F-F-F-Fri-daay!

TGIF, for those of you in the Monday thru Friday work world.......sorry 'bout that, to those of you who work other schedules! We did check with each other a couple of times today to make sure what day it was, but for no particular reason.

Friday was always a cool day when I was a kid - mostly because I had the excitement of knowing we would make our weekly trek to "town" for shopping/groceries on Saturday. "Town" was 20 miles away, so we didn't take the time or use the gasoline to make that trip any more often than necessary. And it was such a fun trip. We always started out checking out things on the square. In those days, the square was a bustling place on Saturdays. Every building was occupied, as well as a block in every direction off the square. At times, we had three grocery stores. On the square, there was JC Penney, Mattingly's 5 & 10, Weinhold's, two jewelry stores, a shoe store, hardware store, Western Auto, a couple of the more hoity-toity women's clothing stores (translation: we couldn't afford them), and one men's store. There were three pharmacies, one with a soda fountain in the back. For awhile there was a fabric store, but you could also buy fabric at JC Penney. Oh, yes, there was also Mode O'Day ladies' clothing store. JC Penney was always a stop for us - as I got older and was making my own school clothes, I always had to check out the fabric and patterns. Mattingly's was another stop. You could always find something fun in there, and they were the only store that sold records - 45's for, I think, 75 cents, and LP's for $4 or less, depending on how "hot" the album was. Weinhold's had a great candy counter, with all unusual types of inexpensive candies, cinnamon toothpicks, and the like. They also had piano sheet music, and the weekly Top 40 list from "Seventy-Wonderful WHB" - THE  radio station in KC......on the back would be the lyrics from a current Top 40 hit, and a photo of one of their dj's. Once the shopping on the square was done, we would get groceries and head home. A good day would include a stop at Burger Bar or Dog 'n Suds for lunch.

Now the farm where I grew up is part of the "town" school district, and people in the old neighborhood drive in five days a week for work. There's very little commerce on the square, and a lot of empty buildings. It's truly a different world.

Carrollton - thanks for the memories!