Growing up on 182 Street the closest corner store was Loxtercamp's located on the corner of 60th Avenue and 184 Street. It was named after the man who owned/operated the store. There were a couple of gas pumps outside and this was the place to go to get air for our bike tires.
We'd either walk or ride our bikes there. 60th Avenue was a lot more quiet back then than it is today. Ten cents allowance would go a long way. There was penny candy and often candy that would be 2 or 3 for a penny such as licorice, gum drops, or Double Bubble gum. Chocolate bars were ten cents each and we used to buy half size chocolate bars for five cents. They would be half the size and price of a chocolate bar, but they stopped producing those halfers by the early seventies, about the time chocolate bars increased to twelve cents each.
We could buy popcicles for a dime or a couple of freezies and even a can of pop or bag of chips. The selection was endless. A dime doesn't go the same distance these days as it did back then!
Usually our money went a lot farther because Loxtercamp was usually hitting the bottle while behind the cash register and would sell us our goodies and often give us change when none was due. As kids this was great, but as an adult I would do the honest thing and give the excess money back.
I don't know whatever happened to Loxtercamp but by the early seventies there were a couple of women working as clerks in the store. They were sharp enough handling the cash and gone were the days of showing up with a quarter, buying a couple of chocolate bars and a bunch of penny candy and getting twenty cents change.
In 1974 the store had a new name out front - French's - purchased by a family with that last name. The son was a year ahead of me in junior high school and often worked the cash register. By that time chocolate bars had climbed to fifteen cents apiece and shortly thereafter twenty cents. Highway robbery as far as I was concerned.
The store is still there and for many years has been known as the Cloverhill Market. There are still gas pumps outside and the store has expanded with a larger retail area. Probably doing a fairly decent business with the influx of new homes in the area and its still the closest corner store around if you're not driving a car.
I believe Mrs. Loxtercamp used to work on my dad's potato farm on Colebrook Road nd 157th st. during 1944. I was four then, riding on the potato planter with Mrs. Lundeen. Why are these memories coming back after seventy six years?
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