Going for Groceries
When people mention grocery shopping to me in the Connellsville area, most of us older folk remember the old Pechin’s Market. It was located in Dunbar, Pennsylvania and the collection of rambling add-on buildings spanned generations and a small creek. It was a place where shoppers never knew where a certain product would be on display and the meat was fresh and reasonably priced. It was so reasonably priced that people often followed the meat cart on hands and knees as it emerged.
Usually two people shopped together as one grabbed the packages of meat, the other person caught the package as it flew through the air and placed it in the shopping cart where the person guarded it. Yes, I said guarded it as with many other products. If a person stepped away from their cart and someone saw something they needed, they would take it out and put it in their own cart instead of looking for it. The hubbub over the meat cart was similar to vultures picking clean the bones of some sort of animal, occurring many times before the meat supply reached the display cases. It was a place where it was necessary to shop in pairs. One had to be on the alert at all times riding shotgun on the cart to prevent others from removing things in your cart.
Pechin’s parking lot was just shy of a war zone. The potholes looked as if it was a battlefield with mortar holes holding hands. Cars parked wherever they thought they could squeeze in, often without rhyme or reason. Most often two rows allowed easier access and egress, but sometimes a third row started trapping some cars. It happened to me. It was summer. I didn’t want what I bought to thaw or spoil I paced at my car, while waiting and fuming. When the guy who had started the correct row came out and got in his car, I knew I could escape. I reached into one of my bags and shared a bottle of ketchup with the person who created the third row…on his windshield. I smiled and drove away.
I also wanted to talk about another market, the one that sat across the street from Guiermo Reyes’ barber shop and the Showboat Lounge in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. The store was called the Market Basket. My Mom Sybil Miner Beck and my Dad Carl Beck used to shop there when I was very young, I can hardly remember anything about in other than the outside of the building and the parking lot. I can’t remember going inside even once. It may have been that Mom shopped inside while Dad and I remained in the car.
When people mention grocery shopping to me in the Connellsville area, most of us older folk remember the old Pechin’s Market. It was located in Dunbar, Pennsylvania and the collection of rambling add-on buildings spanned generations and a small creek. It was a place where shoppers never knew where a certain product would be on display and the meat was fresh and reasonably priced. It was so reasonably priced that people often followed the meat cart on hands and knees as it emerged.
Usually two people shopped together as one grabbed the packages of meat, the other person caught the package as it flew through the air and placed it in the shopping cart where the person guarded it. Yes, I said guarded it as with many other products. If a person stepped away from their cart and someone saw something they needed, they would take it out and put it in their own cart instead of looking for it. The hubbub over the meat cart was similar to vultures picking clean the bones of some sort of animal, occurring many times before the meat supply reached the display cases. It was a place where it was necessary to shop in pairs. One had to be on the alert at all times riding shotgun on the cart to prevent others from removing things in your cart.
Pechin’s parking lot was just shy of a war zone. The potholes looked as if it was a battlefield with mortar holes holding hands. Cars parked wherever they thought they could squeeze in, often without rhyme or reason. Most often two rows allowed easier access and egress, but sometimes a third row started trapping some cars. It happened to me. It was summer. I didn’t want what I bought to thaw or spoil I paced at my car, while waiting and fuming. When the guy who had started the correct row came out and got in his car, I knew I could escape. I reached into one of my bags and shared a bottle of ketchup with the person who created the third row…on his windshield. I smiled and drove away.
I also wanted to talk about another market, the one that sat across the street from Guiermo Reyes’ barber shop and the Showboat Lounge in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. The store was called the Market Basket. My Mom Sybil Miner Beck and my Dad Carl Beck used to shop there when I was very young, I can hardly remember anything about in other than the outside of the building and the parking lot. I can’t remember going inside even once. It may have been that Mom shopped inside while Dad and I remained in the car.
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