Coconut Cake Caper

On one of the weekly blogs, that Judy sent to us was a post that told about the little store across the street from Lincoln School. It was the store that they used to buy candy from at lunch time and after school.
I’ll tell you about my experiences with that store.

The Lincoln School yard was one whole city block. The yard was paved with asphalt.

That’s one reason LaDonna wore her shoes out so fast. ‘Ha!’

The school yard had a six foot cyclone fence around it. On the far corners of the fence were gates on each side. The street names on those corners were Court and Jackson Street, and Mound and Jackson Street.
The little store was across the street from the school yard. The children had to cross Mound Street near the school building to get to the little store.
Mound Street was blocked off at each end with posts so that cars couldn’t go through the school area.
I’m telling you all this street information so that you can visualize what I’m about to tell you.

I lived across the street from the school yard on Court and Jackson Street until I was 12 years old.

When I lived near the school, the store was called Conley’s School Store. Mr. and Mrs. Conley owned the store. The store was a small grocery store. They did big business in kid’s stuff, such as candy and snacks that the kids could buy at lunch time and after school.

One day, when I was about six years old, I went through the school yard to the school store. For sale was a really yummy looking coconut cake with white icing. I sure wanted that cake.
I went up to Mr. Conley and told him that my mother sent me to buy the cake. “Just put it on our bill,” I told him.
At that time, some of the stores would sell you groceries and charge it to your account. Then on payday, you went and paid for what you had bought.
I took the cake home and boy, was I in trouble. That cake cost 25 cents. It was Depression time and we didn’t have very much money.
My mother couldn’t take the cake back but she took me back to the store and told them to never sell or let Donald have anything on credit again.

The store sold a small round flat piece of mint chocolate covered candy, called a Lucky Bite. It cost a penny a piece. When you bought the Lucky Bite, you would stand right there in front of one of the store owners and take a bite of the candy. Most of the time, the candy was white inside but if you bit one that was green inside, you won a 5 cent candy bar. The reason the store owner insisted on watching as the children took a bite of their candy is because they didn’t want anyone to cheat on them.
The candy was called Lucky Bite, because you were very lucky if you got a green center.

The Conleys also sold yo-yos and once a year a man from the yo-yo company would come and have a yo-yo contest. All the kids with a yo-yo would gather outside the school store. Each person would take a turn with their yo-yo to show how good they were. There were several things that you could do with the yo-yo and string, like ‘walk the dog’ and ‘rock the cradle’.
The kid that did the best and could do the most things with their yo-yo won a prize.

I never came close to winning. Dad