View Full Version : A trip back in time... a visit to the corner-store.
Remember the days? Being handed a ten-cent piece or quarter (OMG), then (all grown-up like), being granted permission to walk to the store (all by yourself) to get a handful of something special?
We had just such a corner-store when I was a kid. It was family-owned, and I remember how Mr & Mrs. J, could always be found behind the counter. She and her husband knew all of us kids by our first and last names, and looking back on it now, they always had our best interests.
She and her husband would come right around the counter (customer side) and help us get the most of our money. "You can get two of those and four of those", Mrs, J, would say...
One of the highlights of the trip, was spinning the wire-trees and pawing through all of the toy items hanging from them. Plastic jewelery, foam-flyer airplanes, plastic army men, squirt-guns, whistles... the J's corner-store had everything, and there was a distinct smell when you entered. A delicious kid smell of candy!
And when we were extra-lucky, we'd arrive at the store with enough to buy an ice-cream treat from the freezer! Chocolate-dipped waffle cones, Fudgesicles, Freezies, ice-cream sandwiches, and a unique ice-cream treat that came in a toilet-paper like tube, where you'd remove the paper-top, then push up with your thumbs to extend the cylinder of ice-cream out the top! Those were so good!
Anyhow, if you remember, come share your corner-store memories with me.
miradoblackwarrior
8-15-12, 10:15am
I remember a corner store at the lake resort we used to have a camp at during the summer. Joe used to wake us up every morning with horking up and spitting over the back rail of his porch. Then the place would open and we could get the usual bread/milk/scary cold cuts, etc. It wa the best place for Zero candy bars, a Royal Palm grape soda, and a comic book, which is where my entire weekly allowance disappeared to. At the time, it couldn't have cost even a dollar. When I was twelve I tried to smoke, buying a single (illegal) pack of cigarettes and running into the woods to light up. Yuck! Funny, as I write this description, I think of it fondly. Considering how ugh it sounds!
Susan
cattledog
8-15-12, 10:24am
Where I grew up, I used to always ride my bike to the little drug store downtown. It also carried comic books and a big aisle of nickel and dime candy. I spent my entire allowance there. I'd buy a big bag of candy (Jolly Ranchers, Laffy Taffy, candy cigarettes, Now and Laters, etc.). I'd have to come home and hide my stash somewhere in my room so my mom wouldn't find it. :)
gimmethesimplelife
8-15-12, 12:18pm
I remember when I was little - like around 8 years old - we were living in a small town in what was then rural New Hampshire - it has now been swallowed up by the suburbs of Boston, though - and there was a small corner store across from the parking lot to the town pond, and I could get a candy bar there for ten cents! Wow, they are like $1.29 now at Circle K but this was back in 1975. I loved getting my weekly candy bar there in the summer and then hanging out by the town pond for hours.....Rob
Gas stations seemed to have a good choice of candy too.
We had a store about 4 blocks away. I can remember when I was about 8-9 going in there to check things out and I found little clear boxes of small squares of things wrapped in different colors of tin foil proudly displayed right by the cash register. Guess what it was? Chocolate covered ants/bees, etc. I'm afraid that was one candy I was NEVER interested in. hahaha
Awww... not "ugh" at all, Miradoblackwarrior. I started smoking when I was around 16, and Mrs. J, although she never said anything to us girls who did smoke, I could tell she didn't like it, but isn't that the way life goes.
Cattledog. Candy-cigarettes, were sooo good, weren't they! Our favourite was adding ten, fifteen, or twenty-five cents worth of mixed (loose candy) to the little teeny-weeny brown paper bags Mr & Mrs. J, would give us. There was caramels, bubble gum, Gobstoppers, hard-candy, soft-candy, Red Hots (remember those), and an endless variety of others to be had. We'd stand at the counter (hee-ing and haw-ing) over the selection, wishing we could live at the store so we could eat as much as we could! LMAO!
Oh, yeah, Rob, chocolate bars are still a favourite of mine today! Back then, Coffee Crisp, Oh-Henry bars, and Kit-Kats, were my favourite choices in chocolate bars. Even today I still occasionally get a hankering for a Kit-Kat!
Ugh... No chocolate-covered bees or ants for me either, CathyA!
Oh yes.......O'Henry bars. Are they even around any more? I remember Tommy Frank in 6th grade. He sat next to me. During lunch (I had a little O'Henry bar for desert), he picked it up and called "Oh Henry!..........Coming mother" and pretended to take it. haha isn't it funny what we remember? I guess I remember everything that happened around chocolate. haha
Gas stations seemed to have a good choice of candy too.
We had a store about 4 blocks away. I can remember when I was about 8-9 going in there to check things out and I found little clear boxes of small squares of things wrapped in different colors of tin foil proudly displayed right by the cash register. Guess what it was? Chocolate covered ants/bees, etc. I'm afraid that was one candy I was NEVER interested in. hahaha
Ahh, I thought you were going to say, condoms (!)
LOL Lainey..........those were probably in the back room.
decemberlov
8-16-12, 10:12am
Mary Janes were my favorite!!
We have a corner store in our neighborhood. My girls ride their bikes down there for $0.75 popsicles on hot days. The man that runs the store is so sweet! During school months he gives me the left over rolls at the end of the day that don't sell, I use them for lunches for the kids. Funny but this is one of the things that I was so excited about when we moved in the neighborhood was my girls being able to experience corner store memories :)
I first walked to a store with my friend and her older sister when I was about five. It was probably about 6-8 blocks away, which seemed pretty far at the time. My brother was in college at the time, and he sent me a letter asking me to go to the store and get him a certain brand of drink mix (like Kool-aid but something else) that he couldn't get where he lived. He sent some huge amount of money like $3.00 and told me to get as many packets as I could with that amount of money. I went on the quest by myself, and it seemed like a really long way to the store and I wasn't sure if I was lost, but I got there. I felt really mature and responsible completing this quest!
When I was older I almost always spent my whole allowance on candy. My usual purchases: Bub's Daddy bubble gum, Gold Rush gum, Three Musketeers, Hershey bars, Milky Way, and Wacky Packages.
The corner store we have now is actually just a few houses down at the corner, and it's an Asian grocery. My son goes there to get candy and his usual things are Pocky and Airheads.
Love, love, love, everyone's entries!
Speaking of Gold Rush Gum, I totally forgot about it! With it's own (off white) linen/fabric cloth sack!
All kids should be so lucky as to experience corner-store memories.
Anyone else ALWAYS have to run to the store (for your mom) to buy cigarettes?
Square Peg
8-17-12, 1:39pm
Mrs. M, can I ask how old you are?
I grew up in a town of 6000. We lived right in town. 2 blocks down, we had a corner store. It was next to a gas station, it looked like it could be the store attached to the gas station, but it was just a store. It was named Zips but everybody called it The Little Store, which kind of ran together like it was one word: Want to go to the littlestore? Eventually a parent of a friend bought it and changed the name to the Little Store. It still is that today. We went and visited last year. They now have a deli, but the racks are the same ones from when I was little.
My sister and I would walk down there. We would either have 50 cents each to get our own cans of soda or we would have 65 cents to split one bottle (the chubby plastic bottles of the early 80s, not the glass bottles) and we would get candy. I would usually choose a Charleston Chew or a 100 Grand, since they were both bigger and gave me the most bang for my buck, or so I thought.
My mom made us go in and get smokes for her frequently. This was pack in the day where if you were tall enough to see over the counter you were old enough to buy cigarettes.
Oh man, popsicles.....banana ones, blueberry ones. And orange push-ups. It would be so much fun to be transported back in time for just an hour, to look around the store........
Anyone remember the candy beads that you'd wear, and slowly eat while they were around your neck?
And Wise potato chips.....yum.
Anyone remember waking up with bubble gum in your hair?????????
Tussiemussies
8-18-12, 5:09am
Unfortunately I lived in a suburban development and there were no corner stores to be found... Think I missed out on a little bit of fun there...:)
Sometimes the school in our neighborhood, which was a strange place to put a school, had free movies on the weekends and they would have a table set up with candy. I loved the roll- up red licorice and the gold rush gum. Milky way bars were my favorite.
Square Peg. I'm 48, going on 30... Love your corner-store memories.
Bunnys. There was no kidding the J's, for they new everybody, and weren't past calling up parents (if need be). :)
Right about the Popsicles, CathyA. Popsicles, always provided up kids with "good bang for our buck"! So good! Re: Candy Necklaces, oh yeah, I remember them! The stretchy elastic-string used to drive me crazy! And yes, orange push-ups! The ice cream treats that came in a toilet paper like tube?
Tussie. I think I remember roll-up licorice! Red licorice, is still my very favourite! Haven't had licorice in so long...
Tussiemussies
8-18-12, 9:22am
Square Peg. I'm 48, going on 30... Love your corner-store memories.
Bunnys. There was no kidding the J's, for they new everybody, and weren't past calling up parents (if need be). :)
Right about the Popsicles, CathyA. Popsicles, always provided up kids with "good bang for our buck"! So good! Re: Candy Necklaces, oh yeah, I remember them! The stretchy elastic-string used to drive me crazy! And yes, orange push-ups! The ice cream treats that came in a toilet paper like tube?
Tussie. I think I remember roll-up licorice! Red licorice, is still my very favourite! Haven't had licorice in so long...
Hi Mrs.M, haven't had red licorice in so long too, it's one of my favorites! Used to get it at the movie theatres but I have given up all sugar since my Mom became diabetic...I feel so much better without sugar!
Marathon Bars which were a lattice caramel-covered in milk chocolate that you could stretch as you ate it so which of course meant that you still had a full bar even if you'd actually eaten 1/2 of the candy.
My family members all had a weakness for sweets. At one time the folks imposed draconian battle of the bulge restrictions. No candy or soda pop except on Friday nights. Dad would drive us all down to a place I only remember as being called "the candy store" on Fridays for a feeding sugar frenzy. Us kids would get a sickening sweet Nehi orange or grape soda, a candy bar, and a hand full of penny candy. Penny candy consisted of candy cigarettes, little wax things filled with a small amount of sweet liquid, and flavored wax lips among other more common things. Sometimes after hitting the candy store we would take everything to the drive-in movies for a double feature with a little popcorn. It was quite a wild evening.
LOL, Tussie! Red licorice and popcorn, were two of my longstanding staples when it came to movie-going!
ROTFLMAO, Bunnys! I remember over-accentuating soda pop-drinking as a kid. Instead of taking a healthy swig, I'd savour the moment by allowing the soda-pop into my mouth in a "seeping" fashion, then gulp slowly. I wanted (so bad) a never-ending bottle of soda pop!
Yes, Rogar, I remember those liquid-candy filled wax thingies! I especially remember the miniature bottle ones, and the liquid was so colourful! Colourful and good! LOL!
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