A recent planning department buzzword is “Neighborhood Commercial”, which means these days: a 7-11, nail salon and a donut store within walking distance of your rabbit warren.  When I was a kid, and I am going to say this a lot in the blog - which we will  reduce to “WIWAK”, it had an entirely different connotation. The early 1950’s was the demise  of true neighborhood  commercial and the rise of what could be called the "cookie cutter" approach to neighborhood commercial where every town in the country looks exactly the same.

Included with this blog are pictures of what were the genuine "mom and pop" neighborhood grocery stores that existed throughout Longmont.  Many of them were still operating "WIWAK" in the late 50’s.  Most had been reduced from genuine full service stores (you could charge your groceries by the month!), to odd specialty shops and kid’s candy stores.  To those of you who are my age, you may remember these stores with the weirdest candy – jawbreakers, cinnamon flavored toothpicks, bubble gum of all flavors including Bazooka gum with cartoons and even small various shaped bottles of paraffin wax.  The bottles contained fruit flavored sugar water which you drank, and then you got to enjoy chewing on the wax bottle.  Recent legislation has chastised cigarette companies for making products appeal to young kids with cartoons but they sold us candy cigarettes in Lucky Strike and Camel boxes so we could "be just like Dad".

The people and their stores, where they worked in the front and lived in the back, were rapidly aging and truly were on their way out. Safeway which was the original big corporate store in town "back in the good old days”, was located on the NE corner of Longs Peak and Main Street, which is now the Mister Money. It brought corporate competition when prior to that date, home town, locally owned grocery stores ruled the roost.  As Safeway killed off the mom and pop grocery stores and Longmont grew, Safeway expanded until it opened a fabulous new store on 15th and Main Street in 1959.  Though my father worked for Ideal Markets, a locally owned chain of stores owned by Clair Smith, my mother could not resist going to this new slick and shiny corporate store. They were giving away porcelain piggy banks, and I know it was 1959 because my piggy bank says so on its bottom.  Safeway’s motto at the time was a small cartoon character on ads pushing a grocery cart with a narrow tie, slicked back hair with a caption that read “I like saving money.  Money is my hobby.  My wife is out saving money shopping at Safeway”. Local grocers did their best to compete with corporate giants by making bigger stores and changing the names, such as Food Giant, which was located on 9th and Coffman, which is now home to Ares Thrift Store, or the new Corner Pantry on Francis Street, which was one the last and biggest of Clair Smith’s Ideal markets.  But eventually, they all passed away as did their supplier, Associate Grocers.

Before my mother and father started Turner Realty in 1962, dad worked for Mr. Smith as the manager of the meat department at the S. Main Ideal grocery store, which is now El Vaquero Western Wear.  "WIWAK", the thriving market was across the street from Longmont’s lively livestock auction that all the farmers from all around attended each Saturday.  While farms bought and sold cattle, pigs and sheep, their wives and children shopped at Ideal Market.

 I don’t miss the old days (much) but it’s helpful to look back and remember how good we have it now.  I don’t believe these stores had a produce department and it seems the fruits and vegetables were locally grown, rarely in stores and completely seasonal.  That is a far cry from the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables available now in every grocery store.  Anytime you wanted to buy fruits and vegetables you could do so in the 50’s, but it was either canned, dried or frozen.  I don’t remember big frozen food sections in the stores either, so canned was mostly what you got.  Take a look in your local grocery store next time and see how small the canned fruit and vegetable department has become.

Bakeries were also one per community, not one per store, and if you wanted motor oil or antifreeze, you went to a garage or an auto parts store.  There was no such thing as self-check out, which I refuse to use and so should you because it took away some persons job.  Traditionally, a young person’s job was to start out as a bagger, then get promoted to a checker and maybe to a manager.  Some even worked their entire lives in the grocery store where they started working as teenagers.