Wednesday, September 5, 2012

I Remember Gruning's

[This was written with the help of care-giver Barbara. I had found a Gruning's site and thought they were still operating. It turns out the last store closed in 1983, and I can't find the site with all the memories. But all the memories seemed to be from the '60's or 70's, so I thought there should be at least one from the 30's.]

I remember Gruning's as one of my favorite places to go when I was growing up. My seven best friends and I (We called ourselves the 'Eight Belles'.) stopped in Gruning's nearly every day after school for tuna fish sandwiches and hot fudge sundaes with vanilla ice cream. We would always share with another another 'belle', so our sandwich and sundae cost us 15¢. It's a wonder we weren't all as big as a house. In those days you could only buy ice cream in a drug store or an ice cream parlor. No one had freezers at home.

They also had wonderful home-made candy. The store was arranged with the candy on the left and the soda fountain counter on the right. The tables, where we always sat, were in the back. My father had evening meetings every Thursday at the South Mountain Savings & Loan, which I think was on the same block, and afterwards he would always get a chocolate ice cream soda with vanilla ice-cream for my mother.

The Gruning's had a son, Herman, in school. I don't know if he went into the business or not. [He did. He is 94]

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