As last week, I can barely remember being a very young boy in the early to mid-1950s and going to town with Mom and/or Dad. And things have not changed too much since last week. I spoke then about a favorite place to visit with my Dad— the Barbershop, with Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Daniel.
But, I also really liked visiting the Pitts Lumber Company; Mr. Pitts was sort of like my Dad, mostly business and service but also a little time to “kid around” and show a “little kid” like Don the newest things in stock. I remember one time he had a “newfangled” paint scraper that was guaranteed to “cut your scraping time in half.” It was red and chrome and rather sharp with a wooden handle that was too big for me to handle. I don’t know if it worked or not, because Paul Themer said that the one he had brought along from the farm in Oklahoma was still “good enough for another season.”
Another memory from there is the time Grandpa Schroeder took me there so we could buy (maybe get for free) some lumber to build a small stand-alone cabinet for my outdoor toys—all four of them! Mr. Pitts had a sledge hammer in the corner of the counter area, and he bet that no one in the building could hold it with one arm (hand) and stick it and the arm straight out. All the men hanging around were probably in their 40s at the latest, and Grandpa was about 70—and he bet the other guys 25 cents (a fair amount of silver coinage then) that he could do it! Bet on! He walked over, held and wiggled it a little, turned it a little straighter, shook his head as if in fear of losing, and then grunted a little and stuck it straight out towards the men at the counter. “YES!” My Grandpa was my HERO!—and even more so when he gave me the quarter.
As I remember, there was usually a horse grazing outside next to the lumber storage area, and it would let little boys rub its neck. There was also a fairly good-sized “scrap stack” out back, and if you were a regular customer, you could pick pieces out for free. Besides the lumber for the cabinet, Grandpa and I took home enough small one-by-ones and cut-off edges to make two swords and even a play rifle. Grandpa did most of the cutting that day, but I got to drive a nail or two and rubbed the sandpaper around the edges of the cabinet to make it “snagless.” Later, I let the nextdoor neighbor girl borrow one of the swords—Big Mistake! She was about four or five years older than I and broke it when we had our big “sword fight!”
Oh, yes, the “Pitts House” was on the lot next to the lumber yard, which made it easy for Mr. Pitts to go to work each day, easy to help out a good customer who had forgotten a very important item and remembered after closing time, and easy for Mrs. Pitts to bring lunch over to the “yard” if business was brisk!
And I can’t close this recollection without mentioning that Mr. Pitts had two children, who were “brains”—Sharon and Roland—who sometimes played a little with children of customers. Years later, when I was a freshman at F. H. S., Roland was a senior and on the same basketball team as I was! We were Jackrabbits!
So, let’s take a look back at another JACKRABBIT ANNUAL (yearbook for you young guys and gals) and see what businesses advertised in 1950—1951 in the Forney Area, and especially in the downtown part! Probably, only businesses not printed last week will be included in this article.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.