Mooney
Lots of my fellow teenagers had after-school jobs.
Some fixed cars and pumped gas. Others sewed in garment factories or waited on tables. Admirable young people, all of them.
Me? I worked miracles.
My parents owned a store on Wilkes-Barre’s East Market Street, a whole section of town now long gone due to redevelopment. Starting as a clerk, I progressed to ordering stock.
To be clear, maybe I didn’t literally wave a wand and change the laws of nature. But I hope that, to this day, I was nice to our customers and helped them by anticipating their needs.
There was a belief in those days that smoking relaxed you after a long day doing whatever you did for a living. I made sure we had just about everything legal that you could light up, puff on and kick back with. Anybody remember Fatima cigarettes? How about Bugler pipe tobacco?
Actually, I wasn’t old enough to buy and smoke anything myself. But I made sure YOU could have a relaxing evening after a day driving a semi to Philly and back or mashing hops at the brewery.
In fact, if you wanted to light up one of our king-size cigars and feel like Winston Churchill battling the Axis, I was your man (or your teenage clerk).
Prefer the Sherlock Holmes vibe? When I found our supplier carried meerschaum pipes, I ordered a couple.
A small, neighborhood store in those days was a classic field of dreams. Were you a guy prepping for a date but just realized you were stuck with pizza breath? I made sure we had lots of five-cent chewing gum, whether peppermint or teaberry or whatever, so the girl wouldn’t treat you like the creature from the Black Lagoon closing in on her.
As for the women, just remember to stop by a few days before the big meet-up to check out our collection of boxed home permanents. Beauty shop prices? Who needs ‘em? We’ve got you covered.
You know, I never did have any idea what all those little devices in a kid’s grade school pencil box or zippered case were for. But I was still the prince of protractors and king of compasses every September when moms and dads were equipping the children for the annual return to the classroom. Every new school year, it was “Harvard, here we come!”
Living in a neighborhood of workers of all kinds, I had a pretty good sense of what our customers (largely our friends) needed to unwind. That’s why we carried magazines.
Guys could find vicarious thrills and chills in our crime and adventure mags. Honestly, what red-blooded American could resist a cover story about lady pirates of the Caribbean? I made sure we had ‘em.
For the women, we had the confession and romance periodicals. Before TV and its Hallmark Channel, this was how you traveled on wings of love and marriage.
Perhaps most miraculous of all our goods were the patent medicines. Got after-dinner bloat over spaghetti or ribs? We had liquids and pills of all colors and tastes to get you back in the game.
A headache at work is a non-starter. Save your career with our pain capsules, right up front by the cash register.
Well, maybe I didn’t have a magic wand to wave. But a pipe to smoke and some adventure stories to read after a rugged day on the job?
Now there was something almost miraculous.
Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history writer. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.
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Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history writer. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.