Small Town Meat Market 1955
I had an entry the other day about the American grocery store of yesteryear. Today I'd like to show you a little meat market in Mississippi from 1955. Below you'll see a photo..
This was my father and uncle's meat market as it appeared in December of 1955. The man standing on the left wearing the black hat behind the display case is my uncle (father of the cousin I am always talking about) the man in the middle is my father and the fellow with his back turned ...I forgot his name, I'm sure the Sister remembers.
On the left wall is a Burger Beer clock. The Burger Beer logo got painted over on that clock and it hung in my grand parents kitchen for ages. I'm surprised anything having to do with beer was even allowed in the house painted over or not. On the right hand side of the room toward the back you see a pile of packages wrapped in white paper. That is an order of meat getting ready to go out. Nothing was wrapped in plastic, everything was wrapped in butcher paper and the price and weight was marked on it with a black grease pencil. The little machine on top of the meat case in front of my father is a tape dispenser. You pull the handle and it gives you a pre-measured piece of tape to hold the butcher paper around the wrapped meat. I also noticed that the man standing in the back is using the meat tenderizer and has the cover removed. This makes it extremely unsafe, especially when you're not looking at what you're doing!
There are two cases of apples in front of the meat case and on the top left end there are two or three cured hams. The giant wooden room in the back is the cooler where most of the meat is stored.
Things have changed alot in the past fifty or so years. While it looks less hygienic than your average grocery store of today, I'll bet there weren't 1/100th the germs in that old market that you get exposed to today in some of the modern stores.
This was my father and uncle's meat market as it appeared in December of 1955. The man standing on the left wearing the black hat behind the display case is my uncle (father of the cousin I am always talking about) the man in the middle is my father and the fellow with his back turned ...I forgot his name, I'm sure the Sister remembers.
On the left wall is a Burger Beer clock. The Burger Beer logo got painted over on that clock and it hung in my grand parents kitchen for ages. I'm surprised anything having to do with beer was even allowed in the house painted over or not. On the right hand side of the room toward the back you see a pile of packages wrapped in white paper. That is an order of meat getting ready to go out. Nothing was wrapped in plastic, everything was wrapped in butcher paper and the price and weight was marked on it with a black grease pencil. The little machine on top of the meat case in front of my father is a tape dispenser. You pull the handle and it gives you a pre-measured piece of tape to hold the butcher paper around the wrapped meat. I also noticed that the man standing in the back is using the meat tenderizer and has the cover removed. This makes it extremely unsafe, especially when you're not looking at what you're doing!
There are two cases of apples in front of the meat case and on the top left end there are two or three cured hams. The giant wooden room in the back is the cooler where most of the meat is stored.
Things have changed alot in the past fifty or so years. While it looks less hygienic than your average grocery store of today, I'll bet there weren't 1/100th the germs in that old market that you get exposed to today in some of the modern stores.
By the front door, there were two gum machines which I wore out every chance I got. One of them had little plastic charms that were shaped like hamburgers and hotdogs. The other man's name was Red. Those two guys at the front were a couple of hunks back then and they're still nice looking ole cooters today. Did you notice that one row of lights wasn't working? The only reason the beer clock was allowed was because it had umpteen coats of paint over it. It was an electric clock and the household thriftiness wouldn't allow it to be thrown away. So you paint it turquoise, hang it up high over the refrigerator and no one's ever the wiser.
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