Grocery Store Memories

 The earliest I can remember my parents shopping in the northern California town of Willows was 1950, plus or minus a year when we lived in the Villa Street house on the edge of town.  Milk was delivered to the front door, there was a meat market near the Willows Hotel, a bakery nearby and a produce market owned by a Chinese family up town on Sycamore Street.  A few years later came Tom's Super Market on Sycamore, just a couple of blocks from the Villa Street house.  It had everything--diary products, a produce section, lunch meats, bread, can goods, soda, and more.  A few years later after moving out to the County Road H house there was the Sani-Food Market on old highway 99 in town that had it all.   Our mother always had a hard time trying to control us kids as the younger ones ran around the market, especially brother Pat.   On one occasion Pat and his friend Johnny Feeney opened bottles of syrup and began consuming the contents.   Mom was not pleased.

Most of the surrounding small country communities of Bayless, Glenn, Ord Bend, Fruito, Elk Creek and Butte City had small stores with all the basics.  Some were a convenient stop for a soda and bag of chips while doing farm work.  I believe they are all gone now.  

My fondest memories are of the market in Orleans, along the Klamath River in northwestern California, where I lived from 1971 to 1977, while working for the Forest Service.  This store was owned by a husband and wife, don't remember their names.   At the end of the work day the store was inundated by Forest Service employees shopping for their dinners, lunch items for work or a cold beverage.  Both husband and wife operated the two check out counters as the employees had filled their carts with everything from cold cuts, what produce that was available, bread, milk, eggs, bacon and of course beer or soda.  The way to the cooler section was a well worn path.   The meat counter there was always interesting as we could keep track of how old the steaks were as some would turn a little green on one side and we suspected they were turned over from day to day.   There was some chicken on display too that looked like the skin had turned to leather.  There was a frozen meat section with hamburger which was the choice of many after looking over the fresh meat supply.   Most people made the two hour trip down to Eureka or  Arcata every month for some major shopping and some real fresh meat.  Winters there were always hit and miss at the market depending on severe storms and land slides that would block the highway along the river for days causing a shortage of food, and much panic as the beer and wine supply would dwindle quickly.