When I was growing up, I loved to go to "Frazier's Superette", which was just a mile out the road from our house. My Grandpa, who never had a driver's license, always walked to the store and I always begged to go with him. Everyone knew Grandpa, so it was almost impossible to walk all the way to the store with out at least one person stopping with the offer of a ride. Finally, one day, I told Grandpa that I wanted to walk ALL the way to the store, so we should turn down any offers of a ride. We had barely gotten out of sight from home when the Kerns Bread truck stopped to offer us a ride. Grandpa thanked him but explained that I was bound and determined to walk all the way. (Just so that you can picture this, I grew up in a rural area and to get to the store, we were walking on Route 58 which was the main east-west road through that part of Virginia. At that time, while only a two lane road, it did have lots of traffic.....cars as well as tractor trailers. In fact, Route 58 is still the longest road in the state of Virginia, starting at Virginia Beach in the east and ending at Bristol in the west.)
Anytime that Grandpa went to the store, he would always bring me a treat. Or, if I was with him, I might get a scoop of ice cream. Hmmmmmm........I can still see Dewey or Helen bending down into the ice cream freezer to scoop me out some of that peach or strawberry goodness!
Back then, one of my favorite types of candy were Tootsie Pops. Heck, I STILL love Tootsie Pops!
I always eagerly looked for the Indian shooting his arrow at a star on the wrapper. At Frazier's store, if you found the Indian, you could take the wrapper back to the store and get a FREE Tootsie Pop!
According to some online sources, the Tootsie Pop company never officially run this as a promotion. However, Frazier's Superette did, and of course, that made me a happy little girl!
For more information on the rumor and mystery surrounding this promotion, click
here
Did you ever redeem your wrappers for a free Tootsie Pop?
Never redeemed any wrappers, but I once won a couple of free Tootsie Pops in a contest that Pinkie Lee had on his TV show.
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty neat, Becky! I must admit, I have heard of Pinkie Lee, but I did not ever see his show.
ReplyDeleteMy bunch loves tootsie pops-me not so much : ) But I sure did love getting to go to the store when I was little!
ReplyDeleteI loved to go too, Tipper! It was almost as fun as Disney World for me!
ReplyDeleteFrazier's store had the most FABULOUS candy counter. A dollar would but a whole bag of candy!
When I was a little kid, back when Garfield was president, there was a general store (I'm old enough to remenber a few of them) that was about a half-mile from the house. We'd walk up a few steps and through a screen door with a Pepsi logo across it. It was all wood including the floors. It gave up the ghost to urban blight decades ago.
ReplyDeleteThere was a machine near the door that for a nickel (or was it a dime?)would dispense a packet of a few trading cards that spoofed products. For instance, Listerine became Blisterine, Tide became Snide, Ritz crackers became Ratz. This was 1960, before faxes, cell phones, CD's, and even 8-track tapes.
I had several hundred of the cards and have no clue what happened to them. I saw where Ebay has them for about 2-3 dollars each.
The store that I mentioned in my post had an old wooden screen door too. Frazier's store not only sold food, but hardware, animal feed AND they you could take your slaughter hog to them and they would cut it up in the back room! One stop shopping!
ReplyDeleteI REMEMBER those trading cards that you mentioned!!! I had some of them too, but probably less than 20. I loved them! I have no idea what ever became of mine either.