old General Store talk

[Mikey]

Back in the 70's I remember going to my local general store at least twice a week.

If you wanted cola you only had one choice --- RC

BUT, they did have Yoohoo OR Chocolate Cow

They had this huge chest freezer filled with all kinds of frozen icecream sold individually ... I always went for the creamsikles or tuscan pops

Ohhh, I almost forgot --- candy cigarettes

Lemme hear about your local general store back in the day

[toys2cool]

twinkies, moon pies and this MacArthur fruit punch that had like a little wolf cartoon freakin awesome

[cactus725]

Orange Crush, Sugar Babies or Surgar Daddy, Milk Duds, Comic books, and at Halloween they would stock those wax lips, oh yea, year round they had those wax little bottles with the cool aid (Colored sugar water) in them, pixie stix....Great memories!!!

[Figuremod73]

We had a neat little store that I would go into and play Toobin and Joust in back in the 80s. It had all the goodies, including the cheap rack candy and toys. I would occasional buy a cheap cassette in there to for like three bucks.
It sold all the regular drinks but I would usually buy a small fountain drink for like twenty cents. I would usually be allowed to get a free refill since I went in so much.
My favorite part of it was it had a comic rack. I also bought cards there sometimes to, along with garbage pail kids.
The chain stores fail in comparison.

[TheDoLittle]

When I was still little (I know, I still am Little... ha-ha), I lived in a small town in south Texas. We didn't have a general store as such, but we did have a company store. Since my father and grandfather were wildcatters we got a monthly allowance of goods from the company store. Mostly groceries, but they also had some clothing, books, tools, tricycles, bicycles, wagons, and an assortment of small toys.

As for refreshment, the pharmacy just around the corner from the company store had an actual soda fountain. You could get an honest to goodness chocolate phosphate. I have yet to find anyone anywhere who still makes those. Next door to that was the 5 & Dime. That was the place you got actual toys, comic books, and coloring books.

We also had a yearly festival, The Rattlesnake Roundup. There was a guy who would drive up an 18 wheeler department store. The side of the trailer would fold down and he'd set up the racks of clothes, supplies, and even some toys. It was there I remember seeing my first Megos, a set of POTA Cornelius, Zaius, and Urko.

[generic]

We didn't have a General Store, but across the street from our neighborhood there were several shopping options: The grocery store (Win Dixie, I think) and the drug store in the same shopping center. Up about a block from there was a Majik Market (a chain convenience store) and a block past that was "The Convenience Store" (an independently owned convenience store). So as a kid, I had options.

The Majik Market was the only one with comic books and they had the best candy isle with the little mini comic books, little plastic garbage cans full of candy (which I had dozens of and used with my Star Wars figures), trading cards, etc. The drug store had the closest thing to real toys, but they were crazy over priced most of the time. I did get Dr. Doom and one other Secret Wars figure on clearance there. Other than that, they were just too expensive. When Garbage Pail Kids were the thing, The Convenience Store was the place to get them, so we'd look through the couch cushions for quarters, nickels and dimes and walk up there to buy as many packs as we could.

As a teenager, the mother of one of the kids in the neighborhood owned the little shopping center with The Convenience Store. There had been a farmer’s market in the last unit that went out of business. The kid “borrowed” his mom’s keys and made a copy, then he opened up the last unit in the shopping center as a club. He built a stage out of cement blocks and plywood, brought in local (and eventually touring) punk and ska bands, ran an extension cord across the street to an outdoor plug on the Domino’s Pizza for power, and would have a few of those clamp work lights to light the whole place AND run power for the bands. Sometimes a car would hit the extension chord just right and the whole place would loose power. All of the kids in the surrounding neighborhoods could walk there and he charged us $5 each to get in. He usually managed to get a keg too and charged $5 for a little plastic cup of beer. There was nothing else to do if you didn't have a car and it was actually a really good time. I think the club lasted about two years. People must have known about it. I have no idea how he managed to get away with it for so long. Maybe everyone just figured it kept all of us kids out of trouble.

Good times!

[Captain Big Trousers]

Here's the corner shop where I used to buy my comic books.



Just as I remember it (minus John Cleese).

It's been converted into a house now.

Bassett's Jelly Babies (as preferred by Dr. Who) for the win.

[darkmonkeygod]

Here's the corner shop where I used to buy my comic books.

Seriously? That's near fantastic. I'd dearly love to have images of my childhood cathedrals, at that yours in enshrined by Python makes at all the more wonderful.

[Captain Big Trousers]

Seriously? That's near fantastic. I'd dearly love to have images of my childhood cathedrals, at that yours in enshrined by Python makes at all the more wonderful.

We lived near the BBC Television Centre. A lot of my old neighbourhood pops up in Python (and other shows).



Michael Palin goes back there in this video*...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOGW1vhxoXw


*Warning: Partial nudity.

[HardyGirl]

Well, it was more of a corner store, Tope', at the corner of 157th and Broadway. When I was little my older brother and I would go get our familiy's weekly 4 quarts of milk and 5 bottles of Pepsi, (no Laverne jokes, this was before that came out). While we were there, we would get things like Charms pops, (not the blow pops, the flat kind), candy bars like Mounds, Almond Joy, Hershey's, Milky Way, Snickers, ice-cream bars, Popsicles, Nabisco chocolate wafers, Bazooka bubble gum. And they stayed open late too, so my brother and I would go around the corner at 9pm in the summer time for some goodies and sit on the stoop and enjoy them. I really miss getting my quarter allowance and going around the corner after Saturday morning cartoons and buying stuff.

[cjefferys]

We lived near the BBC Television Centre. A lot of my old neighbourhood pops up in Python (and other shows).

Damn, that's really cool!


I remember picking comics out of the big spinner rack, buying packs of Star Wars, POTA and KISS gum cards, cans of cream soda, agonizing over which kind of chocolate bar to buy when I only had enough money for one, and buying these big rubber insects with little packs of candy attached to them. Good times! Oh, and trying to sneak a peek at the skin magazines at the top of the magazine stand.

[johnmiic]

My main place was a candy store named Barbonie's. Got all my comics there, greetings cards, sci-fi model kits. Up to a time in the `80's you might still have found Nehi soda in Orange or Grape there.

[Mikey]

Mine was a deli too.

I remember the Boars Head truck parked outside every so often

And they had A-Treat soda in 5 cent deposit glass bottles

[Bruce Banner]

Twinkies, Star Wars cards from Topps, Dr. Pepper with the Intellivision promotion, hockey cards, The Empire Strikes Back candy heads, Bottle Caps, Garbage Pail Kids, fake tattoos...

Trips to my old general store were always a highlight.

[Spawn67]

Besides our woolworth's and a couple small mom and pop stores we had a Ice cream man that would come by everyday. He had all types of candy and bubble gum cards. Got my Kiss, Star Wars, Superman, Raisers of the lost Ark cards that I still have that I got from him.