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As a 15-year-old kid, back in 1957, I had some grave responsibilities.

If we didn’t have enough ice-cold bottles of Squirt in the soda cooler in my parents’ store, the fellows playing the pinball machines wouldn’t be properly fueled to rack up big scores while their buddies watched and cheered them on.

If we’d run out of packs of bobby pins, a young lady’s dreamy Saturday night date might never have become more than fantasy.

Though a teenager, I had somehow become responsible for ordering most of the stock in our shop on East Market Street in Wilkes-Barre’s Heights section. My parents manned the cash register nearly all the time and kept the place spotless. I maintained a bunch of order books hidden away on a shelf and cast a wary eye on what was selling.

The Harvard Business School it wasn’t. But I think I did pick up the equivalent of an MBA in 1950s small neighborhood store management.

Pay attention now. I’m going to teach a short course in the subject.

First, know your suppliers. A stretch of several blocks on East Northampton and South Pennsylvania Avenue comprised the city’s wholesale district. We bought most of our stock from five places: Key Stores, Klein Candy, Sperling Tobacco, Rubin Specialty and Grosco Products.

Since my father and I visited them all from time to time on a Saturday, I knew exactly what they carried. Klein, for instance, had a delightful little one-cent piece of chocolate such as I’ve never tasted since. Eager to promote the good fellowship that comes from an exploding cigarette, I kept us well stocked with 10-cent tins of loads from Grosco. Of course we had to sell the cigarettes too, which this time of year came packed in festive Christmas cartons.

Second, make the store look (and feel) like a cornucopia of pleasures, the kind of place you can’t believe you’ve found in your own neighborhood. Short version: overdo everything.

I installed long racks on top of the counters and piled them to overflowing with every kind of candy bar and chewing gum known to man, suggesting that you’d better grab one quickly before a horde of customers trampled you. We had big show windows, and I piled them high with cheaper plastic toys to make an adult buying a magazine or a pound of cheese feel guilty if he didn’t bring home a treat for the kiddies too.

Third, think innovation. What are the other stores not doing? Everybody sold cold soda. I decided to sell soda so cold that I wondered if it was safe to drink. Before putting a bottle into our air cooler out front, I’d let it sit for a day in Antarctic ice water in back.

We might have had the only store on the street that sold plugs of chewing tobacco. I made sure we had that, plus cigarette papers and loose tobacco to make our place a destination for the roll-your-own fans and survivalists. I’m convinced that I invented the candysicle. During the summer, I’d shove wooden sticks into the Big Time and Mars bars and toss them in the ice cream freezer, my contribution to world nutrition.

Well, I’d like to go on. If time travel ever develops, I might just sail back to 1957 and offer my business consultant services.

Can’t wait for an icy glass bottle of Squirt and a Chesterfield blowing up in a guy’s face.

Remember When
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/web1_TOM_MOONEY.jpg.optimal.jpgRemember When

Tom Mooney

Remember When

Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history columnist. Reach him at [email protected].