Chain stores can't compare (10/4/04)

Potting soil. It’s the last thing I have added to my list of odds and ends to pick up from the store. If someone had told me that I would one day pay good money for dirt I would never had believed them. After all, the stuff is everywhere. All one has to do is dig it up and if you need rich loam then there is a certain spot in the pasture … oh.

That’s the problem. There aren’t any pastures around my house. I doubt if most farmers would appreciate a stranger digging holes wherever their cows gather to ruminate and recycle their food. Besides, it’s not the best idea in the world to mess with other people’s livestock.

Many things I used to take for granted no longer exist or have become novelties. The other items on my list would best be found in a five-and-dime. For those who have no idea what a five-and-dime is think Wal-Mart only smaller and staffed by helpful little old ladies who are never in a bad mood. For some reason young people and men never worked in those places or if they did then they didn’t deal with the public.

These precursors to chain stores had an eclectic assortment of merchandise. One could buy oilcloth with either red or blue checks to be used for a tablecloth. It hung on rolls that were longer than a child was tall and was cut to the requested length. The establishments sold playing cards, greeting cards, clothes, china and toys. They carried picture frames, shovels and underwear. Lots of underwear. All of it white. That was back in the days before undergarments were meant to be seen.

In the back room with the underwear was the fabric or material as it was usually called. The little old ladies would run the cloth through the gray metal attachment on the table to measure the yardage. The machine would nip the fabric at the proper spot whereupon the saleslady would rip the goods in two. It always tore in a straight line.

Once when we went to Memphis, Tenn. we stopped at A. Schwabs, a local dry goods store. It was like stepping back in time. That was the first time my daughter had seen one of the material measurers or whatever they are properly called. She was amazed that it still worked.

That store also sold voodoo supplies, which I had never seen before, but I suppose they could come in handy. It might give a whole new meaning to road rage or going postal. But as we seem to be firmly in the Bible Belt I doubt if voodoo supplies would be popular in Indiana or that anyone around here would know how to utilize them. I certainly wouldn’t.

I am also looking for something my mother refers to as a credit card holder. Any respectable ten-cent store would have these things up by the cash register and it would be advertised as something to hold photographs not credit cards. It is going to take some doing to find this. Mom has a habit of desiring items that haven’t been manufactured for at least a decade. She is convinced that if they made something once then somewhere, someplace, there still exists at least one just waiting for her to buy or for me to find it and buy it for her.

I have added several more things to my list of purchases while I have been writing this column. Some of the things didn’t exist in the days of the five-and-dimes but if they had the women working there could hand me one in a matter of seconds or recommend a perfect substitute.

As this is no longer a possibility you will find me wandering around the store tonight with a giant bag of potting soil in my cart while mumbling about the demise of the personalized service of days long past. Just be glad our local store doesn’t carry voodoo instruction booklets or supplies.[[In-content Ad]]