After breakfast we’d gather around the TV on the
floor, usually two or three feet away so we “wouldn’t ruin our eyes.” Mom and Pop would go over the grocery list,
and then head out to do the Saturday shopping at Baenziger’s (which we
mispronounced as “Baenzinger’s” all our lives) grocery store in town. He’d ask if anyone wanted to go with him, and
sometimes one or two of us would volunteer if the line-up looked boring or like
a repeat. Pop didn’t like to wrangle the
whole bunch of us if he could help it.
The benefits of going was that you might get to wheedle a Gold Key
Digest or a Classics Illustrated off the magazine rack, or maybe a little
animal out of the display boxes from the last aisle in the store.
Also you could influence the choice of kid’s cereal that week, and, if the check-out looked like it was going to be lengthy, you might finagle a gallop on the big orange horsie ride up front or a prize from the bubble gum machines. In those days your groceries were all loaded into paper bags and boxes; plastic was only for wrapping meat. Shopping took an hour or so, and once Pop got back everybody had to drop what they were doing to help bring the groceries in before they spoiled. Then it was back to cartoons.
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