Delivering Groceries Before Webvan and the Internet

This morning I (Solly) read in the Newsless Courier that a local supermarket is now taking grocery orders via the internet and making delivery - free for orders over $100; $4.95 for lesser orders.

I was reminded of 743 meeting Street. A telephone call from a customer with an order of any amount would get free delivery within minutes.

I can remember driving to Union Heights, a round trip of almost ten miles, to deliver an order of $5.00 -and no tips (Of course, at that time a pound of sugar probably sold for five cents.)

That reminded me of how convenient it was to live above the store, as the Breibarts did in those days.

If Mom lacked some potatoes in preparing a meal, she would send one of us downstairs to get them.

Sara tells me that today that is why I don't seem to mind driving to the nearest store to pick up something she lacks in preparing a meal - even though the store might be a mile or two away.

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I (Jack) was always thrilled when Solly or George would take me with them to deliver the orders.

Solly sometimes showed off when driving home by taking his foot off the gas pedal of the car (always a Plymouth then) and coasting to the store. I thought it was magic.

Sidney and I -- Sidney driving -- later did some deliveries, but by then it seemed like work.

Besides being free and fast -- I'm not so sure about the latter -- there was no redlining of neighborhoods.

One of the least desirable deliveries was to Big Jack's house, which I think was on Brigade St. between Meeting and the railroad tracks.

Jack looked to me a little like a black Abraham Lincoln with a mouthful of chew tobacco that he frequently delivered to the air and ground.

(To divert a minute. Papa sold chew tobacco (tobacco compressed into slabs) by the piece. He bought a big slab and cut off how much a customer wanted. The tobacco cutter was an iron device with a blade attached to a long handle. You would put the slab through an arch-like opening and then whack down with the handle. It was also good when you needed to shorten a belt.)

Big Jack's face and clothes were always dusted with a coat of fertilizer from the plant where he worked in the North Area; so Jack never really smelled swell nor did his house full of kids.

The fertilizer plants outside the city and the abatoir about three blocks north of the house were good indicators of which way the breeze was blowing. No environmental controls back then.

It also seems to me that some deliveries were made by the hired help -- Bubba, of course, was one --on the store's bicycle and I would go along on the crossbar. There may even have been some sort of wagon they pulled with the bicycle.

Another angle to living above the store was the convenience of a close bullpen. Mom -- after cooking in the morning -- would go down in the store so the rest of us could have dinner -- then eaten from noon on. If she got busy, she would yell upstairs, "Sam, I need somebody." Maybe, that's why we all have bad digestive systems.

Speeding at 80

by Sara

Most of you might remember I reached the venerable age of 80 this past July.

The kids wanted another party with invitations to all of you - I was tempted - remembering Solly's wonderful 80th when almost all of you came.

We loved having you all - including all of the Bolglas as well - and were flattered that you thought highly enough of Solly to make the trip.

But, then, after almost 59 years of being married to the guy, I have yet to find one (even ONE) person who doesn't like Solly.

Maybe that denotes a character flaw - but I haven't detected one yet. Anyway, I just couldn't face all of the planning needed for another such undertaking. So I just passed it up.

For some reason or other, since I reached 80, more people are asking me when I am going to retire from my job.

My stock answer is - when I am thrown out of it or die - whichever comes first. Actually, I waited too long to retire - wouldn't know how to make another life for myself.

Then, again, why should I? My job has changed somewhat since my partner at work retired a couple of months ago - and I have been relieved of doing some of the drip work which I was doing.

Now I do just what I love doing: Great Books Discussions, programs built on lectures on the classics followed by audience participation in discussions.

This year's program focused on the Civil War and has been well-received. Civil War discussions in Charleston, S. C.? It couldn't miss.

My latest has been book lectures and discussions one week - following week the same format on the film of the book. Doing great with that also.

Now I am getting ready for my annual Piccolo Spoleto movie series. Then Great Books seminars - one in Chicago and another in North Carolina (Solly goes with me and we have a great time). Have South Carolina authors lined up for lectures and book signing in the summer.

Sidney, you would love my book discussions. Move back to Charleston and attend them. I'll even let you lead some (even most) of them.

So why should I quit? Am having a grand time. Also am loving writing about it - even at the very real risk of boring you all. But you can always stop reading.

Love to you all.

Remembrance of Things Past

     This is to get things started and hopefully to bring clearer
     memories of this and other family events. Here are how Solly,
     George,and I remember the tornadoes of 1938 and the hurricane
     of 1940. 
    
**********************************************************************

Jack's Version

I can still picture the blackness of the sky that morning, September 29, 1938. I know
the date because I looked it up.

I remember playing with a game on the floor of the "sun-room" (was it then Mickey's bedroom?) and being scared of the way things looked outside. It was morning, and I should have been in my second grade class at James Simmons School with Mrs. Hendricks. But outside it looked like night to me.

The rest of the morning was even more frightening -- all in vague impressions now. Papa was at the Market where he went nearly every morning to pick up produce for the store and where he sometimes took me and Sidney. The news (from radio or word of mouth?) was that the Market had collapsed....tornado (whatever that was)...lots of people killed.

Then Papa was home safe. Did he just drive up? Did he call and say he was okay? Where was everybody else that day? What was mama doing?

Five tornadoes struck Charleston that day and 32 people were killed.

I remember a little more of what happened two years later -- the Hurricane of 1940.

It was a Sunday morning, I'm sure, and probably in September. The wind was really blowing and the rain was coming under the front door of the store -- as it often did and would.

The water must have been leaking in upstairs. I remember lots of people in the store. Talk of the roof coming off (did we really find this out from some neighbor?).

I next remember being in a car, driven by Mr. Jakes, with Sidney, Mama and Mickey and a lot of rain and fallen branches outside. We were on our way to Uncle Zavel and Aunt Heiker's (Fay Brickman's parents) house on Coming St.

Why Mr. Jakes drew the duty I don't know. He was a small, red-faced man who lived on the "other" ("good") side of the tracks (real railroad tracks) on Maple St. He often drank beer in the store (thus the red face) and probably had come in for a cool one that morning oblivious to the hurricane, although I don't think you could sell beer on Sunday.

Anyway, he became a family hero because he got us there.

The roof did come off the house and Mama spent the day at Heiker's, it seemed,
calling to get a progress report from Papa and Solly who were still on Meeting St. bailing out the water with neighbors. Was the phone really working?

The missing person this time was George, who was returning from vacation in
Florida with Ralph Coleman. So there was plenty of concern over where they were. I kept picturing them in a car zig-zagging away from falling trees.

Fifty people died in the Hurricane which hit hardest in Georgia, South Carolina
and North Carolina.

We stayed at Heiker's (for how long or how many of us, I don't remember) while
the Meeting St. house was being restored.

The restoration brought changes to the house-store besides having a new tin
roof put on. The decorative tin ceiling (so fashionable again) in the store was gone. A couple of round, iron supports posts were installed in the store. Upstairs, a wall with an arched entry way was put in to separate the dining and living (front) rooms. Previously, I think, there was a wooden, half-wall on either side of the entry with square wooden supports.

It was the only major work on the house until the long downstairs hallway
(which ran parallel) to the grocery store was turned into a liquor store.

Solly's Version

I was at home the day of the tornadoes (I was still staying there) and getting dressed to go I know not where at this time - perhaps to a substitute job or an interview, for I did not have a job at the time

Papa was already home; Mama was, I believe, upstairs in the kitchen. I remember hearing the roar of one of the tornadoes; they struck the Sacred Heart Church on King and Huger streets, jumped to demolish the Stellja's grocery store at Meeting St. near the "car barn," jumped again to demolish the Woodstock Manufacturing Co. near Romney St. One person was killed in the Stellja family. Pretty close call for us!

As for the hurricane, that was the day Sara was supposed to come for a visit. The telephones must have been working, for I called to tell her about the hurricane and, of course, she cancelled. (That was difficult, I know, for Sara was always ready to go.)

After you and the others had gone to the Cohens on Coming St., Papa closed the store and we went upstairs to try to prevent water coming through the windows on the Meeting St. side of 743. The wind was blowing fiercely across the open field on the east. Nothing seemed to help; suddenly there was a terrible ripping sound - that's when the wind curled up the tin roof and dumped it into the back yard. We called it quits and left the house; my recollection is that we somehow drove to the Cohens to sit out the
storm. I don't recall who drove the car.

George's Version

(As told to Barry)

Here's what Dad remembers. He and Ralph Coleman were driving back from Miami through the hurricane-like weather. When they got to Walterboro they were stopped by the police and routed through Summerville because of trees being down outside of Walterboro.

When they went through Summerville they stopped at the Lazarus home, but Bertha had already gone to work. When they got to the store, Dad remembers the tin roof being in the middle of Maple Street.

Abram Berry was at the house, because he had been visiting Solly when the storm hit.

The roof was off. Dad and Pop and Solly and Abram bailed water out of the house. Dad doesn't remember how much damage there was to the store.

The family stayed with the Cohens for a while. Dad remembers that he and Solly stayed in the house. He doesn't remember how they were fed, and he does remember Abram being there for a a few days.

Bernard Olasov had recently gone into the insurance business. He talked Pop into buying storm insurance a year or so before the damage happened.

 

 

 

George and Bertha
Celebrate 60 Years
Of Marriage

By Barry

A large crowd gathered in Charleston over Thanksgiving weekend to celebrate George's and Bertha's belated 60th wedding anniversary.

A shabbat evening dinner was attended by the family at the Sunfire Bistro and Grill.

An oneg followed at Emanu-El. Cantor David Surill conducted a beautiful service and added some special music to honor George and Bertha.

Bertha was joined in lighting the candles by her daughers-in-law, Flo and Simona, and granddaughters, Heather, Jennifer and Jamie.

There were about 200 people at the service.

Members of the local family and local friends were joined by lots of family from out of town.

Richard and Jeremy were there with Simona and the girls. Sidney and Bernice came in from Atlanta.. Roy and Sherron Lazarus also came from Atlanta. Rita Kirschstein was a surprise visitor, coming with Max.

On the weekend of the actual anniversary (November 9), George and Bertha were also honored guests during the Emanu-El Friday night service.