Once upon a time, about 1950, this now fairly abandoned site at the corner of Myrtle and Redwood in Pecan Park thrived as Haenel’s Grocieries, one of the many small family-run grocery stores that threaded their way all over the Houston East End. In fact, Haenel’s was located directly across the street on the Redwood side from Graves’ Groceries. There was room enough for both little stores, in spite of the nearby competitive presence of larger grocers, like Weingarten’s, Henke & Pillot, Piggily Wiggiily, A&P, and Minimax.
Right around the corner from Haenel’s and Graves was the Griggs Road Butcher Shop, where they sold only fresh cuts of meat from beef cattle, chickens, and pigs. You could also buy fish there, sometimes, but special fish markets stores also took care of those items for most people.
Saturday was the big day for family shopping back in that era. Most people didn’t have time to shop fully during the week because of work schedules and limited shopping hours. Most stores opened from 8 AM to 8 PM. Monday through Saturday, with all stores being closed on Sundays. Some of the smaller stores, like Haenel’s, even shut down at 6 PM, Monday through Thursday. So, since most families only had one car that dad used for work during the week, and mom was busy watching kids and fixing meals during the week, most of the family shopping for a whole week pushed toward Friday nights and, especially, all day Saturday.
As a veteran checker, sacker, and stocker at the A&P on Lawndale near 75th, all I can tell you is that there was nothing quite like a Saturday morning at the grocery store back in 1954-56 era I worked the trade. In so many ways, it was the most enjoyable job I ever had – and also the most challenging.
Starting pay back then was 50¢ per hour as a “package boy” (sacker) – with a raise to 75¢ possible upon one’s promotion to checker. That wasn’t bad for the times. Some customers tipped 25-50¢ for help with a heavy load of groceries. What was bad for us was the lesson in economics we faced with promotion. By getting a raise to checker status, we also lost money by losing the opportunity for tips.
One Saturday morning, as I was contemplating my lost income to my checker promotion, an elderly woman customer stopped me as I was walking away from my register on break. It was a case of best/worst timing for the question she shouted my way. “Young man,” screetched the woman, “can you tell me where this store keeps its all day suckers?”
“Well, you’re talking to one of them,” I replied.
Unfortunately, our store manager in 1955-56, Mr. Wright was coming around the aisle just in time to hear both parts of our brief exchange. I received a severe lecture for trying to be funny on the job and summarily ordered to finish the afternoon “mopping the slop” all the rest of the day at the freight dock behind the store. At the end of the day, Mr. Wright wanted to know if I still thought that my grocery store job was a place for funny business. What could I say? Short of “take this job and shove it,” there was nothing funny about “mopping the slop” for several hours in 100 degree temperatures, but I was too stubborn to let Mr. Wright run me off from a job I sorely needed. And I also saw his humorless point and learned more about working with uptight, authoritarian bosses at the A&P than I would ever see anywhere else. It’s also why I’ve spent most of my adult life, as much as possible, self-employed.
Nearing Christmas of 1954, I convinced my previous A&P manager, Mr. Dodgen, that some seasonal music owuld help sales by putting customers in the right buying spirit. Mr. Dodgen allowed me to bring down a record player and put on a little Bing Crosby Christmas album that belonged to my parents. It played very well over the loudspeaker system, bringing praise to Mr. Dodgen from customers – and looks of managerical approval to me. I thought, “Oh Boy! I’ve finally done something that’s going to help me around here!”
Then, one day, Mr. Dodgen had to be out of the store for a district meeting. We used the opportunity to remove Bing Crosby and started playing Little Richard at the A&P. When Mr. Dodgen came back earlier than expected, rock and roll was still blasting away, but the customers didn’t seem to mind. In fact, some of the younger mothers were even bopping in the aisles – and our little adolescent task force didn’t mind that action at all.
Mr. Dodgen was no music expert. If he were, he wouldn’t been down at the A&P, approving checks, but even he knew that some change had taken place in his absence.
“That doesn’t sound like Christms music to me!” Mr. Dodgen said.
“”No, but look at how happy the customers are, sir!” I replied.
Mr. Dodgen looked, smiled, and walked away. After that time, it didn’t matter what we played. We had music in the store. And I’ve always guessed that we may have been the first in Houston to do so.
The store Christmas party of 1954 couldn’t have happened in 2009. Once the store closed, several days before Christmas, all of us employees were invited to stay and help celebrate the season with Mr. Dodgen and our other bosses. Beer and hard liquor was available to everyone, including those of us who were only 16.
Well, everyone ended up grossly overserved and, for me, it was my first experience with having way too much to drink. It was also my first opportunity to slide into a level of thinking that can only come from alcohol or similar mind-altering chemicals. We decided that it would be a good idea to take an unopened bottle of Jim Beam bourbon and stuff it into one of the turkeys we had on sale at the meat counter. My companions and I carried out this immature act – and then spent the next two days waiting to see who actually ended up purchasing our “bonus surprise bird.”
Someone did buy the loaded bird, but we failed to see it happen. Then we started worrying that such a customer might actually bring the loaded bird back to the A&P and start complaining. That didn’t happen either. We never knew who got the bird. We just knew that we were lucky. Had it become public, a lot us could have gotten the bird from A&P. As I matured, I always worried that we may have passed on the loaded bird to someone who was looking for a sign from Heaven that they needed to stop drinking. Hell! What we passed on was the Devil’s green light. All I can say now is – I’m sorry for any real harm we may have caused by our immaturity.
I still loved the camaraderie with my co-workers – and I loved my favorite customers. Fifty-five years later, I still see their faces in the check-out line of my mind, as they waited for me to manually ring up their groceries and make change, using little more than my ability to do addition and subtraction in my head. Hey! I had to have something going for me! Without mathematical accuracy, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my job.
I might have survived at A&P without change, anyway, had Mr. Dodgen remained our manager, but not with Mr. Wright around. Mr. Wright needed to know that everyone at A&P understood that there’s nothing funny or enjoyable about selling groceries. I didn’t get that lesson, but I did learn a lot about taking personal responsibility for my behavior from Mr. Wright. He turned out to be a pretty cool old school guy afer all.
Tags: culture, History, Houston, Pecan Park, Personal
The Pecan Park Eagle 
September 27, 2009 at 4:01 am |
Music at a grocery store in the early 50s? Sure! It certainly was true at Gerland’s Supermarket in Spring Branch on Long Point Rd. where I worked as a sacker, stocker, produce checker and finally at the checkout register. The problem here was only one 33 LP was played, constantly. Whenever I hear the songs now from that LP it reminds me of my weekend job. One of the assistant managers was a previous drill sergeant as I remember, and he tried to run things like the army…lol. The other assistant manager was a real nice guy, just the opposite in demeanor. And the owner was always watching us closely all of the time to be sure we were doing our job in the manner he expected. And what did he expect? We found out when we screwed up. One thing I remember about customer service that I miss while shopping in a grocery store today is if a customer asked us where something was we were instructed to lead the customer to the shelf location and stay with them until they found what they were looking for. I wish grocery stores did that today (although the store manager helped me this way for an Item I was searching for the other day). 50 cents an hour was the minimum wage, and yep, that’s what they paid us for the entry level job of sacker. Those were the “good ol’ days”.
September 28, 2009 at 4:15 pm |
Bill: Legislation has been intorduced in the Congress to honor the 125th anniversary of the intorduction of the Louisville Slugger.