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Posted in Lifestyle Fashion

What are the biggest shopping changes in your life?

What are the biggest shopping changes in your life? So he asked my 9 year old grandson.

As I thought about the question, the local Greengrocer came to mind. Because that is the biggest change in shopping in my life.

That was the first place to start with the question of what are the biggest shopping changes in your life.

Our local greengrocer was the biggest shopping change of my life. Next to him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.

Looking back, we were well served as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the biggest shopping changes in my life were with small family businesses.

Entertainment while shopping has changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a nearby favorite family grocery store. We were always polite when asking for a pound or two of butter and other small items.

A large block of moist butter wrapped in parchment paper came out. Brought in from the back of the store, placed on a huge counter and included two ribbed pâtés.

That was a big change in our shopping in my life… nowadays you don’t come across a pat of butter.

Our old friend Mr. Mahon with the mustache would cut a square of butter. Raise it to another piece of parchment paper with the pate from it. Then he went to the scales, a little cut or added here and there.

Our old shopkeeper would then hit it with relish, turning it over and over. He was upside down and on his side, so he had sideburn grooves, spatter everywhere, including our faces.

My sister and I thought this was so much fun and it always made us laugh out loud. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our favorite grocery store.

grocery shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favorite greengrocers, not so local. Mr. McKessie, (spelled phonetically) would take our list, collect the purchases and put them all in a large cardboard box.

And since we were good customers, he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t as funny as old Mr. Mahon. Still, he was a good man.

all things fresh
So, there were many common services, such as home deliveries, such as:

• Farm eggs

• Fresh vegetables

• Cow milk

• Bread recently ovened

• Charcoal for our open fires

delivery services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm-fresh eggs.

Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.

Our milk, topped with a beautiful cream, was delivered to our door every morning.

Incredibly, now that I think about it, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry, who became a family friend.

My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were a lot of them during the summer months. Children and adults really enjoyed these moments. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotalers. The lemonade was a treat, with homemade sandwiches and cakes.

The charcoal burner was another one who delivered sacks of charcoal for our open fires. I can still see his soot-covered face under his tweed cap, but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name, but most of them escape me now.

Mr. Higgins, a Hoover Company service technician, always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.

Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.

So, people only paid for their purchases in cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my life.

In some department stores there was a system whereby money from cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the head office.

Some of the biggest changes
Some of the most important changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.

• Supermarkets replaced many smaller individual grocery stores. Cash and bank checks have given way to credit cards and keys.

• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in the minds of many, doing more damage to bookstores.

• There are not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.

On a more optimistic note, I’ve heard that bookstores are becoming popular again after a decline.

Personal service has definitely changed
So no one has to leave home to buy just about anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And now we have a much wider range of products to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.

We have longer shopping hours and weekend shopping. But we’ve lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and appreciated too.

Due to their hectic lifestyle, I have heard people say that they find it very stressful to go shopping, i.e. grocery shopping. I’m sure it’s when you have to run home and cook dinner after a day at work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.

My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services that were available to her. With a full time job taking care of 9 people, 7 kids plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she didn’t have 2 jobs.

We were not rich, but we were happy children and very grateful for any small gift that came our way.

And even now, we not only love each other, we also like each other. Although spread all over the world, we are always in contact.

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