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When I started working in a grocery store at Wink, Texas, about 1930 things were quite different than in grocery stores now. However, we have made the cycle of not marking the grocery items with marking pencils, and then rubber stamps. Now we are back to items not marked individually but having computer scanning bars. When checking groceries we had to remember the price of each and every item in the store. A lot of our food stuffs come in bulk so we had to sack them. We got sugar, rice, beans, salt and many other things that we put in brown paper bags with markings showing what was in them. We had vinegar in a barrel. It had a wooden spigot. People would bring a pint or quart bottle to be filled. We sold eggs from a box on the checking stand. They were loose and were sacked in brown bags by the checker. I learned to juggle three potatoes, onions or oranges, etc. When I got real good at this I would stop checking and entertain the customers by juggling three eggs at a time. With a little practice again I can still do this. I remember we sold what we called "bunch vegetables" for one penny a bunch -- turnip greens, collard greens, green onions, carrots, radishes and mustard greens, etc. Milk bottles had a hefty deposit on them and were returned to be refilled - talk about ecology! What if we had the love and patriotism to do that today. |