I needed a new seam ripper. I couldn't get one within 12 miles, and I had to go to a fabric store to find one. Used to be the kind of thing you could get at a local 5 & 10 store, which sold all the little things that department, or convenient stores, don't stock. Even the drug store didn't have one.

I don't know much about seam rippers but I do know about bolts of fabric. I remember going into town to Woolworth's or SS Kresge's with my mother and looking at such things and many more. I remember the sights and especially the smells of fabric and such. I remember the friendliness of such places. I also of course remember human face to face friendships. Ah, for the good old days.

I remember everything in Woolworth's, Kress, Dodds, Silver's and McCrory's. Best stores in town.


GKC

we had a kresge's in the first mall in midland when i was growing up...it was a big deal and the way we entered the mall to hang out

Probably the best modern equivalent to a 5 and dime store would be a Dollar store....which contrary to the name, not everything is $1, tends to sell a wide variety of products, which are not cheap but tend to be high quality. Whenever I need something and I don't know where to look for it, I go to the Dollar store

The European equivalent of the Dollar Store is the 2 Euros Store where everything is priced at two euros. I recently bought things there at Bordeaux, France.

I have often made the same observation.

But, how they suffer by comparison.


GKC

(pssst - Walmart and Walgreens both carry seam rippers)

Our Woolworths used to sell chocolate covered grasshoppers and does anybody remember those little wax coke bottles filled with flavored syrup? I used to love those things, and then you would chew the wax after you 'drank' the little liquid in it.

I bought a seam ripper at Michael's to put in a sewing kit for my daughter to take off to college. I saw them in CVS and even the grocery store.

I got mine from the very small corner grocery my great aunt ran. I used to be allowed a small bag of penny-candy every time I went.

But I never chewed the wax.

GKC

I was too busy with the all day jaw breakers I would buy at such places.

In my adopted hometown, when I was going to high school there, we had a sort of a 5 and 10 that was also a pharmacy and had a real lunch counter where they made the sodas from scratch, syrup first then how ever much soda water you preferred. I'm thinking of their egg salad sandwiches and a cherry coke right now. The store is still there but they closed the lunch counter years ago.

At least you have the store. Only one of the major 5 &10s in my town had a lunch counter.

GKC

Cunningham's Drug store in Adrian, Michigan was like a 5 and 10. It had a lunch counter. It was there that I fell in love with that heavenly treat known as a Tin Roof. Then my mom would drop me off at the Crosley Theatre where I could watch a matinée for 14 cents.

What is a "Tin Roof"? 14 cents? Jeez, Athanasius, were they talkies or did you have to read the captions while some dude played the piano?

We don't have a Walmart, and Walgreens didn't have one.

Michaels is right next to the fabric store...that is 12 miles away. Actually there's another Michaels about 4 miles away that I could have used.

I'm almost as old as GKC. The first movie I remember seeing was "The Purple Gang". It was a talkie and it was in black and white.

A tin roof is a Sundae. It contains vanilla ice cream, covered with hot chocolate, and whole peanuts. The whole peanuts make the dish. Never crush them. A true aficionado knows the difference between whole and crushed nuts. The former do not hurt.

At age 10 or so, catch the bus 2 blocks south of home, ride to down-town. Catch a movie at the Ritz or the Carolina (my dad had been a manager at each, pre WII), maybe the Palmetto (not allowed in the Strand or the Capitol), after the movie (saw 20,000,000 Miles to Earth, particularly memorable day), cruise all 4 of the major 5&10 stores for treasure. Go to drug store in first floor of the Wade Hampton hotel, have a lemonade, catch the bus back, from in front of the drug store. Total for bus and movie, around 40 cents.


GKC

The wax coke bottles can still be found at the Dollar Store!