Long before supermarkets or chain stores, most neighborhoods had their "lil store". Growing up in Clear Lake, Iowa, in the 40's and 50's we also had our share. One in particular had a profound influence on me. The Mathers were the first owners I remember, and they later sold it to the Treu family. Both owners were so good at putting up with all of the little kids with our pennies and nickels as we spent way too much time making "big decisions."
The store was two blocks north of my house on Main Street. At that time, the streetcar tracks were still intact and the streetcar would make its daily 3 PM freight run from Mason City to the Clear Lake downtown depot. We would sit on the curb with our five cent, twelve-ounce bottle of Pepsi or R.C. Cola and await its passing. We always got a wave from the engineer and a blast from his horn. Not only did we sit on the curb and just wait for the streetcar, but we watched intently every passing car. The challenge was to be the first to call out name and model. It wasn't that difficult in the 40's and 50's.
When the price of pop went up to six cents, it caused a real dilemma for me and my friends. Five cents was much easier to come by! When we discovered that there was a
three cent refund on pop bottles, the search was on. We scoured the neighborhood; no alley, vacant lot, ditch or garbage can was safe from our quest. Now I must confess that our search sometimes led us to the spot where Mr Treu stored his redeemed bottles. - behind the store. After a few times of redeeming the same bottles, he caught on to our shenanigans and threatened to tell our parents. That was the end of that little trick.
When you walked into the store, the first thing that drew your attention was the candy counter. Most of the time, we never got beyond it, unless we were getting an ice cream cone-two dips for a dime. If we didn't want a cone, we surely chose a skyrocket, frost stick, Fudgesicle, or a Popsicle, which you could always share with a buddy because of the two sticks. We got our pop out of a cooler which not only contained the bottles, but also a block of ice.
The meat counter was in the back, but the only time we paid it any attention was when our mothers sent us for a pound of hamburger. The grocer would carefully weigh it out because my mother would surely know if it wasn't a full pound. He carefully, then, would wrap it up in white paper and tie it with string from the large cone that seemed to somehow be suspended from the ceiling. The mothers never gave us money for these groceries, they were just charged. The record of these transactions was kept in a cardboard box on the counter which held all the receipt books.
Speaking of charging, when my dad ran out of "Luckies", he would send me to the little store for another pack. Since he never gave me the quarter for them, they, too, were charged. I must mention that my dad went over the charge slips with the eye of a bookkeeper, which he was.
