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When I was a child, back in the 1980s, in Battle Ground, Washington, the closest store to our house was Al & Ernie's Foodliner. I have no idea who Al and Ernie were. Or what a "Foodliner" was. I am guessing that back in the 1960s, Al and Ernie (who, as a child, of course reminded me of Bert and Ernie), wanting a properly space age name, and called it that because it was like an airliner. Anyway, it was a market, like bigger than a convenience store, smaller than a grocery store. According to Google Maps, it was about 0.6 miles from my house. As a child, I would walk there with my mother for food. Then with friends. Back in the free range 80s, I think by the time I moved away from my town, when I was 8, I was allowed to walk there on my own, which now seems kind of dangerous. But that was like, in the 1980s. 1. They still had penny candy. Remember when you could buy something for a penny? Well, you probably don't, if you are younger than 30. But they had little pieces of sugar candy for 1 cents. Bazooka Bubble gum was 3 cents, and a Jolly Rancher stick was 10 cents. I guess when I was 6, if I found a nickel, I could get a piece of Bazooka Bubble gum, and two pieces of sugar candy. I computed how many nickels I would need to collect every story of Bazooka Bubblegum (they had little comics printed on the inside of the wrapper). Also, candy cigarretes were still a thing. 2. If you weren't a child feeling cool because you had an entire nickel or dime, you could buy cans of green beans there. Like, half of the store was snack foods (I forgot if there was a deli, but I think yes, and also a drink fountain or beer/cigs, and then a few staples like canned food, pasta, and a sad attempt at produce. We made jokes about the food not having been changed since the store opened. Apparently, this continued for a long time, so much that in 2017, a Yelp Reviewer wrote: "if you do come here then I would suggest you watch what you buy and check the expiration dates." Around the time I was living there, Battle Ground got its first chain grocery store, on the other end of town, a Safeway. 3. But at some point in the 00's, a Totally Radical Skate Park opened up in Battle Ground, so the store also opened a section dedicated to Totally Radical stuff. I remember going in and they had like...a shelf of graphic novels, maybe? And apparently, also Cannabis accessories. So instead of just candy and green beans, it was also a headshop. But apparently not good at any of those. As this second Yelp Review can attest: https://www.yelp.com/biz/al-and-ernies-foodliner-battle-ground (I have no idea how to embed the specific review, but there are only two there). 4. But finally, Phoenix-like, Al & Ernies rises from the ashes: a man from Puerto Rico, together with his wife and brother, bought Al & Ernie's, and returned it to its former glory, with him corroborating the state of ill-repair that most of us had felt since the 1980s about the place. quote:The store had been left in shambles. The old freezer was covered in dirt and mold. During the clean-up process, Rivera and his brother Luis hauled out 38,000 pounds of garbage. quote:“It’s so convenient. Instead of having to go all the way down to Safeway or Walmart, they have all of those quick items you need right here,” Neste said. So apparently, my childhood lives again. Also, through the magic of Google Maps, you can see both stores. https://goo.gl/maps/AhC4LG7cLoQ2 Along Main Street, you have the 2018 Street View, showing the newly painted and cleaned Battle Ground Market. Move perpendicularly, down Grace Ave, the Street View goes to 2016, and you can see the old shambling building, with a husk of an old pay phone, etc. I can travel in time from when I was a child to the present! I composed this in the spirit of  , and I know honestly there is perhaps not a lot of response to it, unless you happened to grow up in Clark County. I guess if you wanted to, you could jump in with stories of buying candy, the towns you grew up in, little retail stories that were both cute/creepy. I dunno. I am, as the rules saying,
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Feb 11, 2019 02:49
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penny candy is a pretty great memory. I don't know if it was literally a penny but there were a couple of stores I got taken to as a wee lad, one at the jersey shore and one in rural northern new england, that had that kind of stuff and it was magical. I think root beer barrels were my favorite. in nyc, economy candy has penny candy-style bins (in addition to a crazy variety of other candy). they sell stuff by the pound not by the piece, but it's close enough in concept. I'd love to take my niece there, but she lives across the country so chances are low. her parents are probably just as happy she lives nowhere nearby . . . https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/10/economy-candy-lower-east-side-best-candy-store-nyc-slideshow.html
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Feb 11, 2019 03:17
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