Remembering Miss Bea's grocery day ritual
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Bill Poteat
Editor Emeritus
A&P in Morganton back in the day.
The planning that went into the Allied landings on the coast of France on D-Day were not nearly so meticulous as the calculations my momma went through before heading out for her weekly grocery shopping trips back in the 1960s.
“Miss Bea,” as she was known in Drexel, made those trips each Friday morning. I don’t remember if that was because the Old Man drew his paycheck on Friday or if she simply wanted the pantry and refrigerator well stocked for the weekend.
She did have the responsibility of feeding not only her rather picky husband but also three growing boys who basically would eat anything that did not eat them first.
(A quick aside … Since the Old Man wouldn’t dream of touching a vegetable other than a potato, I was fortunately spared the lectures about eating spinach to be strong like Popeye or how carrots would improve my vision. I also learned that in the Old Man’s eyes, grits, pinto beans, and macaroni and cheese were vegetables.)
She also had to deal with the budgetary limitations imposed by the Old Man’s less than monumental salary — a salary that also had to keep those three growing boys in blue jeans and sneakers and T-shirts.
Miss Bea did not hastily scribble down a list on Friday morning before heading out the door. Oh no, Thursday evening was spent in careful inventory of what was in the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator, what needed to be replenished, what could wait another week.
Then the real work began … scouring the Thursday afternoon newspaper grocery ads for the specials, sales, bargains, and one-time-only deals to be found at each store in town.
In fact, Miss Bea didn’t make one grocery list; she actually made four — one for each of the stores she would be shopping at the next morning.
Armed with those lists, as well as with a copy of the newspaper and any circulars which might have arrived in the mail, Miss Bea pointed the family car toward Morganton and off we went.
I say “we,” although the plural pronoun applied only in the summer months when the youngest son was bored to death and any kind of trip to “town” was a welcome respite from the hot weather tedium.
Our first stop was Fishers Market on East Union Street, located where Patriot Flooring now stands.
As I recall, the only items Miss Bea purchased here were meats — ground beef, pork chops, the occasional steak. I do remember meeting Mr. Peanut in this store one summer morning as he was strolling the aisles in some sort of promotion for Planters. He shook my young and trembling hand, but I can’t remember if he spoke or not.
From Fishers Market, we headed up Union Street to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, better known as the A&P. I can’t remember which items were usually cheapest at the A&P, and indeed they probably varied from week to week.
Our tour of downtown Morganton continued when, after leaving the A&P, we crossed over a few streets to the Harris Teeter on Avery Avenue, now home of the specialty market Food Matters.
For whatever reason, the staff was friendlier at Harris Teeter than at the previous two stops and Miss Bea was treated like a queen at the checkout station.
A shopper didn’t have to unload her buggy at the checkout back then and she certainly didn’t have to hoist the filled bags (sturdy paper of course) back into the buggy.
And, even though Miss Bea was young and strong and fit as a fiddle, a young man always rolled her buggy to the car and placed the bags in the trunk.
After the three stops in Morganton, we headed back east down U.S.. 70 to the lower Drexel intersection, home of Rader’s Grocery. Don’t know if Miss Bea stopped at Rader’s because of lower prices on some items or if she simply wanted to lend support to a Drexel merchant.
Now one would think that four stops at four stores would be enough to replenish any household larder. But no, there was one more stop. (How we ever got home with unmelted ice cream, I do not know.)
Miss Bea liked her eggs fresh. As in still warm from the chicken. So, we had to stop and buy eggs from a gentleman named Mr. Aikens who had a small chicken house in Drexel. The eggs were, of course, brown, not white.
Now, more than 60 years later, I still genuinely enjoy doing the weekly grocery shopping. I’m not the bargain hunter Miss Bea was, and I confine myself to just one store.
But I love to drive my cart meticulously up and down the aisles, checking each procured item off my list, casually chatting with the other customers, occasionally making a pure impulse buy.
And when I do take the time to notice that Luck’s pinto beans are 10 cents a can cheaper than Bush’s, I’m sure Miss Bea looks down and smiles upon me.
Bill Poteat, who currently does his grocery shopping at the Ingles in Rutherford College, but who longs for the day when the Morganton store reopens, is editor emeritus of The Paper. He may be reached at 828-445-8595 or via email at bill@thepaper.media.
