Chapter 4

Flour Power:  The Day My Mother Hit it Big, and I Discovered Grownups Will Lie for Money.

                As long as I can remember, my mother never shopped for groceries.  When I was a kid, my daddy did it.  In old age, when he could no longer drive, I went to Laurel every Saturday and I did the bulk of the shopping.  A housekeeper worked three afternoons a week, and mother would sometimes send her to the store if she ran out of some necessity.

                Every weekday, shortly after five o’clock, the telephone would ring, and it would be my daddy calling to ask mother what she wanted from the store, and she would give him her daily shopping list.  That is the way they did most of their shopping:  three or four items a day.

                My Uncle Herman Jordan (then pronounced “Jerden,” but now “Jourdan”) managed one of five “Help Yourself Grocery Stores” in Laurel and Ellisville. (They advertised themselves as “The Friendly Five.”) They did not call it a “supermarket” – that would be pretentions, for that elite title was reserved for “uppity” stores like A&P or Jitney Jungle.  No  sir, these were real, honest-to-goodness old-fashioned neighborhood grocery stores where residents of the neighborhood would call in their order and my cousin Larry would deliver them to their door in a bicycle with a big wire basket taped to the handlebar.

                In my early days, the store was un-air conditioned, but had a ceiling fan just inside the front door, right next to the bunch of bananas that hung from the ceiling.  Later, when the owner air conditioned the store,  they stuck a decal on the front door, given by Kool Cigarettes, with a picture of a penguin, that read “Come in, its Kool inside.”  The store carried just about everything that common folks of the era wanted. No, you couldn’t buy couscous or Brussels’ sprouts, but you could get fishing tackle at a great price, for Uncle Herman loved to fish.  The produce section was a wooden shelf by the front, south facing, window.  It held bins of fresh fruits and vegetables, usually purchased from a local farmer who “peddled” to homeowners and small stores.  Greens that were bought fresh in the morning looked pretty sad by late afternoon.  In later years, the store had a refrigerated produce section.  It kept the greens fresh, but the bananas were never as good.

                My daddy worked from the Standard Oil Bulk Plant, where he drove a delivery truck.  It was in North Laurel, and he only had to make about a two-block detour to stop by “the store” on his way home each afternoon, which he did.  He liked to visit with Uncle Herman, Larry -- who worked after school – Roy Smith, the butcher and the other “boys.” Daddy would call mother for the grocery list from the store’s phone.  You could always depend on our  phone ringing at about five minutes after five.  Along with the groceries, Daddy would bring me  -- or rather the neighborhood kids and I (more about that in the next chapter) -- some treats:  five pieces of penny candy in a separate paper bag.  Friends, in those days, you could get some FINE candy for a penny: peppermint sticks or Tootsie Rolls about the size of an unsharpened pencil, jawbreakers, Atomic Fireballs and Fleer’s Double Bubble Bubble Gum, just to mention a few.

                Mother always complained about what he bought.  “Those are just like the collards you bought last week.  They sit on that shelf by the window all day and are limp by the afternoon.  The last ones were tough and tasted like oak leaves and these will, too.”  She had the world’s sharpest sense of smell.  She would pull the white butcher’s paper from the pound of bacon Roy Smith had hand sliced from a slab, sniff it and say “Humph,” that’s some of that old boar meat.”  But the most atrocious thing he ever did was to bring home a bag of Robin Hood Flour. Oh, my, but how she hissed and spat and snarled!

                When Daddy called home for the shopping list, she told him a five-pound bag of flour.  About that time, Robin Hood Flour was running a big advertising campaign, and Uncle Herman had a big display and – IT WAS ON SALE!  Daddy could never resist a bargain.  He would often bring home bags of loose grapes.  Grocers would gather up the loose grapes from the bottom of the crate, that had fallen off the bunches, and sell them for a dime for a big bag.  I was Eighteen years old before I even knew grapes came in bunches.  So, naturally, Daddy bought the Robin Hood Flour – but mother used Martha White, Daddy knew that, and he did not care, he just bought whatever was the cheapest and she could not use that stuff (although she had never tried), so that was just money wasted.  She did not know why he did not just throw that 39 cents out the car window.  She stormed off and hurled the Robin Hood Flour under the sink with the cleaning supplies.  We never threw anything away, even left-overs.  We dumped them out the back door so some stray animal could have them.

                As part of their advertising campaign, the Robin Hood Flour people would pick an address at random, drive up to that house and ask to see a bag of Robin Hood flour.  If the lady (or gentleman) of the house could produce it, she (or he) would win money! The prize started out at $5 and increased $5 per week until someone won it, then start over.

                There came that fateful day when our doorbell rang. I followed mother to the front of the house as she answered it.  Wonder of wonders – there he stood – the Robin Hood Flour man, resplendent in his Robin Hood Flour blazer, slicked-back Elvis Presley hair-do and holding a microphone with a cable that snaked back to the WAML Radio (“The Voice of Laurel”) van parked in front of the house.

                “Good afternoon, madam,” he said into the microphone, “I’m Elmo Smoltz, your Robin Hood Flour man, and your name is?” sticking the microphone into her face.

                “Uh, Iva Anderson,” she said, stunned.”

                “For this week’s grand prize, can you show us a bag of Robin Hood Flour?” Ol’ Elmo dramatically asked into the microphone.

                “Oh, yes,” my mother said in her best company voice, then she rushed back to the kitchen, retrieved the bag of hated flour from among the cleaning supplies under the sink, dusted off the weeks of accumulated dust, opened it up and poured some into the sink, so it would look like she had been using it, and presented the bag to Elmo.

                “That’s great,” Mrs. Iva Anderson, now, give us your honest opinion of Robin Hood Flour.”

                “Oh, it is just the best flour on the market.  I use it for everything.  It makes the flakiest pie crust and the best biscuits I have ever cooked.  I would not use anything else!”

                “But, but, Mother you told Daddy you did not use anything but Mar…” I piped up.” She pushed me aside and said, still in her company voice, “Hush, you know not to talk when grown-ups are speaking.” So I did.

                Elmo handed Mother a five dollar bill and said “Here’s your grand prize of $5, Mrs. Anderson.  Now tell the audience what you are going to do with that money.”

                “Why, I am going to use it to buy more Robin Hood Flour,” she replied.

                Hypocrite.