The Good Stuff

When I was a little kid, we wouldn’t have dreamed of throwing a tantrum in the A&P.

For one thing, my grandfather was an accountant who worked in their big office downtown. How would it look if his grandkids were the type who threw themselves in front of the Hershey bars and pitched a fit?

For another thing, we knew everyone in the A&P. Joyce, the gal whose check-out line my mom always chose over Jo Ann’s even though Jo Ann was nearly as lightning-fast, never failed to address Lizzie and Mary Baillie and me by name, and sometimes gave us each a stick of gum if we behaved.

The A&P might as well have been an extension of St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church, for that matter. Whenever you showed up (except on Sunday, of course, when all shops were closed for the Sabbath), there was Mrs. Ryffe, Mrs. Park, Mrs. Ramm, and Mrs. Como.

(We never saw Father Jacobowski or Monsignor Schumacher or Sister Sheila Ann there, though, which pretty much sealed my belief that holy people—like the saints in heaven—don’t need to eat.)

If we acted up in the store, believe you me, those ladies of the church would have been watching for us in line at confession on Saturday.

So we didn’t nag or whine or pound our fists to get what we wanted, and yet I remember lots of fun stuff being hauled home from the store—the kind of stuff that cost between a nickel and twenty-nine cents back in those days.

When I say “lots of fun stuff,” you gotta understand I mean maybe one small item per child every couple of months. And I suspect even those purchases delayed us getting new saddle oxfords until our toes were pinched.

Back in the day, when kids were actually rewarded for good behavior instead of bad, Little Golden Books rated. My mother still has our 45-year-old copy of “The Poky Little Puppy,” a classic which I saw a youngster bawling for just yesterday at Walmart. (Yeah, right…)

A yo-yo was something which never failed to thrill, and a set of jacks—even though we knew our knuckles would be skinned by sunset—meant neighborhood fun on the sidewalks of Grand Avenue.

Doug says that marbles were high on his list, and that explains the huge coffee can of marbles that occupies a shelf in our basement.

(I call the can our “retirement fund,” but I still haven’t gotten around to researching the value of antique marbles…if we end up moving to one of those countries where you can have a maid, a gardener, and a cook on an income of $600 per month, you’ll know the marbles didn’t pan out.)

When he wasn’t losing his marbles, he was enjoying the comic books he scored for being an exemplary kid. He also remembers distinctly when Superballs hit the market, and he was such a nice boy that he collected quite an assortment of them.

Silly Putty was a perrenial (or, perhaps, perennial…) favorite. My dad, who normally wouldn’t entered a shop to save his life, once came home from work with three egg-shaped containers of the goofy stuff—one for each of the three of us, all in bed with the mumps. Yeah. Silly Putty ruled.

What about Magic Slates? Do they still make those? I craved fresh Magic Slates almost like my daily bread. I loved etching intricate pictures on the filmy panel, but I only wanted to lift the film to make my artwork “disappear” if I hated my picture. If I loved it, I hid the Magic Slate. Who wants to lose a creation they love?

The only solution I could think of was to be really, REALLY good the next time we went to the store, so that maybe by some miracle involving my mother having nineteen more cents to spare, I could have another one.

Only one item gave me shivers if it made it into the grocery cart and all the way home—a wooden paddle with a ball on the end of a rubber band.

Those puppies cost a quarter, which would have been on the high end of disposable income in our family. And they lasted less than a day before vigorous play resulted in the ball breaking loose from the paddle—and then what?

You can guess what, that’s what. Now that I think about it, Mom never objected when one of us wanted the paddle with the ball. You might say she saw the “end” from the beginning.

Any trinkets you remember scoring from forays to the grocery or the five-and-dime?

And did you get them because you were very, very good, or because you were horrid?

Posted by Katy on 10/19/05 at 06:57 AM

Fallible Comments...

Doug says he thinks he gave the coffee can of marbles to one of the kids....Ummm...Scott, Carrie or Kevin--We've lost our marbles! Either return them to us no questions asked, or plan on supporting us in our declining years. Hello? Can you hear me now? :)
Posted by Katy on 10/19/05 at 08:37 AM
I love your stories of your childhood - makes stories like that real for me knowing someone who lived them :) My childhood was marked with abuse, so I don't remember much. But, I do remember having very little money for anything extra and being very grateful for two or three simple presents at Christmas. I'm sure I behaved in public, but I don't remember.

As a mom, I have an ADHD child with other medical issues on meds, and her behavior would not "measure up" to that which some would expect it should many times. I've learned to focus only on my child and not on what others may or may not be thinking or on their "looks" at us :)

I've found that my girls "wants" are fleeting. If I fulfill their "wants," it's almost always wasteful. They enjoy things more when they earn the money to purchase them or when they earn the privalege for Mommy to purchase them. :)

I love your previous story about the matching dresses with full skirts! My girls LOVE dresses that can twirl and float on the breeze - it's so fun watching little, feminine girls in their pretty things!!!!!
Posted by Ame on 10/19/05 at 09:43 AM
Wow...all four of those...my dad bought me silly putty too, for my birthday (oh I miss him)...my grandfather carved me a slingshot and those paddleballs (how I wish he had the strength to carve now)...I could never get enough of the magic sketch pads (my mother would probably love to keep buying them for me now)...

Wow. And yes, I got them because I was very very good. Being horrid only got me a bad picture day (my mother's favourite punishment was to snap a photo of my tantrum and show it to her family...eventually, whenever she pulled out the camera I became a pleasure child...) or a much needed spanking.

Speaking of which, I heard those were "bad parenting skills" nowadays. I don't know, they sure shaped me up when a talking-to didn't work!
Posted by Lynn on 10/19/05 at 02:16 PM
Gosh, I LOVE the "bad picture days," Lynn - I might try that :) Especially for my 8 year old - she is so vain! hehehehehe :)
Posted by Ame on 10/19/05 at 06:44 PM
When my Mom used to take me to the Food City down the road on Saturday mornings, all she'd have to do would be to park me in front of the magazine rack on the pet food aisle. I would sit there for however long reading comic books -- Sonic the Hedgehog, Superman, Superboy, Star Wars adventures, you name it -- without so much of a peep until it was time to go. Of course when that time rolled around, I had already preselected the best in class of the comic books. How could they be left behind? They were a continuation of the story from last week! I must have them!

Last year I donated a large amount of those old comic books to the Goodwill down the street from our house. I hope someone else enjoys them...
Posted by Kevin on 10/20/05 at 07:00 AM
First off, Katy...you MUST put this in the Star Magazine (with some revisions, of course). What great memories of the A&P!!!

I was the spoiled youngest, I know. I got a Golden Book every time I went to A&P with Mom. My collection was a vast one...too bad Mom made me give them away to Liz when she had Erin. (Why would I need them anymore, she asked..) I can still see how ripped and drawn-on they became. It broke my heart.

I also remember getting coloring books and crayons a lot, not only from there but also from TG&Y.

Great memories...you made me smile.
Posted by Bridget on 10/20/05 at 11:09 AM
Oh what a lovely memory trip you took me on this morning. I remember all those treats. My mom would phone in our grocery order every Thursday and my dad would bring it home that night. Up until we could read we got some candy every week. I still remember the week I got a comic book instead of candy. I was little enough that I still wanted the candy but I love the rhythm that those comic books gave to my life.
Posted by Hope on 10/26/05 at 10:00 AM
Really interesting article about her great stuff.its amazing.In this article Magic Slates almost like my daily bread. I loved etching intricate pictures on the filmy panel has been good..
Posted by ZOJIRUSHI Bread Maker on 09/25/09 at 04:16 AM

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Personal blog of christian writer & fallible mom Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri Katy is represented by Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Read more Katy at LateBoomer.net Follow Katy on Twitter Follow Katy on Facebook 123 Recent Posts Try Becoming Brenda Starr Off Beat Scattered That’s It So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What? The Spoon Sciatica Sweetheart A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices. As with everything in life, balance is key. Slow down, you move too fast… Yeah, I know. I have issues. Search Advanced Search Syndicate Login E me at katy @ ngenius.com	The Good Stuff When I was a little kid, we wouldn’t have dreamed of throwing a tantrum in the A&P. For one thing, my grandfather was an accountant who worked in their big office downtown. How would it look if his grandkids were the type who threw themselves in front of the Hershey bars and pitched a fit? For another thing, we knew everyone in the A&P. Joyce, the gal whose check-out line my mom always chose over Jo Ann’s even though Jo Ann was nearly as lightning-fast, never failed to address Lizzie and Mary Baillie and me by name, and sometimes gave us each a stick of gum if we behaved. The A&P might as well have been an extension of St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church, for that matter. Whenever you showed up (except on Sunday, of course, when all shops were closed for the Sabbath), there was Mrs. Ryffe, Mrs. Park, Mrs. Ramm, and Mrs. Como. (We never saw Father Jacobowski or Monsignor Schumacher or Sister Sheila Ann there, though, which pretty much sealed my belief that holy people—like the saints in heaven—don’t need to eat.) If we acted up in the store, believe you me, those ladies of the church would have been watching for us in line at confession on Saturday. So we didn’t nag or whine or pound our fists to get what we wanted, and yet I remember lots of fun stuff being hauled home from the store—the kind of stuff that cost between a nickel and twenty-nine cents back in those days. When I say “lots of fun stuff,” you gotta understand I mean maybe one small item per child every couple of months. And I suspect even those purchases delayed us getting new saddle oxfords until our toes were pinched. Back in the day, when kids were actually rewarded for good behavior instead of bad, Little Golden Books rated. My mother still has our 45-year-old copy of “The Poky Little Puppy,” a classic which I saw a youngster bawling for just yesterday at Walmart. (Yeah, right…) A yo-yo was something which never failed to thrill, and a set of jacks—even though we knew our knuckles would be skinned by sunset—meant neighborhood fun on the sidewalks of Grand Avenue. Doug says that marbles were high on his list, and that explains the huge coffee can of marbles that occupies a shelf in our basement. (I call the can our “retirement fund,” but I still haven’t gotten around to researching the value of antique marbles…if we end up moving to one of those countries where you can have a maid, a gardener, and a cook on an income of $600 per month, you’ll know the marbles didn’t pan out.) When he wasn’t losing his marbles, he was enjoying the comic books he scored for being an exemplary kid. He also remembers distinctly when Superballs hit the market, and he was such a nice boy that he collected quite an assortment of them. Silly Putty was a perrenial (or, perhaps, perennial…) favorite. My dad, who normally wouldn’t entered a shop to save his life, once came home from work with three egg-shaped containers of the goofy stuff—one for each of the three of us, all in bed with the mumps. Yeah. Silly Putty ruled. What about Magic Slates? Do they still make those? I craved fresh Magic Slates almost like my daily bread. I loved etching intricate pictures on the filmy panel, but I only wanted to lift the film to make my artwork “disappear” if I hated my picture. If I loved it, I hid the Magic Slate. Who wants to lose a creation they love? The only solution I could think of was to be really, REALLY good the next time we went to the store, so that maybe by some miracle involving my mother having nineteen more cents to spare, I could have another one. Only one item gave me shivers if it made it into the grocery cart and all the way home—a wooden paddle with a ball on the end of a rubber band. Those puppies cost a quarter, which would have been on the high end of disposable income in our family. And they lasted less than a day before vigorous play resulted in the ball breaking loose from the paddle—and then what? You can guess what, that’s what. Now that I think about it, Mom never objected when one of us wanted the paddle with the ball. You might say she saw the “end” from the beginning. Any trinkets you remember scoring from forays to the grocery or the five-and-dime? And did you get them because you were very, very good, or because you were horrid? Posted by Katy on 10/19/05 at 06:57 AM Fallible Comments... Doug says he thinks he gave the coffee can of marbles to one of the kids....Ummm...Scott, Carrie or Kevin--We've lost our marbles! Either return them to us no questions asked, or plan on supporting us in our declining years. Hello? Can you hear me now? :) Posted by Katy on 10/19/05 at 08:37 AM I love your stories of your childhood - makes stories like that real for me knowing someone who lived them :) My childhood was marked with abuse, so I don't remember much. But, I do remember having very little money for anything extra and being very grateful for two or three simple presents at Christmas. I'm sure I behaved in public, but I don't remember. As a mom, I have an ADHD child with other medical issues on meds, and her behavior would not "measure up" to that which some would expect it should many times. I've learned to focus only on my child and not on what others may or may not be thinking or on their "looks" at us :) I've found that my girls "wants" are fleeting. If I fulfill their "wants," it's almost always wasteful. They enjoy things more when they earn the money to purchase them or when they earn the privalege for Mommy to purchase them. :) I love your previous story about the matching dresses with full skirts! My girls LOVE dresses that can twirl and float on the breeze - it's so fun watching little, feminine girls in their pretty things!!!!! Posted by Ame on 10/19/05 at 09:43 AM Wow...all four of those...my dad bought me silly putty too, for my birthday (oh I miss him)...my grandfather carved me a slingshot and those paddleballs (how I wish he had the strength to carve now)...I could never get enough of the magic sketch pads (my mother would probably love to keep buying them for me now)... Wow. And yes, I got them because I was very very good. Being horrid only got me a bad picture day (my mother's favourite punishment was to snap a photo of my tantrum and show it to her family...eventually, whenever she pulled out the camera I became a pleasure child...) or a much needed spanking. Speaking of which, I heard those were "bad parenting skills" nowadays. I don't know, they sure shaped me up when a talking-to didn't work! Posted by Lynn on 10/19/05 at 02:16 PM Gosh, I LOVE the "bad picture days," Lynn - I might try that :) Especially for my 8 year old - she is so vain! hehehehehe :) Posted by Ame on 10/19/05 at 06:44 PM When my Mom used to take me to the Food City down the road on Saturday mornings, all she'd have to do would be to park me in front of the magazine rack on the pet food aisle. I would sit there for however long reading comic books -- Sonic the Hedgehog, Superman, Superboy, Star Wars adventures, you name it -- without so much of a peep until it was time to go. Of course when that time rolled around, I had already preselected the best in class of the comic books. How could they be left behind? They were a continuation of the story from last week! I must have them! Last year I donated a large amount of those old comic books to the Goodwill down the street from our house. I hope someone else enjoys them... Posted by Kevin on 10/20/05 at 07:00 AM First off, Katy...you MUST put this in the Star Magazine (with some revisions, of course). What great memories of the A&P!!! I was the spoiled youngest, I know. I got a Golden Book every time I went to A&P with Mom. My collection was a vast one...too bad Mom made me give them away to Liz when she had Erin. (Why would I need them anymore, she asked..) I can still see how ripped and drawn-on they became. It broke my heart. I also remember getting coloring books and crayons a lot, not only from there but also from TG&Y. Great memories...you made me smile. Posted by Bridget on 10/20/05 at 11:09 AM Oh what a lovely memory trip you took me on this morning. I remember all those treats. My mom would phone in our grocery order every Thursday and my dad would bring it home that night. Up until we could read we got some candy every week. I still remember the week I got a comic book instead of candy. I was little enough that I still wanted the candy but I love the rhythm that those comic books gave to my life. Posted by Hope on 10/26/05 at 10:00 AM Really interesting article about her great stuff.its amazing.In this article Magic Slates almost like my daily bread. I loved etching intricate pictures on the filmy panel has been good.. Posted by ZOJIRUSHI Bread Maker on 09/25/09 at 04:16 AM Page 1 of 1 pages Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Next entry: Late Bloomer? Previous entry: Autumn Vision << Back to main


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Personal blog of christianwriter & fallible momKaty McKenna Raymondin Kansas City, Missouri

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The Good Stuff

Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri