Retail in the Old Days

Standing in line at a downtown store, an elderly gentleman unloads his items onto the counter, explaining to the cashier looming down at us from his disproportionately high seat, that his check was late this month but he can come back Monday to pay. From his authoritative post, the clerk responds "That’s $25 and I’ll see you Monday" bringing a smile to the customer’s face and mine, because it reminds me of the way local retail use to be.

Back in the day, I was even smaller than I am now, but so was Salem. It seemed like everyone who lived or worked here had been here forever. There were no strangers to be afraid of as we strolled around the neighborhood, little big shots being tracked by our watchful neighbors like a human GPS system. There was rarely a minute we were out of sight of someone who knew us, including the business owners who greeted us by name.

There was an Eaton’s drugstore near my house on Bridge Street, complete with an old-fashioned soda bar. I’d unscrew the seat to make it as high as possible, then sit at the counter with my legs dangling, reading Tiger Beat magazine and sipping on a root beer float or vanilla coke served in a fancy aluminum holder. I’d order a bottle of coke syrup to go (an old fashioned stomach ache soother), which would take its place on the refrigerator door next to the ever-present bottle of paregoric syrup, sold over the counter. Although I’m not exactly sure what it was for, it cured just about anything, if only by the threat of having to ingest the horrible concoction if you didn’t attest to sudden good health.

Pennies today are so undervalued we leave dishes at the registers for those who can’t be bothered keeping them. But when I was little, a penny could buy happiness. My friends and I would walk the streets scanning the cement for change, then head over to Kuzmar’s Market or Riley’s store near Collins Cove Beach for penny candy. We’d empty our pockets onto the counter, where the patient owner would separate our pennies from lint, candy wrappers and other tiny treasures. I could see candy nirvana through the glass, as I pointed to my favorites, which included wax soda bottles, fake cigarettes, pixie straws and bullseyes which I’d carefully unroll so I could eat the white middle first, caramel coating last.

I would buy things at Daniel & Low’s (now Rockafella’s) just because they had a payment system powered by a rocket ship- or so it seemed. All payments were sent to the office via a tube in a pipe that took off like a shuttle to the moon, rumbling through the building towards its distant destination- an accountant on the 2nd floor sitting behind a curtain, much like the Wizard of Oz.

Back to school shopping meant a visit to Almy’s department store in downtown Salem, where you could take a break for a seat and a snack at their lunch counter. It was common to see a long line of carriages full of merchandise to be put on layaway where it could be paid for over time. They even had their own discount warehouse store in Shetland Park, which also housed Duchess Shoe- open Saturday mornings only, to a long line of bargain hunters.

Eventually I upgraded my clothes shopping to Jack’s in downtown Salem, where I established my first charge account- a piece of cardboard paper on which they recorded your purchases and payments in pencil, interest free.

Long before leash laws existed, even our dog Chris had a neighborhood routine where everyone knew his name. His loop included a stop at Kuzmar’s Market on Bridge Street and Sobocinski’s Market on Webb Street, where they would toss him a bone- literally. I later found out that Sobocinski’s was actually named Tri Day Market, but as was customary back then, we referred to the business by the name of the owner, attesting to the close community bond we shared.

But growing up in a city where "everyone knows your name" was not always a good thing, as any mischief you were involved in would be promptly called in to your parents before you could run home to defend yourself. Reminding me that amidst even the best memories are some things we’d just as soon forget.