Shopping Carts Have More Than One Use

When I was growing up, before shopping malls, “Downtown” was where you went to purchase anything except food.  The trip itself was an event, although I remember only a few of them. It was there I learned that my mom could not parallel park very well. (On one occasion she had jockeyed our 1949 Pontiac so many times without success that a man came over and told her how to turn the wheel just so, beckoning with his hands, then finally “Okay, ma’am. You can get out now.” She wailed, “But I was trying to get IN!” He waved her off, shaking his head in disgust, and strode away.)

Our grocery shopping was done with much less fanfare, although it always took place on Friday. No exceptions to this rigid rule. Most was done at the corner store, Hagen’s Market, patronized I am sure because my grandfather, Momo’s husband, owned a “mercantile” in Mayer, Arizona for the last several years of his life, and so my mom knew what keeping a store entailed and tendered our support.

Hagen’s was small – it offered only about a dozen shopping carts – the aisles were narrow, and often blocked by one of the Hagen sons stocking shelves. As my mom and my grandmother pushed their carts, we walked alongside, hands in our pockets so we wouldn’t forget and touch something. But there were a few things Hagen’s didn’t stock, and for those we got to go to Bayless Market, which, even in the 1950s, began to look like a "supermarket", and was a delight to a small girl's eyes.

Once in a while, Momo, my grandmother, let me push her cart – only when my mother nodded her assent, of course, and only when Momo didn’t need much.

Remember the shopping carts of the 1950s? They were small, pitiful affairs when compared to the behemoths of today. But a child could push them. And Momo sometimes let me, encircling my small body, her hands ready to steer when it was obvious I was doing a poor job. Here I practiced three-point-turns, sharp right or left turns, and navigation. She gave me a few tips, such as “Always look ahead into the aisle, don’t look at the cart.” And “Pause at the corners to see if anyone is coming.” I know now that she kept us in sparsely populated corners so as not to interfere with others.

After I got too old and tall for this, I asked her why she let me. “Why, honey!” she said, wondering why I didn’t know without asking. “I was teaching you to drive!”

Last week, Katie, our seven year old granddaughter, and I went to lunch, then off for a bit of shopping. Big Lots is a fun place for little ones, and as I slid the cart from its place, she looked up and said, “Grammy? Can I push the cart? All by myself?”

You already know my answer.