Later today Charlie Brown’s Store in Mildred will close for the last time. I spent a couple of hours there on Wednesday, and it was like a step back in time.
Brown’s reminded me of some of the stores around the square in Humboldt of the 1950s — in particular Ace Sterling’s City Market.
I don’t think I ever saw Ace when he wasn’t wearing a white apron, with telltale stains from his meat-cutting chores. He always had a smile and an encouraging word, even for kids.
His store was close enough to the Cozy Theater — where my addiction to rock ’n’ roll started with Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” — for me to stop by after a movie for a nickel candy bar, or a cup of ice cream.
The ice cream came in little heavy paper tubs with a thin wooden spoon. Vanilla was my favorite, which may have been the only flavor. When it melted on a hot summer day, I liked to swirl the ice cream around until it took on the consistency of heavy whipped cream.
Nearby was Gravie’s Drug Store, which, as most drug stores did then, had a fountain. My friends and I delighted in its varied menu. One day we’d all get pineapple phosphates, the next a cherry limeade and occasionally just a plain old Coke.
One of the guys claimed if you dropped an aspirin in the Coke it’d have the same effect as alcohol. I was adventuresome, but never got up the courage to try it, although I was pretty sure there was nothing to his story.
Gravie’s had a nice selection of comic books, which dug deeply into my 25-cent-a-week allowance. The store also had some risqué magazine — for then it was girls in two-piece bathing suits — that’d I sneak a peek at when I didn’t think anyone was looking.
And, confessing for the first time ever, I once slipped one of the girlie magazines under my jacket as I shamefully walked out. The minor theft haunted me for months. I feared I’d be found out and tossed in the slammer.
Nearby was Bob Adams’ five-and-dime, where we bought toys, including my favorite, those balsa wood airplanes that came in three pieces and usually were good for two or three flights before splintering.
You know, there are things about the “good old days” that really were good.
— Bob Johnson
Soda fountain delights
