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Published on 07/28/1997 All articles from this issue

No more double banana splits to go

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By Clyde Noel

A Side of Clyde

Going into a five-and-dime store has not been on my agenda the last couple of years, but when F. W. Woolworth recently announced it was closing its doors, it brought back a lot of feel-good memories.

Two weeks ago, Woolworth Corporation, the New York parent of the 117-year-old chain of variety stores, said it was closing 400 of its stores and firing 9,200 workers. The president said the marketplace could no longer support Woolworth's general merchandise business.

Coming home after World War II, one of the first places a GI went was either Woolworth's, S. S. Kresge, Newberry's or Sprouse-Reitz. We had four five-and-dime stores, in my hometown in Pennsylvania. They had everything from underwear to candy bars, and we could afford it at the time. You could pick up sheet music from the latest hit parade and dress patterns for the home sewing machine.

Woolworth's was the favorite because it had a soda fountain where everybody in town met for lunch. They came for the roast beef sandwich and on Friday, oyster stew.

Woolworth's is where I bought toothpaste and shampoo, cough syrup and newspapers, and once, when I forgot a special Valentine, I bought one of those gaudy red boxes of chocolates my wife pretended to appreciate.

Woolworth's was the place where a person could belly-up to the counter of the soda fountain and ask and receive delights the likes of which are now rare and precious.

You could get milkshakes. Not milkshakes out of a machine that you have to eat with a spoon, but milkshakes made by human hands by scooping real ice cream into a milk can with real milk.

You could get real limeade made out of real lime juice, hand-squeezed from real limes. Long hot dogs. Ham sandwiches with thin sliced tomatoes. Chocolate malts and grilled cheese sandwiches.

There was a young high school girl working behind the counter and one day I ordered a tuna fish sandwich and she forgot the potato chips.

"You forgot my potato chips," I yelled.

"You got two legs," she replied. "Get you own potato chips." That's the sort of friendly service that kept me coming back for lunch at Woolworth's.

My wife got her first job at Woolworth's in West Philadelphia. She was 16 at the time and helped out behind a counter from Thanksgiving to Christmas. She was behind a counter that displayed hair nets, black rubber combs and hair pins.

When kids graduated from high school, their first job was at a five-and dime-store. Girls were behind the counter and boys worked in the stock room. They didn't pay much, but it was a job.

It's not the end for Woolworth executives, just the workers behind the counters. The company will now put more attention on its more profitable Foot Locker, Champs Sporting Goods, Woolworth Garden stops, Northern Reflections apparel shops and other retail stores.

Lets mourn its leave, for nothing similar remains to take its place.

One item the five-and-dime store didn't carry was ammunition, but I bought my first Saturday Night Special there. It was a double banana split.