Background: Originally published November 29, 2006.
CHRISTMAS MUSIC
I actually remember when the pop music duo Wham first debuted their song "Last Christmas." It hit the contemporary top 40 charts that year. Now the song is destined to forever be a holiday selection on local radio stations, along with Elmo & Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer."
Don't get me wrong. I like Christmas music. But it somehow loses its impact for me when the music is spread over six weeks or more. That's right. I was shocked to discover Eugene's KODZ-FM (otherwise known as Oldies 99.1) playing Christmas songs, while I was making my weekly trip up to Douglas County on Friday evening, November 17th.
Thus, I wasn't surprised when I heard their counterpart in Medford (Cool 103.5) also playing Christmas music during my return trip south on Sunday evening, November 19th.
I hate to sound like a Scrooge, but I remember the good old days. That's when radio stations commenced their non-stop Christmas music Christmas Eve around 6:00p.m., and ended the holiday songs 24 hours later on Christmas night. As the years went by, Christmas songs began hitting the airwaves days earlier, then weeks earlier.
The last I know, the day AFTER Thanksgiving was the official kick-off time when some radio stations began non-stop Christmas songs. This year, I've lost track. All I know is that I was still tracking my Thanksgiving ham on United Parcel Service's website when Christmas songs began playing on the radio this year.
Wham never had it so good.
GROCERY GOOD-BYES
I can't remember all of the grocery stores that placed newspaper advertisements back in the 1970s. But being as I was News-Review paperboy, I do remember the number of weekly advertisements that appeared in the paper.
Back then, only one store (Richard's Markets in Sutherlin and elsewhere ) began their weekly food sales advertisements on Tuesday. Wednesday was the big ad. day. Five different grocery stores had their circulars in Wednesday's newspaper. There were no Sunday grocery advertisements, probably because the News-Review didn't publish a Sunday edition back then.
Long before Albertson's, Fred Meyer, and Sherm's Thunderbird arrived in Roseburg, there was: Safeway (two locations); Drive-N-Save Market (Garden Valley Shopping Center and Winston); Gove's Market (where the UCC center is now located on Diamond Lake Boulevard); Dee's Market in Sutherlin; and the Thriftway/I.G.A. store on west Harvard avenue.
I miss the slogans of these "supermarkets" as they were called back then. Gove's weekly advertisement on Wednesday always had the slogan, "No ifs, ands, or buts about it..."in reference to having the lowest prices.
Looking back at the evolution of grocery stores in Roseburg, it is sad to see two longtime stores closing their doors at the same time in December. They include the only grocery store in the downtown area, Safeway, and the only store on the west of town, the former Thriftway store, formerly Michael's I.G.A.
Truth be known, my family never went to those stores. But I know people who did. When I was in high school, I visited a retired missionary from Brazil who now lived in downtown Roseburg. Rhiles Malott taught me Portuguese before I spent a year as an exchange student in Brazil. Mrs. Malott was an elderly woman who lived in the Kohlhagen apartment building. She walked down to the Safeway store to buy her groceries. It was the only place within walking distance to buy her food.
It's ironic the downtown Safeway is closing, when low-income elderly citizens make up a growing percentage of downtown Roseburg. With less competition in town, let's hope we don't see a rise in grocery prices at the stores remaining in business.
No comments:
Post a Comment