Four Brothers
1965
In the mid-sixties my father sold the house on west hill and bought a three story house in the center of town. Both my brother and my sister were now off on their own and space was not needed for them. Each floor of the new house was a separate apartment and my parents lived on the first floor and I had a room that was in the hallway of the second story apartment. This move suited me fine. I was closer to my friends on the south side, it was not far from the high school, and I had more privacy.
Two blocks from the house on main street was a small grocery store called Four Brothers. It was larger than a typical corner market but smaller than a Piggly Wiggly or Red Owl grocery store. It was, indeed, run by four brothers. They were all ex-military and some had fought in Korea. One was the general manager, one handled produce, one was the butcher, the fourth I was never quite sure of what he did, and their mother did much of the baking for the store.
I applied for a job and was quickly hired as a bagger and stock boy at the extravagant wage of $1.25 an hour. They were all kind and very easy to work with. The manager expected reliability, promptness, and steady working which was no problem for me. I worked between twenty and thirty hours a week throughout my high school years. It was a great first job.
It was a very different shopping experience than we have today. Many of the customers were known by name, assistance was given to the elderly in their shopping, everyone was greeted with a smile and hello, there was delivery service, and there were credit accounts kept on sheets at the checkout and billed monthly. Groceries were bagged in paper and carried to car for the customer. Occasionally a dime or quarter tip would be given to the bag boy.
An incident that is etched in my memory is when my mother, a wonderful but somewhat eccentric woman, came into the store looking for me. Rather than asking the checkout to page me she yelled at the top of lungs “Marky!” My embarrassment level was off the the charts and the manager gave me a very questioning look. I had a little talk with Mom.
(My thanks to Jay Kirshenmann whose September 4, 2020 article in the Aberdeen American News on the market featured the photograph that I based my drawing on)
Four Brothers, acrylic on shuen paper, 9″x12″, 2021, Mark W McGinnis
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