Old School - Wicked Little Town #2 - Third Friday Post - July 20th

When I was a small boy I remember going to the neighborhood bakery with my mother every Saturday morning.

Walking in, the place was huge (to my young self at least) with large glass display counters on three sides, wooden racks behind the counters and an old fashioned number/ticket machine on a pedestal inside the door.

Most Saturdays, when we took a number, it might be, say #76, and on the wall behind the counter was a non-digital hand flipped counter that may have read - Now Serving #44.

Yes, there would be thirty plus people ahead of us.

The wait was actually my favorite part. I got to peruse the cases peeking around other customers legs and looking for what I would want to get as my cookie treat. That cookie was in addition to the usuals, 6 honey buns, a loaf of bread, bagels, a layer cake of some sort and a few danishes, brownies or turnovers. (Did I mention how I LOVED weekends!)

The wait was never long at all. This because there must have been 8 or 9 women behind the counter, most of them in their 50's or 60's, librarian glasses on chains, old fashioned salon-set hair styles, all in their pink outfits and white shoes, calling on numbers, taking orders, filling pink bakery boxes, making change.

Then other helpers running trays up to the front to replace the empty ones. The cases were stuffed full, the bread racks filled, the cookie counter piled with trays of cookies.  The counter ladies were super friendly and so sweet to me as a child.

And looking back on that bakery, here's the thing. There was zero pretentiousness. . . Zero foodie / fad diet influence. . . Zero artisanal anything.

A true, old school bakery.



Now, you never know at that age that things will change. Some for the better and some, not so much. In those days, maybe because of the lack of movement in old, generationally settled families, it seemed like every city had many such neighborhoods, each with their own stores and shops.

It seems now that every city I lived in has lost that. The old school shops, eateries, bakeries, bookstores, newsstands, grocery stores and delis replaced with a never ending carousel of whatever the flavor of the month is in the retail world or larger, one-stop stores that seem to be everywhere now.

So when we moved to our little town by the bay, I was thrilled to find a true to life, old school bakery that still did things the old fashioned way and all from scratch.

Unassuming in it's looks when I step out my door at 5:30am just a stone's throw north of here, I can smell the donuts frying and the bread baking! 

It's run by a couple in their sixties who do ALL the baking themselves. They used to have a full staff but finding good help in small towns can be a real headache so now they're only open 4 days a week and they start their work day at 10pm. Yes, you read that right. 10PM.

They open at 5:30am and they close between 1 and 3pm when they run out of things (which is nearly every day)

I usually get a danish for my morning coffee (and a few extra for the weekend if I don't feel like baking on their closed days) and a little something for the afternoon too, which can be a hard choice.

The case if nearly full right at opening and there are trays waiting for room as the day goes on.

They've been at it for over 30 years in this location. At times they've consider selling it and retiring but have never gone through with it. According to them, most people who inquire, don't have clue about the hours or work needed to make it all from scratch each day and they're not willing to sell it to someone who is going to come in and make it a par-baked, freezer-to-oven kind place.

And the best part? Ohhhh yes, the prices. A fresh baked fruit or cheese danish or almond bear claw the size of a salad plate? $1.50. A donut or apple fritter? 75 cents. A loaf of fresh baked and sliced English Muffin Bread? $1.99 A ginormous two-person cinnamon roll? $2.50

At least a dozen times each summer I overhear people from the city in there telling them, "You really need to raise your prices!"

No, they don't. That's old school.

And in the seven years we've been here, I've come to think, when this place goes, it will be about time to move on for me too.

 Seriously.  :)

The harbor is just a few blocks away. A great place to sit with a danish and coffee and watch the fishing boats roll in or out. 

We've got a few old school places like this. The general store, the old grocery store, the counter diner. Yet none of them have kept that feel quite like our little bakery. :)

Thanks for dropping by, as always, see you again soon!

nicolas

"She's Cold Blooded" - Wicked Little Town #1 - Third Friday Post - May 18th

Well, here we go, my new third Friday topic, Wicked Little Town is an inside peek at some of the little things I've noticed about living in a very small town of 800 ppl. All names are changed, of course, and some of the stories may be just a bit of a stretch. . . but then again, maybe not. :)  There's nothing Wicked about the town to us but it's definitely one of those places that the kids can't wait to get away from when they are out of school. :)

I hope you will enjoy these small tales!

"She's Cold Blooded"

We'd lived here barely 6 months when we decided to take our car to a mechanic as it seemed to be having trouble with stalling out at stops and red lights.

Our car is a 1987 Plymouth Horizon hatchback. I am pretty sure I told the story before or at least mentioned but we got Babs (named after the only former owner) from a friend of mine who I knew in Portland. It was his mother's car and it had been sitting in the parking garage of her apartment building for a year and a half. I was told it would not start but had an inkling it just needed a new battery after that long.

Babs (the car) was a true, "little old lady who only drove her to church" story, and had just 16,000 miles on her when we bought her for $300 dollars (blue book value) We put another $500 in on tires, battery and a complete tune-up before we moved.  The stalling had been an issue even then but we noticed it less because we drove so much less in the city.

So we asked around and got a recommendation for a mechanic to take her to. Directions in a small town are often given like this: "Go south on the highway and just before town take a left at the bank
(THE bank) then pull around behind the carwash and you'll see it. . .I don't think there's a sign or anything but the garage door will be open."

Perfect directions by the way. No google maps, no GPS. No highway exits. I love that.

So we pulled up, parked and went on in.

I kind of had an idea what to expect. See, I lived in a slightly larger small town about 12 years before and had the best mechanic ever there. He worked out of his own home and he actually helped me go after an auto repair shop in town who had done some faulty work which resulted in more repairs needing done at one point which is how I found the home mechanic. I was grateful and never went anywhere else again. Plus, one of the usual visitors to this guys house was another local who was quite certain the CIA and FBI were watching his every move. The mechanic would always look at me like he wanted to apologize but I shook my head, I did not mind at all. It was . . . entertaining to say the least.

Now, back to the new small town.

OK, imagine every small town mechanic/garage stereotype your mind can conjure. . . they're all probably at least partly right in this case.

This is a "garage" I was informed, not an auto repair shop. The couple ( I think they were a couple) were both in their 60's and as I looked around, I saw quite a lot you just wouldn't find in most auto repair places today. Benches full of misc tools scattered here and there. Tables with plenty of parts either being stripped or rebuilt. . . hard to know which. Oh, you can get a rebuilt this and that thru an auto-parts dealer but here, in the garage, the guy rebuilds things himself. On site. Goes out to the junk yard and finds what he needs or to the auto parts store and does it right there.

"Cheaper for you that way" he told me.

Look around the dimly lit garage with hanging old fashioned bare light bulbs. Racy calendar on the wall, spare parts in boxes on the shelf that look as old as Babs,  half eaten sandwich on a brown bag on the counter. od fashioned soda bottle on the counter (I meant to ask where that came from!)

Old rags, oil cans that look like they belong to the Tin Man, old fashioned air machine. The list goes on and on.  Ok, getting the picture? Add the smell of gasoline, oil, rubber, grease. . . yep, that's the garage.

We left Babs for a check up and mentioned the stalling problem.
"Sure thing, got it!" we were told.

Three days later we were called to come and pick her up.

When we went in the guy was a whole lot more friendly the second time around, I think because he kind of took a liking to Babs and saw that for an old car, she was kept in really good shape. He liked the story of how we got her. .. everyone in our small town does.

Anyway, that stalling issue? When we went back in the office to pay (cash only!) we were told there wasn't really anything more they could do. "That old girl's just cold blooded." the smoky-voiced lady told us, "You just have to let her warm up longer than today's cars."  adding in "She's a reaaaaal beauty though."

Forty one dollars for the check up and some belts. . . cool.

Small towns. . . Good people.

We went out and got in Babs and drove away and, true to form, she stalled at the first light we came to. Five years later, she would still be doing that regularly if not for my mother reminding me of her old Chevy that she had to ride double footed (a foot on the brake and one on the gas at the same time ) so she could  race/rev the engine slightly at stops. Works like a charm.

So yes, We still have Babs today. Now she has double that original mileage but she's still a great car. Dependable despite her little eccentricities that would probably drive most new car owners today crazy. She's vintage now, after all.  31 years old. And she carried us here, away from the city to this little town.

I've had old cars like Babs most of my adult life. One of the unexpected joys about an older car is  that, on any given day, I'll pull into a gas station, or the farm store, or the grocery store, or the library lot and someone stops you and says something like,  "Man, I drove a car just like that one from Seattle to San Diego when I was 19. . . I loved that car."

You can hear it in their voice. They mean it.

We love ours too.

That's Babs!