Saturday, March 8, 2008

That's A LOT of Salt!



I was one of the last family members to visit Oregon after the Sundins purchased 10th Street Market. I expected Uncle Pete and Aunt Clarane to be well settled-in to their new venture. My first assessment of their inventory suggested otherwise. (I heard later that Aunt Clarane took over the store’s purchasing duties soon after my visit.) Here's what happened:
My wife and I were excited to FINALLY visit Baker City's popular 10th Street Market. Located just a short walk from the Sundin residence on 9th Street, we approached the dark brown building with great expectancy. Plantings of pansies adorned the entrance--along with the infamous blue and white lettering on the front window proclaiming, "Coldest Beer in Town." Oregonian and Eastern Oregonian newspaper racks stood sentry at the door.

Auntie Clarane was "manning" the counter when we arrived. After a brief greeting, I began to peruse the store while Sherry and AC visited between customers. I was immediately struck by an abundance of salt: Top shelf, middle, bottom, from the front all the way to the back of the store, each and every shelf had several of the familiar blue cartons of table salt--arranged like bookends around the other merchandise. They must have totaled several hundred cartons. Then I noticed that there were at least 3 large displays of rock salt located near the soda and beer coolers. And each aisle was headed by a pallet stacked with 50 lb. bags of water softener salt.

I wandered back to the front, and after AC completed a lottery ticket sale, I remarked, "Boy, you must sell a lot of salt."

A bemused smile began to form on her face as Aunt Clarane chuckled, "No, I haven't sold any salt lately."

"Well, Uncle Pete must sell a lot, then." I countered.

"No, Peter doesn't sell much salt, either."

Auntie C nudged Sherry in the ribs with a knowing wink.

"Now, that red-headed Morton Salt vendor, SHE sells a lot of salt!"

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Picture taken fromwww.miniaturesplus.com/magnets.htm
This post is based on a quip by Andy Griffith in an episode of the classic TV show, "Matlock"

2 comments:

Katherine Hall said...

Cute story! Happy Anniversary by the way!!!

Philip Robinson said...

I like the salt story, but really wanted to congratulate you on the earlier blogs about That Hideous Strength and C S Lewis. Keep them coming!