One of the worst jobs I was asked to do was to accompany my grandmother to the grocery store on Saturdays. I sometimes wheedled out of this chore, but not as often as I wished.
When I was in my last two years of high school, I would not only drive my grandmother to the grocery but also go inside the store with her. After dropping her off, the first problem was finding a parking space because her favorite markets did not have parking lots. Sometimes it took 10 or more minutes to accomplish this feat because other shoppers were also looking for a space.
Strickland’s was located on the south side of Lake Street between Oak Park Avenue and Euclid. It was almost next door to the Medical Arts Building. Smithfield’s was on Oak Park Avenue between Lake and North Boulevard in the middle of the block..
Once she and I were ready to shop, we had to face the various types of shoppers. One shopper was the mother who let her kids do the shopping for her. She would usually be talking to another person and not watching her kids. If they saw something they wanted, they’d throw it in the grocery cart, whether or not the mother was aware of the “purchase.” If there was a ruckus in the store, it would be the mother and her kids.
The second type of shopper we named “poke-along Pete.” We would sometimes be stuck behind this guy and his wife as they stopped every few feet and left their cart in the middle of the aisle while they helped each other get products off the top shelves. If we were suddenly caught behind this pair, we would immediately go to another aisle and return to the problem area later.
Even if everything was going smoothly all the way to the checkout lane, it was always possible to get stuck behind a shopper with a cart piled high with groceries (there were no 10 items or less lines then), and because of a malfunction in the cash register, the cashier would not be able to ring up the sale and would have to call the manager for assistance, thus making us wait until the problem could be solved.
In some cases, clerks in these stores seemed never to know the answers to questions that we asked them. They would look at us with a puzzled stare and then ask another clerk for the answer. However, the other clerks were often clueless as well. Then the clerk would say that he/she would ask the manager. The clerk would disappear for a prolonged period of time, leading us to wonder if the clerk either became lost or had found a hiding place. After 10 minutes or so, the clerk would return and may or may not have the answer. We quickly learned that the best bet was to ask a fellow shopper where the product we wanted was located, and the great majority of the time we would be directed to the right place.
My experiences shopping in grocery stores on Saturdays taught me a valuable lesson — never do it. I have followed this policy with great success over the past 55 years.
John Stanger is a lifelong resident of Oak Park, a 1957 graduate of OPRF High School, married with three grown children and five grandchildren, and an English professor at Elmhurst College. Living two miles from where he grew up, he hasn’t gotten far in 71 years.