Did he say thank you?

Have I ever properly thanked Weldon Hamma?
I don’t think so, but now that I’m north of 60 things have gotten a little fuzzy.
I figure it’s better to thank him twice than not at all. (If I’ve written about this before, give me a break; see the paragraph above.)
When I was a kid, back in the pre-supermarket era, there were plenty of places for a family to groceries. Kroger’s was in the building that’s now home to the Ritz; I can still smell the fresh-ground coffee beans. Marsh’s was on East Main Street where Sertech is now located. There were nearly a dozen little neighborhood groceries, and on the southside, where you can now buy a custom motorbike, there was Hamma’s.
For some reason, it was always my favorite.
Smaller than any supermarket but larger than a neighborhood grocery, Hamma’s seemed a perfect fit for the post-war 1950s. It offered great variety without being overwhelming. It offered service, but the people there knew you by your first name.
Even the kids.
In those days, my trips to Hamma’s were made in the family’s old Studebaker with my mother. And my first trips down its aisles were made in the basket seat of a grocery cart.
Those seats were intended as a convenience for parents, but I suspect I was kept there longer than usual to keep me out of trouble. I had a tendency to wander off even then.
We’d shop at other markets. Kroger’s because it was big. Loy’s on the east side. And the neighborhood markets because of their convenience.
But it was a trip to Hamma’s that always had me ready to go when I was in the kindergarten to second grade age range.
We’d go down the north aisle toward the meat counter at the west end, then work our way through the rest of the store.
But it was near the end that the magic happened.
Some cereal company had produced a large, full-color cardboard cutout of the Lone Ranger, sitting aside his faithful steed Silver while the horse was reared up on its hind legs. It was truly — to a 7-year-old — a work of art.
Its effectiveness as an advertising piece, however, remains in doubt. I have no idea what cereal it was promoting.
On the other hand, I can assure you that Wild Bill Hickock and his sidekick Jingles (played by Andy Devine) were effectively selling Sugar Pops. I know that because, fan that I was of Wild Bill and Jingles, I wheedled endlessly until my mother bought a box of Sugar Pops.
I found them dreadful. So did everyone else in the house except some weevils that found their way into the box.
But while I was loyal to Wild Bill, I was a committed Lone Ranger fan, “with a hearty hi-ho Silver!”
So every time we went through the store that summer, I stared at the Lone Ranger astride Silver and let my imagination go wild.
It got so that I’d abandon my mother as soon as she got her cart, letting her catch up to me over by the Lone Ranger display near the checkout.
Then, one day, it was gone.
These things happen. Corporate icons outlive their usefulness and are tossed on the scrap heap all the time.
But this was the Lone Ranger!
I was stunned. What could they put in his place that could ever begin to measure up?
Arthur Godfrey selling Ovaltine? Kukla, Fran, and Ollie selling Bosco?
Then Weldon Hamma came to the rescue.
He’d apparently noticed this scrawny kid with a buzz cut staring at the Lone Ranger, and when he took it down he did so carefully.
And he set it aside for my next trip to the market.
If 7-year-olds had a lottery, I would have been the big winner.
It went home with us, and for years it graced the wall of the bedroom I shared with my big brother.
I hope that back then my manners were good enough to say thank you.
But, just in case I was like most 7-year-olds, let me say this: Thanks, Weldon. You made a little kid very, very happy that day.[[In-content Ad]]