It occurred to me that I had really pleasant memories of shopping at Sam's from way back in the 80's when we were living in East Liverpool, Ohio. Our kids were young; Travis was a pre-teen. We would all pack up in our car for a day-trip to Boardman and a visit to Sam's. This was usually done on a Saturday when we had time to enjoy ourselves and stock up for a month.
Debbie and I both worked: she was a clerk at the Tri-State Federal Credit Union and I was leading the Oakland Free Methodist Church.
We would grab a buggy and head through the store throwing all the items in that we needed (and quite a few that we didn't need). By the time we were finished our cart was chock-full! It would include cleaning items, clothing, after-school snacks and lots of food items. The kids LOVED these little pizza-bagels, and also the sandwich-chicken-patties that came in long, frozen packages.
We would spend a couple of hours roaming the store and having fun together. As we neared Christmas, I would sometimes have a second buggy that we tried to conceal from the kids (good luck with that).
The only downer was when we would check-out and I would watch the register climb to $100, then $200, then over $300. Then out the door we would go to load all our prizes into our vehicle. It seemed we were all always in a good mood during these trips.
After shopping at Sam's, we would head for Chuck-E-Cheese for more fun and lots of pizza. If it was summer, we might stop at a miniature golf course at the corner of South Avenue and Rte. 224. It was a monthly splurge time and a genuinely fun time for our family!
One year, when we were living in a rented house on Bradshaw Avenue, I thought I was particularly clever in hiding our kid's Christmas gifts. We had a small garage in the basement and I had hung my 16' Coleman canoe from the ceiling. I had stuffed it with all their gifts - just waiting to be wrapped and placed under the tree.
We found out years later that Travis had searched the house and found the stash. He had excitedly called Troy and Tracie to the garage while we were gone and they had a fun time ruining their Christmas morning!
Those were fun years for our family!
One of those fun days occurred on March 13, 1993. Again, it was a Saturday and the snow began falling in the morning. Warnings were out to stay off the roads. But having gone to college in Rochester, New York, I was never one to be frightened of driving in snowy conditions. We had planned to go to a huge shoe warehouse (Reyer's) in Sharon, Pennsylvania that day.
Despite the cautions, we loaded into our big Chevy and started up Route 79. The warnings were warranted - the snow came down in a fury! We went from Reyer's to a Coney Island for our lunch. Then we headed to the outer area of Hermitage to go to a KMart store. As we walked into the store they informed us that they were closing due to the blizzard!
We decided to head home. As we drove down Route 79, many cars were off the road and some were even stopped in the driving lanes. The snow was over a foot deep, but we were able to keep rolling.
Suddenly, we came upon a car stopped in the right lane. An older woman was flagging us to stop. She had taken her husband for a treatment at the hospital and couldn't keep the car moving. She was desperate and asked if we could get her (and her husband) home to the Calcutta area. They piled into our back seat and off we went.
Less than a mile down the road, we saw a big man climbing out of his car from a ditch. We stopped to see if we could help him. Minutes later, he joined our troop as our crammed Chevy (with lots of added weight) snow-plowed toward East Liverpool - passing dozens of abandoned cars along the way.
As we road along, Travis seemed to recognize the woman. Turns out she was Mrs. Possage, one of his elementary school teachers. It was a festive time as we managed to get them to their house. Then we delivered the man to his home. Then, fortunately, we got back home safely. Seventeen inches fell that day and it was later memorialized on a Brighton Hot Dog Shop cup as the Blizzard of '93.
Lots of fun days are stored in our memories from those wonderful child-rearing years!
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