Marney Solomon

My Mother never drove.  She once jumped the curb and stopped short of the neighbor’s front door; she never got behind the wheel again.  That left all the tasks requiring driving to my father.

My dad wasn’t an easy man.  He held his feelings close and he was quick to anger, but I got along with him (he liked me best!). I was his Saturday assistant.  It was my job to accompany him to the Red Owl grocery store for weekly shopping. I pushed the cart around the store as we gathered all the items on a very long list.  A lot of groceries meant a lot of S & H Green Stamps.   It was my job when we got home to count out 30 stamps to fill each page.  I took my time tearing and pasting just so. I felt a lot of excitement as those books were quickly filled.

And those books were gold!!  My father was a jeweler and had an enormous safe in our basement.  He never kept merchandise in it though, only the S & H Green Stamp books.

I fondly remember looking through the S & H catalog deciding what to redeem all of those stamps for. Maybe a hair dryer for my sister, Samsonite luggage for my parents, or a Mickey Mouse bedspread for me.

That was my special time with my Dad – just him and me. I couldn’t have redeemed those stamps for anything better.