FROM WHERE I SIT Main Street Stories

In the small town where I grew up, Main Street offered all the shops one needed in the small town where I grew up. That was the place where everybody congregated on Saturday night.  There was the kids’ favorite, Potters Dime Store; mothers’ grocery shopping was done at Bob’s or Harry’s, and drug needs were filled at Setters or the Corner Drug just off Main Street.  After working in the fields all week, farmers either sat in their cars or on car fenders, smoking and visiting with other men.  Men were waiting for the “little woman” to complete her grocery shopping for the week,  and he might have an “itch” for a bit of recreation.  He could order a beer and shoot a game of pool in the low lit back room at Dick’s Recreation.   

A kids’ allowance and babysitting money was usually enough for a ticket to the movies at the Glenwood Theatre.  Usually there was a kid-friendly Saturday western starring John Wayne, Alan Ladd or Roy Rogers.  Maybe there’d be enough change to buy a box of popcorn and some Mild Duds.  A kid would sit in the balcony of the theatre and watch teenagers making out or view the thriller with a pal downstairs enjoying a double wide aisle seat.  

With a wide smile, Lee Sorset would be standing on the street corner outside Potters.  He knew everyone in town and wanted to hear their latest news.  Sometimes, on the corner of the Minton Hotel several enthusiastic purveyors of the gospel, with Bible in hand, would stop passersby to inquire, “Are You Saved?”  They were a curiousity for me as a kid, but rather frightening.  Was I saved; it was a deep thought for a kid?  Though I attended Sunday School and confirmation classes regularly, I had a few doubts...

On the northeast corner of Main Street Harry’s grocery had the best selection of candy cigarettes, big red waxed lips, tootsie rolls and coconut Neapolitan candies…even better than Potter’s Dime Story at the other end of the city block.  The candies were in cardboard candy boxes from Henry’s Candy Company and stacked just behind Harry’s checkout counter.  I loved the 3 for a nickel deals on Tootsie Roll Pops, especially the grape, orange and cherry flavors.  Sweet tarts, dots of pink, yellow and green on the long white waxed strip of paper, lasted for minutes on my tongue.  Black licorice pipes were fun to smoke, but the big red waxed lips lent a bit of glamour to my life.  Bit of Honey, wrapped in the red and yellow paper, was chewy; the pink, white and chocolate coconut squares tasted so sweet, they sometimes made my teeth ache.  I wasn’t big on visits to the dentist.  Buzzing drills hurt my ears as well as my mouth when they drilled holes in my cavities for those ugly silver fillings that Doc Gilman was big on.

Most of us will remember buying white tennies for gym class and fabric for a sewing project in home economics at Potters’ Dime Store. Wimpy’s cafe was next to the barber shop; across the street were the sweet rolls featured at the Chimes Cafe and the darkened atmosphers at Rodgers Cafe .  There was a grocery store on the southwest corner where Mrs. Sandeen clerked.  Was that grocery store the Red Owl?  Next door to that grocery was a small beer joint where little kids sat on the curb outside waiting for their parents at the bar.  So many stories, but I don’t know if Mrs. Avery, the social columnist ofThe Pope County Tribune back in the fifties and sixties, would have published several of my Main Street memories.  Dona Longaker wrote that my columns remind her of Mrs. Avery’s “Local Briefs”.

Carol Dick told us that when she was a seventh grader, her father bought a business downtown, a beer parlor with swivling stools plus the back room pool hall.  Being a teenager, she remembered how embarassing it was for her that Dad owned Dick’s Recreation.  Dona Longaker’s remembered that her dad often walked from the movie theater, which he owned, up the alley to the back door of the pool hall to play pool and smoke his Old Gold or Chesterfields cigarettes.  Hioajjjvio.l/ng no sons, he asked Dona if she wanted to come with him to the pool/ .lohoall and he would teach her to play pool.  But Dona knew that some of helr classmates might be there, maybe Ray Handorff, Dick Ziminske and others.   She felt she might embarrass herself by ripping the green felt cloth of the pool table with the pool cue.  She turned him down.

Wendy Schaub and I were too young to feel embarassed about riding our bikes in the back alley to the pool hall and going in the back door of the darkened pool hall to say hi to the guys I knew from their days at the jail.  Patiently, they taught  two  pigtailed girls to play a game of pool.  

Everyone was drawn to Main Street on Saturday night!  It was the “Happenning Place” in town.  From the cash drawing to the turkey giveaway at holidays, no one wanted to miss the week’s excitement of a Saturday night in small town America.

FROM WHERE I SIT     Nosy or Friendly Neighbors?   May 12, 2014

Pat DeKok Spilseth

Walking through my neighborhood, I see that Joan and Barb have been in their gardens, and Gayle has hung a spring wreath on her front door.  I hear noisy construction trucks roaring down the street with lumber for three new houses; the school bus is picking up kids for school; Kay and Dave are out walking and a few hoping to lose weight are running hoping to lose weight.  I know almost everyone in my neighborhood.  Buddy, my Beagle, is a magnet for me to meet new neighbors.  

In the small towns my husband and I grew up in, everybody knew everyone in town.  Sometimes, they knew too much.  Some folks would have preferred their business to remain private.  Neighbors were our friends: together we celebrated baptisms and confirmations with the expected treat, an “open Bible cake”.  At weddings, aunts or neighbor ladies poured coffee from the church’s elegant silver coffeepot and served plates of sandwiches of “dollar buns” with a slice of ham, pickles, assorted cake slices and mixed nuts and butter mints in pink, yellow and white.  

Our local weekly newspaper had a society columnist who called townspeople for social news.  She’d print the names of guests visiting local people in the Social column of the weekly paper, which everyone in town avidly read.  We read that paper front to back. What better way to keep up with who won the weekly raffle and meat giveaway, who got married, who died and what names were printed for city and county misdemeanors.  That’s the spot nobody wanted to see their name!  When Dave’s dad Maynard was cited for fishing without a license, he took a trip to Mpls to see his married daughter the day the paper came out.  He didn’t want to face the teasing of his pals.

Sometimes the newspaper editor got “heat” from upset readers.  When Shannon, an Irishman who came to town dressed in a kilt, published “The Green Sheet”, he reported tiffs going on in the city.  He wasn’t afraid of printing all the juicy gossip, no matter if someone important was involved.  He feuded with the editor of the local paper, which had been in existance for many years.  When that established editor/publisher was Ed Barsness, “The Green Sheet” labelled him BarnsMess.  How insulting!  Shannon didn’t garner friends, but he did report the news, at least what he considered news the public should hear.  The public was tantalized, waiting impatiently to read the latest scandal. Shannon didn’t last long in our small town, but while he was local, he caused quite a stir.

When a member of the community passed away, neighbors brought in tuna and hamburger casseroles, jello salads, chocolate, marble or spice cakes, bars and cookies.  Eveyone was a baker who used real butter, sugar and white flour.  Family and friends gathered on these occasions for comfort and support of their loved ones.  Tasty, homemade food was meant to be a comfort for those who had lost a family member or friend.  

When a barn or home burned, a child drowned or was hurt in a car accident, a family member was deathly ill or a spouse died, friends, with accompaning food, gathered to help.  No one in need was left to fend for themselves.  Neighbors gave neighbors rides to the doctor, picked up groceries, cleaned houses, and cared for the children of the afflicted.

Growing up on a farm, Dave’s dad would take the family on a Sunday drive to check out neighbors’ fields.  Who had already been planting or harvesting?  Who had new farm equipment?  Who had a brand new car?  Tongues really wagged if they’d bought a Cadillac!  My folks took a Sunday family drive to visit relatives and friends who lived in Starbuck or Brooten or out in the country near Glenwood.  Serving lunch to visiters was always expected.  We ate sandwiches with pickles; kids drank Kool-Aid, and parents drank coffee with Norwegians, tea among the Dutch relatives.  Pastries had been baked, not bought at the store.  Moms were stay-at-home moms who cooked meat and potato dinners, baked cakes and cookies, sewed our skirts and aprons, washed, ironed and cleaned the house. 

A few busybodies knew everything about their neighbors.  Country folks had certain “rings” for their phone calls.  Some “rubberneckers” listened in on other’s phone calls when they heard a certain ring, not their own.  Soon everyone knew who was dating the neighbor girl or boy, if some kid got in trouble at school or with the law, and if someone was drinking too much.   I wonder if at the fast-growing Friendship Villages in Florida neighbors are as informed as we were in small towns and the country?  

Today I live in a metropolitan city where life is different from life in the small towns where we grew up.  We don’t know everyone; many work quite a distance away from the neighborhood and are rarely home.  We found a home on a lake with friendly neighbors who worship with us at a small church closeby and shop at the local grocery, hardware and drug stores.  The public library, restaurants and banks are five minutes away.  All our needs are supplied nearby.  Like many neighborhoods, mine has a few odd ducks and some people who don’t speak to anyone; they’re very private, rather unfriendly.  In a way, that’s fortunate for those living next door.  There are no obligations.   Some neighbors are only summer residents, using their lake house as a getaway from the city’s heat.  We like living in this neighborhood near friends we enjoy and whose support we can count on, but we still have privacy.  962 words