More of the Same

I've mentioned Woolworths here several times before. It’s one of those places from my misspent youth where I mis-spent much of my money. It was a fun place to shop all year round as a kid, but it was especially fun if you were Christmas shopping with your family on a cold winter’s night. Did I mention that every year we would go Christmas shopping and get to pick out a lovely corsage for Mom there? If I didn't mention it, I should have. It was always a big deal to me.

The only picture that I've managed to find of the exact same store is the one located here. As you can see, it was taken well after the store closed and everything was gone- including the lunch counter which used to be over on the left. Even the wood floors that I remember are gone in this photo- covered up by linoleum tiles. This was probably an attempt to modernize the place- which explains a lot.

It’s not a very flattering photo. It would have been much better to have taken the photo when the place was still in operation- cash registers on either side, back to back in the space between the front doors, the grimy gumball machines over on the right.

I had a dream quite a while ago that was probably triggered by this photo. In my dream, I was walking through the empty store and I came upon the stairs to the basement- stairs I never knew existed. I followed them down to the basement where I found cartons and cartons of unopened merchandise from my era- long since forgotten. In my dream, it was like one of those Scrooge McDuck cartoons where the inexplicable light from above was shining down on all the gold. But better than gold, all of the cartons appeared to be shipments of toys.

That's when I woke up.

Anyway, I've looked in vain to find some decent photos of the Woolworths I used to shop at, but for some odd reason the rest of the internet is not as fixated on this place as I seem to be. Other than the link above, pictures of my actual store seem to be few and far between.

Here’s one picture I came across of a Woolworths that looks as though it were built in the same era as mine, but there are some important differences. For one thing, the double doors are too close together.They should be spread further apart. For another thing, there is what appears to be an old lady standing by the doors to the left. She doesn't belong there. That’s not how I remember it. The sign though, looks identical.

Here’s another photo that, although poorer in quality, is much closer to how I remember my store. Other than the phone pole out front and the hooligans hanging around the doorway, I would say it’s a pretty close match. It has the big red letters up above with the rolled up and never used awning below them, and it has the double doors on either end, right where they’re supposed to be .

My Woolworths has been gone for close to forty years now (yikes!). A CVS took over the spot, and still sits there now- making a mockery of my past. It's yet another reason I don't go back and visit.

I'm pretty sure that if I did go back, and I could sneak into that CVS some night and blast through a few of the walls, I bet could eventually find that old staircase.