| Subject: Mother and daughter |
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Oldie and Better
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Date Posted: 00:13:38 03/02/02 Sat
In reply to:
BSF
's message, "Stories Thread" on 11:44:44 02/20/02 Wed
Just off the courthouse square in my hometown is a parking lot. Much of it is coated with asphalt, but a big area in the center is concrete. Sawed off pipes, even some old floor tiles remains.
At what could be the entrance to a building is the word Locker embedded in ceramic tile.
That was the entrance to Locker's Grocery Store. It was an entrance I passed many time but never as often as the summer after my sophomore year when I worked for the store.
I worked for Locker's grocery, which was already losing business to a new supermarket in town.
Maury Locker was the last of three generations of Lockers to run the store. His grandfather had passed but Harold Locker, Maury's dad, still came to work daily. He looked things over and then headed to the golf course most summers.
I was stock boy, sacker and occasional deliver boy.
Mr. Locker was manager and delivery man. Credit and delivery were keeping him afloat in those days. Mr. Locker really didn't like having a teen-age boy running loose with his company pickup.
At first I thought it would be great to drive through town daily. But was even more interesting to stay behind. Amy, who had completed her freshman year at the University of Texas, as the lead person on the register for the summer.
Her mother, Linda, floated around to some bookkeeping, helping me with the pricing and stocking and helping Amy with checking out, especially between 5 and 7 p.m. daily and on Saturday.
Of course, the store was closed on Sunday. For years, Maury and Linda worked the 12 hours, six days a week. Their only break was two weeks around Christmas when Maury's parents took over the mom and pop operation.
Maury hardly missed a minute when the store was open. Linda missed few. Amy, summer relief for regular cashier Bessie Porter, was lucky to get in 40 hours.
One of the interesting things about the job was to see who smoked what. There were few surprises among the women buying cigarettes or even having them delivered.
Inside the store I was beginning to get an eyeful. Amy had become a smoker at UT and was halfway telling her parents. She told her mother.
Now Linda, Mrs. Locker, seemed to always have a cigarette lit when I was younger. She quit about five years ago. "I quit so you wouldn't start," Mrs. Locker said. Amy had no response. Linda Locker never told her husband.
Before June was over, the air had cleared and the store was consumed with the smell of cigarette smoke provided by an addtional smoker.
Before long, Mrs. Locker decided to have one of Amy's Kents. That Monday was slow and Mrs. Locker joined Amy for a smoke three times.
Things when that way for the entire week. When Mr. Locker left and when the store was clear, which was often, Mrs. Locker would light up. When a customer came in, a she would head to the stockroom. Smoking was allowed in the store anyway so there was less to mask.
On Saturdays, Mr. Locker stayed in the store to help out. There were no deliveries. That didn't seem to bother Mrs. Locker, at least not the first weekend after her return to smoking. She was also jovial Sunday when she attended the same Baptist Church we attended.
I later learned that Maury spent some of Sunday afternoon at the store. Linda and Amy spent some time in the back yard smoking.
By the second weekend of her smoking, I could tell that Linda's patience was wearing thin. Late in the day that second Saturday, when Mr. Locker took the groceries out for a customer, I overheard Linda telling Amy that she was going to be (s-word) if she would go through another (f-word) Saturday without at least a pack of cigarettes. It was hardly like Linda to cuss. Linda did not come to church that Sunday but Maury and Amy did.
The matter was still not completely settled Monday as Linda and Amy discussed the solution. "I'll just tell him I returned to smoking," Linda said.
"Where will that leave me," Amy asked. "I mean I've been smoking a year and you've only been smoking about two weeks."
That plea was falling on deaf ears. "I smoked for 20-something years," Linda said. "When you start back, it's like riding a bicycle, you never forget how."
Amy was thinking what I was thinking. "Twenty-something years and been quit five. Depending on what that something is, you started a lot sooner than me."
Her mother laughed. "I've smoked a lot of years already. Better for you to start later and smoke less."
Not long after Mr. Locker returned, Amy lit up.
Mr. Locker came out of his office when he saw the activity. "So, you're a smoker now," he said.
"Yes, dad, I am. Started in college. I think that was pretty good to wait that long." Mr. Locker surprised us by calling his wife into his office. The door was closed.
"Oh, s=word," Amy said. Only the arrival of a customer ended the conversation between us.
There was never any shouting from the office. In a few minutes, Linda came out and went straight toward the cash register, reached overhead and came up with a Marlboro. "I've decided to go back to smoking," Linda said.
That was that. By the end of summer, Linda was up to her old total of two packs a day. Amy was close behind.
The store barely lasted past my high school graduation. The Lockers sold the store and the big lot across the street that was sometimes needed for a parking lot and bought a liquor store in a town not too far away.
A bigger supermarket came in and used the old store lot for parking.
With what was left the Lockers bought the liquor store. They still run the liquor store and live in town. To this day, I have never again seen Linda Locker go very long without a cigarette.
Amy, well, she's a flight attendant and can be seen smoking her mothers' brand, Marlboro 100s. Amy, who once said aid her mother's announcement plan wouldn't fly, is now flying herself. She's taken time to have three children, the oldest a daughter of 14. Sons are 11 and five. You probably aren't surprised but her husband is an orthopedic surgeon in Dallas.
Only the entry way of the old store is obvious but I would have to think that there are some stains on the remaining floor tiles where the Locker ladies stomped out their cigarette butts.
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