Our family’s major grocery shopping was usually done at Harlingen’s
H.E.B. or Piggly Wiggly stores, where better prices and selections justified
driving eight miles each way. However,
we often purchased fresh meats from (1) Post’s Grocery (across the street from
our apartment) or (2) Worcester’s, the small supermarket a couple of blocks up
Main Street, as well as (3) Moreno’s, across the highway and railroad tracks,
on the north side of town.
Some of
our food came straight from the farm; Mrs. Herman Krehbiel, the wife of my dad’s
fellow-employee at Valley Tile & Marble, often sold (or gave) us
products grown/raised on their acreage.
(I first heard the expression “Baker’s dozen” after Mother began buying
eggs from her, for Mrs. Krehbiel’s dozens often totaled thirteen.)
I
discovered differences between American and German tastes as a result of
friendship with the Krehbiel’s, most notably when I
watched them make blood sausage (“bloodwurst,” according to Charlie Gates, a member
of my Bible study class at church) after killing a hog. We didn’t buy any of the Krehbiel’s
“bloodwurst;” I doubt if I could have
eaten it had I known what I was consuming, having seen it being made. [Twila reminds me that Mrs. Krehbiel’s
cinnamon streusel was delicious (as were many other foods she prepared), so I
don’t want to leave the impression that all their tastes were at variance with
ours.]
Harlingen was the source of most of our wearing apparel. We bought ready-made suits and trousers, but
Mother bought yard goods for making (1) shirts and undershorts for my dad and
me and (2) dresses for herself and Twila.
My only specific memory of shopping for clothing for myself involved a suit,
when I liked a brown one I found, but my parents insisted on blue (their
favorite color, and possibly more “suitable” for my skin coloring).
Actually,
I was involved with little shopping of any type, except for small items (e.g.,
school supplies) readily obtainable at the local “Five-and-Ten,” which was our
source for Masterpiece Loose Leaf Note Book Paper, a
product of Practical Drawing Company of Dallas and Mercedes. (Seals
printed on its wrappers could be saved and cashed in for pens, harmonicas,
cameras, or other “goodies.” Knowing
the speed with which one acquired requisite coupons for the item he desired was
directly proportional to the amount of paper used mitigated against economy in
its usage – Practical Drawing Company knew what it was doing.)
We shopped for relatively few hard-goods (except those my dad purchased
for use in his trade). I’ve mentioned
the bikes purchased for Twila and me at a Harlingen bicycle shop, and a nice
Philco radio bought at an Edinburg furniture store; I recall nothing else of
consequence. We had no reason to shop
for furniture or appliances, because our rented apartment was furnished.
Furnishings
didn’t include laundry facilities. I
don’t remember how our laundry was done our first year in La Feria, but in
later years Mrs. Krehbiel picked up our dirty laundry, washed, dried, folded, and returned
it. I’m sure her charges were
reasonable, and returned laundry was often accompanied by surplus product(s)
from their farm.
My parents purchased two automobiles while we lived in La Feria, but
both were bought in Fort Worth during summer trips. Mr. R.E. (Bob) Anderson, our
landlord, sold Fords for a Harlingen dealership, so I wondered what he thought
about our buying cars from others.
Shopping
for automobiles in La Feria would have been impossible for our family, for my
dad was a Ford man, and the only local automobile dealership sold Hudsons and
Terraplanes. (Terraplanes, much like
Hudsons except in name, offered electric shifting as an option; as I understood
that feature, one used the clutch when engaging low gear, then could shift into
higher gears without depressing/engaging the clutch, but I had no understanding
of the electro/mechanical concepts involved.)
Shopping for food was serious business, for we either (1) ate most of
our meals at home or (2) carried lunches prepared from materials at home. Mother made lists before shopping, to be
sure she prepared adequately for family needs.
Our apartment refrigerator wouldn’t accommodate a large supply of food,
so she often purchased fresh meat for an evening meal during the afternoon
before she started cooking, at Post’s Grocery across the street from our Main
Street apartment or Worcester’s (pronounced Wooster’s), only a couple of blocks
away. (When Twila and I weren’t in
school, she often sent one of us to get a chicken, a slice of center-cut ham or
round steak, or, on economy days, a pound and a half of hamburger.)
She prepared breakfast twice on weekdays – early for herself and my dad
(who always arose about six, dressed, ate, and left for work), then a bit later
for Twila and me. Lunch preparation was
easy when she was alone, for she usually ate leftovers from a previous day’s
supper; Twila and I either took sack lunches to school or ate in the school
cafeteria until our final year in La Feria, when we frequently went home for
lunch.
I carried sack lunches more often than not while in sixth and seventh
grades, but ate in the cafeteria more regularly after reaching high
school. (Junior and senior high
students were served by a single cafeteria located in the basement of the high
school building, which was separated from the junior high by about three
hundred yards of school grounds.) Lunch
cost ten cents; my favorite menu was chili over grits, green beans, two slices
of buttered bread, and a glass of milk.
Supper was the main meal at home on weekdays, because my dad was away
at noon. Mother was a good cook, always
devoting adequate time to food preparation, so supper was enjoyable.
Years
later Mother told me she had a standard supper menu for each weekday evening,
therefore never had to try to decide what we would have for our evening meals;
I hadn’t been aware of our “programmed” menus.
Our family almost never ate out, even when traveling (we usually
carried food with us), for nothing like today’s fast food outlets existed, and
short-order restaurants weren’t numerous.
One could sometimes find a “hamburger stand” or “drive-in” somewhat
resembling today’s fast-food emporiums, but food wasn’t prepared until ordered,
regardless of where one ate.
[Austin’s “SOMEWHERE”
stands (featuring superb “Someburgers”) were some of the first
“drive-in” eating places (without indoor seating) I can recall; I don’t know
when the “SOMEWHERE” chain was started, but I patronized them when
living in Austin in the early ‘50s. A
& W drive-in restaurants existed in the ‘30s and early ‘40s, but I saw
none in the places we traveled.]
Although our family seldom, if ever, ate out, Twila has reminded me
that we sometimes had Saturday night “take-out” meals from either of two La
Feria sources:
·
Tacos could be bought “three for ten cents” at a small
stand on the north side of town. That
taco stand was a far cry from today’s “Taco Bell” restaurants. If I’d heard the name “Taco Bell” then I
might have thought it was the Mexican telephone company.
[Thinking
further about telephone operations and Mexican foods, I’ve heard that Alexander
Graham Kowalski was the first telephone “pole” and
that “Chili today, hot tamale” is a Mexican weather forecast.]
·
We could buy good hamburgers from the “Wander Inn,” a short order
restaurant located less than a hundred yards from our house – across Main Street,
in the next block, at the edge of the business district – at a cost of ten
cents each, or three for a quarter.
I sometimes ate at the “Wander Inn” on summer days when Mother, having
to be away from home at lunchtime, left fifteen cents for my noon meal – which
would buy a nice juicy hamburger and a twelve-ounce RC Cola.
The
owner/operator of the “Wander Inn” was called Tony; I never
knew his surname. His one-man
hamburger-making setup was unique. The secret
to his efficiency seemed to lie in the placement of a group of crock containers
– inset so their tops were level with the grill and counter-top – adjacent to
the grill, containing “additives” (i.e., mayonnaise, mustard, pickles, chopped
lettuce, thin-sliced tomatoes, and chopped onions).
Tony built
hamburgers with minimum effort, inasmuch as everything was close at hand. When a cooking hamburger patty neared
readiness, he scraped excess grease from the hot grill with his spatula, then
put bun halves beside the meat to toast interior surfaces. The toasted bottom half of the bun was
smeared with mustard and placed on top of the meat, where both stayed hot as he
took the top half of the bun, smeared mayonnaise on it, sprinkled on chopped
lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, added pickle slices, and set it on the
counter. Next he took the hot meat and
half-bun off the grill, set it on the previously completed bun/vegetable
sub-assembly, pressed it down with his left hand, placed the spatula under the
completed burger, turned it over, set it on a plate, and placed it before the
customer, literally hot off the grill.
I
particularly liked the uniform thickness of Tony’s hamburgers, achieved because
he used finely chopped lettuce/onion/tomato components, spread on evenly with
his fingers.
I discovered upon returning home after one of those “Wander Inn”
lunches that I still had the fifteen cents Mother had given me; I’d forgotten
to pay. I went back and told Tony I
hadn’t paid, and handed him the money.
He said he’d noted my oversight, but didn’t say whether he was testing
my honesty or just didn’t want to embarrass either himself or me.
Food consumption led to my most regular chore around home –
dishwashing, by hand. Twila and I
alternated weeks washing, drying, and putting dishes away after meals. I suppose we alternated weeks because (1)
the kitchen in our apartment was almost too small for two people to work
together and (2) Mother preferred the peace and tranquility of our working
alone.
Cleaning up after Sunday lunch was always a big job, made bigger if
Twila invited a friend home with her after morning worship, as she often
did. I was doubly impacted if she
brought someone home with her on days when it was my turn to do dishes, then
went home with someone on days it was her turn – I had to do the dishes in her
place when she was gone, then had more to do when she brought a friend
home. Fortunately, some of her friends
helped me clean up when they visited on days I had kitchen duty.
◊◊◊
I was assigned the relatively minor chore of taking our household trash
to an incincerator located in the middle of the block just north of the one in
which we lived. I don’t remember (if I
ever knew) how other La Feria residents disposed of their trash; I’m fairly
sure only downtown businesses and nearby residents used the incinerator where I
took our trash.