Member-only story
BUSINESS
Apple vs. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company
You probably have no idea what I’m getting at
I grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts, a small town of 10,000 people when I was a boy in the early 1950s. Our center was a handful of stores and businesses, but among them was the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P).
While reminiscing recently about my childhood, I thought of that store. What I remember most is the old and narrow wooden floors that sometimes creaked when people heavier than I walked on them; one of my cousins said those floors were oiled with used motor oil from the small garage next door. I remember narrow shelves and an odor of something I cannot place today.
My older sister reminded me that the store was dimly lit. I also remembered that they gave out S&H Green Stamps (Google that if you are young).
My wife and I sometimes shopped there after we married in 1967. We didn’t buy much because they carried very few national brands; they carried mostly A&P products.
This is about all I can reliably remember. I don’t recall when that store closed down, but, curious to know more, I looked them up Wikipedia. I found that the corporation itself went out of business in 2015, but I think our Sharon store was gone before then.
