The Acme store had all the essentials needed for a farm family. A convenience store before anyone ever thought of that term. The gas pump didn’t get a lot of use, but I did see the  occasional fill-up. This was long before self-service pumps. A customer would pull up to the pump (Yes, pump. There was only one. No diesel, no premium. Just gas.) and go into the store to tell Bill, the proprietor, that he needed some gasoline. Bill would leave his station at the counter to fill the tank, then return to carry on where he left off. While Bill was pumping the gas, the customer might be gathering his groceries, or maybe having a beer with another patron. There wasn’t any urgency to move their car out of the way for the next fuel customer, since there normally wouldn’t be another one for quite a while. Perhaps days.

An essential for any growing family is bread. Mom would often make bread at home, but just as often would buy bread from the store. Acme carried Wonder Bread. White bread in a waxed paper type wrapper. There were no wheat or multi grain loaves to confuse you. Just white bread in the distinctive Wonder Bread package with it’s brightly colored red, yellow and blue balloons on the white wrapper. My recollection is that bread was 12 cents a loaf. (By the way, in case you’re wondering, the loaves were sliced. I don’t go back that far!)

Directly across from the counter, next to the bread were more baked goods. Hostess fruit pies, chocolate cream filled cupcakes and of course, Twinkies. Ding Dongs and Ho Ho’s hadn’t been invented yet. These were a rare treat, and I still associate the occasional indulgence of one of these now with thoughts of standing in Acme looking longingly at the selection.

Beside the counter where the cash register sat was a large meat cooler with a glass front for displaying it’s contents. This included big chunks of cold cuts, or cold meat as we called it. Behind the display case was a meat slicer and a scale. You would ask for two pounds of bologna or pimento loaf, or whatever your choice was that day, and Bill would slice it, weigh it, then wrap it in white butcher paper. A press on the lever of the tape dispenser would produce a length of freezer tape about two inches long, ready to be attached to the package.

Finally, in one corner of the store near the front, were some hardware items. Mostly bolts and screws and some teeth for a hay mower sickle blade. Large bolts and longer items were located in the lower level accessed through the door to the side and a few steps down. Not really a basement, but a one car garage that was lower due to the slight slope of the ground.

Not your typical big box shopping experience, just enough essentials to keep a farm family going.