Russell's Food Shop

I wonder if my kids feel sorry for me sometimes. It must be awful hard for them to imagine what life must have been like without an internet or iPods or cell phones or video games. At least they don't seem to mind the long ride in the SUV to my parents' home on Commonwealth in South St. Louis. There are few sounds from the back seat, only the click or electronic chirp as my daughters sit absorbed in a Nintendo game or texting their friends about how lame it is to hang out with parents. And oh great...Mom's taking us through that old neighborhood where she grew up. Here she goes with those dumb stories again...

In the early 70s, the Haislip kids were paid a weekly allowance of ten cents. In time, that allowance was increased to fifteen cents, and then eventually to twenty-five. We weren't particularly bright kids, and never possessed the smarts to save up our money, mind you. Usually within moments of those shiny coins hitting our dirty little palms, the whole pack of us was en route to Russell's Food Shop to spend them.

I'm sure Russell's sold items other than candy, chips, ice cream, and ice cold soda, but if they did, I never noticed. I can still remember walking through the banging screen door with the bell on top. Slightly forward and to the right was the shelf with small bags of chips - barbecued Fritos, Funyuns, Doritos, and my personal favorite, Munchos, which was part processed potato and part something else - I think styrofoam. I don't think they sell them anymore. They also sold canned Chef Boyardee ravioli there, too, and Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup. My weird brothers liked to eat it right out of the can. One of my favorite purchases was RC cola, which was 24 cents - a full quarter with tax. The sixteen-ounce bottle was a better bargain than the smaller Coca-Cola, though I secretly coveted the look of the Coke bottles better. (Don't tell the RC folks I said that. I have a feeling they don't have a lot of fans left.)

Next to the chip rack was the gumball machine which had silver balls scattered among the colorful gumballs. If you were lucky enough to score a silver ball with your penny, you won a rabbit's foot. (There was a tiny sign reminding kids to turn in the silver ball for a prize, lest some dumb kid try to chew it.) I think I must have tried for that silver ball a hundred times over the years, and won it exactly once. I was mortified, however, to learn that the lavender rabbit's foot I selected from Mrs. Russell's shoe box was an actual, honest-to-God rabbit's foot - with nails, bone, and all, and I never tried for that silver ball again.

The centerpiece of Russells, as any kid would agree, was the beautiful wooden and glass candy case. Mrs. Russell must have shined up that glass a dozen times a day; it had to be constantly smeared with the finger and nose prints from children salivating over the dozens of treats on the other side of the glass. There were two shelves. The bottom shelf held the more expensive candy bars, and the more popular top shelf was mostly penny candy - what would be called vintage today - Mary Janes, candy buttons, Sixlets, Pixy Sticks, wax lips, Super Bubble, candy cigarettes, etc. Mrs. Russell would always wait quietly with a small brown bag at the ready as we bit our lips and pointed out our selections. I never got the impression that she liked kids all that much, but she was always polite and patient with us.

Mrs. Russell was petite, wore glasses, and had mousy brown hair that sometimes had rollers in it. She always, always seemed old to me. As far as I could remember, she was the only one who ever served the customers - at least, the little kid customers - though Mr. Russell sometimes opened my soda bottles. Mr. Russell never seemed to say much, as if he didn't quite know what to make of kids, and always seemed to be busy stocking shelves or something. It was only recently that I discovered that the couple even had first names - Jack and Evelyn.

Of course, Russell's is long closed now, and all those kids who loved the place have grown up and moved on, but the little building is still there, though it looks different from the way I remember it.

But I can close my eyes, and in an instant, I'm there again, making my way to Russell's Food Shop, with coins jingling in my pocket on a warm afternoon as the sun peeks through century-old maple trees along the curb; my skin is golden brown in those days before anyone knew about SPF30, and maybe there's an empty soda bottle clutched tight in my fist as a bonus, and the only things on my mind are the treasures that await behind that glass case and avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk on Tennyson Square. As I round the corner onto Esplanade and those familiar concrete steps come into view, I start to skip...

No, kids...you don't have to feel sorry for me. Not at all.