked away pushing a boys bicycle while he stood there with a stupid radio. Yes, I pushed that bike all the way home. My sisters were so envious. I pushed it around the block. I pushed it into town and pushed it home. I never had ridden a bike before and when I tried to stand with my feet on either side of the bike, it was not happening. That damn bar was higher than my crotch. But at no time did I think about trading it for the radio. I just let that boy eat his heart out as I pushed it past his house.
And then the tires went flat because there are a lot of goat heads on Strong Street. Mother could see no reason to have the tires fixed because it was apparent by this time that I would never ride that bike. No one ever rode it until I gave it to a boy named Johnny Isabel who lived in Hutch and I do not remember how I knew him or why, but I made a deal to sell it for $5.00 which he never paid me, but there you go!
Back to the grocery store, we always shopped at Flemings. They had a locker plant inside the store where one could rent a small freezer to store extra food that was not canned or dried. Things, like meat. Not that we ever had meat, but if we did we could have rented a small cubicle, which we never did because meat was a rarity at our house. Well, Jake would get a rabbit now and then, but not worth renting freezer space for the short period of time it took to go from dressed meat to the table to digested and forgotten.
There was a barrel for dried beans, onions, potatoes and such item. You put what you wanted in a brown paper sack and took it up and had it weighed. We were always careful with the brown paper bags because they were reused over and over. Milk bottles were refilled. Pop bottles were returned for a deposit that had been paid when the pop was purchased. Lots of times we walked the ditch along the highway to find bottles that were discarded by people who were too lazy to return them to the store. Seems like the deposit was only one or 2 cents, but it was free money and we could buy candy at Engle's store. The display case there was filled with boxes with tops removed. We pointed to which ones we wanted and the items were placed in a small brown paper bags. A nickel was usually over half a bag. As kids we never worried about "spoiling our appetite" because evening meals were few and far behind at our house.
Don't get me wrong, poverty sucks. No food sucks. Wearing "hand me downs" sucked. Walking every where was a pain. Easter was the only time we could ever hope to have anything extra and that was Easter Eggs. We had chickens that were laying hens so eggs were fairly easy to come by. Sadly eggs were either sold or cooked into something that could be shared among the 8 of us, but at Easter we got a whole egg and sometimes, if times were good, a chocolate something that resembled a rabbit. I will go on record as saying my mother tried harder than anyone else in the world. She went to clean houses every day and never asked for anything in return, except that us kids were fed. She paid the lady up the street 50 cents a week to babysit the little kids. Dad hung out at the pool hall, but as long as he was there playing dominoes, he was not home screaming at us to shut up. No television back then, so creeks and haylofts and the cemetery were our playgrounds.
Damn, I miss that life. .When I can not sleep at night, I run up and down Strong Street. I spy on Hank Windiate(sp) and Jake Smith. I listen to Rudolph Reinke singing in German as he did his chores. I see the chickens scratching in the dirt for some hidden scrap. I watch Joe Hedrick roping calves over on the corner. But mostly I just watch for my momma to come home. I have quit waiting for her and now anticipate the trip I can make to see her again. I want to see her hazel eyes and hold her thin, long fingers. But mostly I just want to see her smile when she comes to meet me. And yes, momma, I am bringing the tomato soup made the way you like it with home canned tomatoes and milk.
Flemings had a contest where you turned in labels from cans of a certain brand of food. I stood outside the store and pushed for people to buy that brand, then save the label and I would go by their house and pick the labels up and put them in my stash. Now, the city dump was different than dumps are today! The powers that be would designate a place as the city dump and if you wanted to dispose of something you took it there and threw it on the pile. People also went there to paw through the "stuff" and pick out good stuff. My idea of good stuff was labels from cans, which I tore off and took home to my stash. My stash grew bigger every day as I waited for the closing day when I would turn them in to be counted.
Now there were 2 prizes in my contest. One was an English Racing bike which was for a boy which meant it had the bar across the frame. Girls were open in that area. The other was a radio. I had my eye on that bike and nothing was going to deter me. When the day arrived I took my labels in to be counted and I had almost 3 times as many labels as the boy who came in second place. In all fairness, he was livid. He had been beat by a girl and now that girl walked away pushing a boys bicycle while he stood there with a stupid radio. Yes, I pushed that bike all the way home. My sisters were so envious. I pushed it around the block. I pushed it into town and pushed it home. I never had ridden a bike before and when I tried to stand with my feet on either side of the bike, it was not happening. That damn bar was higher than my crotch. But at no time did I think about trading it for the radio. I just let that boy eat his heart out as I pushed it past his house.
And then the tires went flat because there are a lot of goat heads on Strong Street. Mother could see no reason to have the tires fixed because it was apparent by this time that I would never ride that bike. No one ever rode it until I gave it to a boy named Johnny Isabel who lived in Hutch and I do not remember how I knew him or why, but I made a deal to sell it for $5.00 which he never paid me, but there you go!
Back to the grocery store, we always shopped at Flemings. They had a locker plant inside the store where one could rent a small freezer to store extra food that was not canned or dried. Things, like meat. Not that we ever had meat, but if we did we could have rented a small cubicle, which we never did because meat was a rarity at our house. Well, Jake would get a rabbit now and then, but not worth renting freezer space for the short period of time it took to go from dressed meat to the table to digested and forgotten.
There was a barrel for dried beans, onions, potatoes and such item. You put what you wanted in a brown paper sack and took it up and had it weighed. We were always careful with the brown paper bags because they were reused over and over. Milk bottles were refilled. Pop bottles were returned for a deposit that had been paid when the pop was purchased. Lots of times we walked the ditch along the highway to find bottles that were discarded by people who were too lazy to return them to the store. Seems like the deposit was only one or 2 cents, but it was free money and we could buy candy at Engle's store. The display case there was filled with boxes with tops removed. We pointed to which ones we wanted and the items were placed in a small brown paper bags. A nickel was usually over half a bag. As kids we never worried about "spoiling our appetite" because evening meals were few and far behind at our house.
Don't get me wrong, poverty sucks. No food sucks. Wearing "hand me downs" sucked. Walking every where was a pain. Easter was the only time we could ever hope to have anything extra and that was Easter Eggs. We had chickens that were laying hens so eggs were fairly easy to come by. Sadly eggs were either sold or cooked into something that could be shared among the 8 of us, but at Easter we got a whole egg and sometimes, if times were good, a chocolate something that resembled a rabbit. I will go on record as saying my mother tried harder than anyone else in the world. She went to clean houses every day and never asked for anything in return, except that us kids were fed. She paid the lady up the street 50 cents a week to babysit the little kids. Dad hung out at the pool hall, but as long as he was there playing dominoes, he was not home screaming at us to shut up. No television back then, so creeks and haylofts and the cemetery were our playgrounds.
Damn, I miss that life. .When I can not sleep at night, I run up and down Strong Street. I spy on Hank Windiate(sp) and Jake Smith. I listen to Rudolph Reinke singing in German as he did his chores. I see the chickens scratching in the dirt for some hidden scrap. I watch Joe Hedrick roping calves over on the corner. But mostly I just watch for my momma to come home. I have quit waiting for her and now anticipate the trip I can make to see her again. I want to see her hazel eyes and hold her thin, long fingers. But mostly I just want to see her smile when she comes to meet me. And yes, momma, I am bringing the tomato soup made the way you like it with home canned tomatoes and milk.
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